Study: Cylinder Seals and Sealing Practices Stimulated Invention of Writing in Ancient South-West Asia

Administrative innovations in south-west Asia during the 4th millennium BCE, including the cylinder seals that were rolled on the earliest clay tablets, laid the foundations for proto-cuneiform script, one of the first writing systems. Seals were rich in iconography, but little research had focused on the potential influence of specific motifs on the development of the sign-based proto-cuneiform script. In a new study, published today in the journal Antiquity, scholars identified symbolic precursors to fundamental proto-cuneiform signs among seal motifs that describe the transportation of vessels and textiles, highlighting the synergy of early systems of clay-based communication.

The origins of writing in south-west Asia are often sought in the accounting systems that developed over the course of the 4th millennium BCE, which physically documented transactions using tokens, tags and bullae, numerical tablets and seals.

Proto-cuneiform, first attested on clay tablets at the city of Uruk in southern Iraq around 3350-3000 BCE, is a complex accounting system with hundreds of iconographic signs, many of which still defy interpretation.

Elaboration of tokens, long used throughout south-west Asia, may have both stimulated the development of proto-cuneiform and served as models for several signs, but token-to-sign comparisons, numerical notations aside, are rarely demonstrable and the origin of sign forms is likely to be diverse, emerging from the multimedia environment of visual expression.

“The conceptual leap from pre-writing symbolism to writing is a significant development in human cognitive technologies,” said University of Bologna’s Professor Silvia Ferrara.

“The invention of writing marks the transition between prehistory and history, and the findings of this study bridge this divide by illustrating how some late prehistoric images were incorporated into one of the earliest invented writing systems.”

“The close relationship between ancient sealing and the invention of writing in southwest Asia has long been recognised, but the relationship between specific seal images and sign shapes has hardly been explored,” she added.

“This was our starting question: did seal imagery contribute significantly to the invention of signs in the first writing in the region?”

To find an answer, Professor Ferrara and her colleagues compared the designs on the cylinders with proto-cuneiform signs, looking for correlations that might reveal direct relationships in both graphic form and meaning.

“We focused on seal imagery that originated before the invention of writing, while continuing to develop into the proto-literate period,” said University of Bologna researchers Kathryn Kelley and Mattia Cartolano.

“This approach allowed us to identify a series of designs related to the transport of textiles and pottery, which later evolved into corresponding proto-cuneiform signs.”

The discovery reveals a direct link between the cylinder seal system and the invention of writing, offering new perspectives for studying the evolution of symbolic and writing systems.

“Our findings demonstrate that the designs engraved on cylinder seals are directly connected to the development of proto-cuneiform in southern Iraq,” Professor Ferrara said.

“They also show how the meaning originally associated with these designs was integrated into a writing system.”

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Kathryn Kelley et al. Seals and signs: tracing the origins of writing in ancient South-west Asia. Antiquity, published online November 5, 2024; doi: 10.15184/aqy.2024.165