Protoliterate Tablet

Contextualizing Protoliterate Tablet through technical, historical, and anthropological analysis positions it as a prism of inferences. A holistic study of the multifaceted attributes of this artifact, i.e., its linguistics, era, intent, and content, sets in stone the existence of social hierarchy in ancient Sumer in the third millennium BCE and illuminates the principles of commodification, property, and wealth upon which such a system relies.  

Technical Analysis

Figure 1

Protoliterate Tablet

Note. ca. 3100-2900 BCE (Late Uruk Period), red stone, Current location: The Walters Art Museum, Origin: Sumer (southern Mesopotamia) 

Protoliterate Tablet is a red stone tablet inscribed with archaic Uruk, Sumerian proto-cuneiform writing. The tablet measures two ⅝ inches by two ⅝ inches in diameter and 7/8 inches in depth. The inscription documents the transfer of “one ‘bur’u,’ which is around 157 acres” (“Protoliterate tablet”, 2022). This tablet is a document typical of the late Uruk period in Sumerian society. “The majority of Uruk archaic texts are administrative documents…dealing with such matters as animal husbandry, grain distribution, land” (Daniels, 1996, p. 36). While a complete translation of the cuneiform is not provided by the Walters museum, reference has led to deciphering the following signs (Daniels, 1996): 

Figure 2

Protoliterate Tablet Translation

The discernible presence of the signs dug, du, and sar is reiterated by transcriptions of the tablet in the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (“OIP”, 2001). These symbols are common to documents of this era and origin, compared to Figure 3, which has dug, du, and se. Sar is a variation of se created by combining pictographs to convey stalks of grain represented as Se being planted equaling Sar, which means ‘to plant’. “To avoid multiplying shapes, new signs were created by combining two or three signs” (Daniels, 2016, p. 34). The recurring agricultural themes indicate a prioritization of this industry in such written accounts.   

Figure 3

Proto-Cuneiform tablet with seal impressions: administrative account of barley distribution with cylinder seal impression of a male figure, hunting dogs, and boars

Note. ca. 3100–2900 BCE, clay, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 

Origin: Mesopotamia, probably from Uruk

Annotated Translation by Bounge

Protoliterate Tablet is an archaeological testament to ancient Sumerian cuneiform, considered “The world’s earliest known writing system” (Bentley et. al., 2016, p.16). More specifically, this provides a window into proto-cuneiform, which is the preliminary form of this incipient writing system. Originating in Sumer and possessing distinct features that make it unique in the evolution of this particular script, proto-cuneiform is considered to date from 3500-2900 BCE and consists of distinctive logographic syllabary of about 800 signs, representing sounds that are synonymous with words derivative of the mostly monosyllabic Sumerian language combined with numerical cuneiform, “about 60 symbols which represent numbers” (Hirst, 2019), to denote the quantity of the things represented in the pictographic symbols (Daniels, 2016); it is limited to certain subjects as opposed to the post-archaic descendent adaptations which gradually forewent pictorial representation and were altered in this disembarkment to encompass a wider variety of ideas in a more versatile system. “By 3000-2900 BCE, they had further simplified the pictographic signs by reducing them to a group of wedge-shaped (cuneiform) signs” (Kleiner, 2005, p. 32). Though dated 3100-2900 BCE, this tablet is clearly of the protoliterate variety as it implements logograms of a variation eliminated after this stage of embryonic script. In this context, it could be one of the last renditions made in the protoliterate technique.  

The entirety of excavated proto-cuneiform is limited in content consisting of either administrative, transactional documents or lexical lists (Bentley et. al., 2016; Damerow, 2006; Daniels, 1996; Kleiner, 2005). Summarized by Damerow (2006):

Most of them are bookkeeping documents, representing activities of economic administration rather than stories, arguments or descriptions. The only texts that do not reflect administrative activities are those that are generally classified as school texts, primarily lexical lists. (p. 4)

While the majority of records fall into the categories of economic practices, lexical lists, which were “documents listing thousands of words, mostly thematically organized: animals, cities, fish, food items, professions, metals, plants, vessels, garments, and wood objects” (Maiocchi, 2019, p. 406) are debated as serving either as references for disseminating the relevant material for written form in scribal communities in the second millennium BCE and later, or “...for the duration of the 3rd millennium BCE… primarily tools of authority, power, and leadership, not teaching within scribal communities” (Brown, 2016). Regardless, lexical lists make up only 15% of protoliterate artifacts (Daniels, 1996, p. 36), and in the third millennium BCE, scribal education did not exist outside of elite classes and executive purposes (Thompson, 2015).

Overall, it can be assumed that the invention of cuneiform sometime around the end of the fourth millennium was at once the necessary and sufficient condition for the emergence of a literate bureaucracy; and the scribal class, in turn, represented a logical response to the need for efficient record-keeping within ever-increasingly elaborate systems of administrative control. (Lucas, 1979, p. 306)

It is based on this premise that most scholars concur that proto-cuneiform was initially developed directly as a practical extension of the Sumerian infrastructures of trade, commerce, and agricultural economy that dominated the shape of this early complex society (Bentley et. al., 2016; Damerow, 2006; Daniels, 1996; Maiocchi, 2019). “On the basis of this evidence, there is little doubt that writing in Mesopotamia emerged in response to practical needs—namely, to keep track of the goods produced and moved within the early state” (Maiocchi, 2019, p. 406). In that sense, proto-cuneiform was essentially created as a function of governmental accounting. This lens of practical dissection lays bare that literacy was exclusive to administrative enterprise in the protoliterate era. 

Social Implications

This artifact provides a basis for which to infer the correlation between Sumerian proto-literacy and an environment of hierarchical social organization grounded in commodifying land. “So closely tied were land and people in Sumer that social classes can almost be inferred from the archives of land use” (Flannery, 2012, p. 478). Protoliterate Tablet is this type of archival testimony. The apparent need for systematic documentation of property encapsulated by this piece indicates the importance of land ownership and serves as a portal through which to journey to the heart of this logic. 

“The Sumerians were the people who transformed the vast, flat lower valley between the Tigris and Euphrates into the Fertile Crescent of the ancient world” (Kleiner, 2005, p. 32). The significance of land in Sumer is a result of the significance of agriculture; the significance of agriculture is due to a complex society that occurred as a direct result of its development (Bentley et. al., 2016; Thompson, 2015) and the adoption of practices that reinforce possession of any kind is ultimately thanks to the concept of wealth, synonymous with ownership, which emerged as a facet of human experience synchronous with the emergence of complex agricultural societies because wealth equates to the “abundance of valuable material possessions or resources” (“wealth”, 2023) which became possible for the first time due to the domino effects of agriculture which included settlement, surplus, and specialized skills (Bentley et. al., 2016; Kleiner, 2005; Thompson, 2015). An acknowledgment of wealth as a valuable component possessing the power to define the quality of one’s existence and the nature of one’s identity in the framework of social hierarchy necessitates methods to obtain, maintain, and protect it. Therefore, evidence that measures were employed to do so adds to the substantiation of the inferred existence of the Sumerian hierarchy. Thompson (2015) explains:

A settled lifestyle means that stuff can be stored. With the multiplication of stuff, beyond what an individual can eat, wear or carry around (both of non-perishable agricultural produce and manufactured objects of use or decoration) social differentiation inevitably follows…Moreover, accumulated stuff has to be protected from other covetous fingers and that too has social implications. (p. 32)

Prior to the formation of these societies, natural resources, and skills were not commodified in nomadic paleolithic communities because they were an integrated element of the collective endeavor of pure survival (Bentley et. al., 2016; Thompson, 2015). “The Sumerians may have been the first people on earth to privatize land” (Flannery, 2012, p. 475). Land became a commodity when it became the reliable determinant for cultivable abundance as an irreplaceable factor in the operation of every lucrative industry where profitability was determined by material gain, particularly in comparisons, as opposed to determinable success beginning and ending at the ability to survive and adapt to what the earth provided in motion en masse. 

“Property rules govern access and control over things of value, and consequently undergird social inequality” (Brudner, 1997, as cited in Carruthers, 2004, p. 31). In Sumer, based on the administrative existence of the Protoliterate Tablet and its embodiment of land ownership, it can be deduced that there was a procedural practice of procuring land and that this was a reflection of the establishment of the concepts of valuing ownership, valuing land, and occupying a social climate wherein these two things converge in the form of bureaucratic protocol. A social dynamic wherein interest in this privatization exists conveys stratification based on possession, which implies a hierarchical form of social organization because owning would not be valued if it were not indicative of relative benefit, which it could only be if determined by comparison to devaluing lack of ownership. “Owners of productive assets can prevent nonowners from using them, and thereby shape nonowners’ life-chances” (Carruthers, 2004, p. 23). If land were not commodified or privatized in Sumer, a land transfer such as this would not be novel enough to require an account rendered in such an exclusive, administrative form. 

Conclusions

In deconstructing this artifact, it has been reduced to a mere indication of ownership as a mechanism in social stratification. While this tablet superficially represents the craft of writing, the intent of writing is diminished to a practical extension of systems of administrative function that depend on possession, where possession is paramount to power because if these were not conjoined, there would be no logic for the creation of this object. In stripping this relic down to these bare bones of impetus, it moreover becomes a paradigm for understanding the pervasive societal construct of property equating to wealth with wealth seen as synonymous with worth. In making this observation, such an object and its implications can be seen as microcosmically comparable to the principles of modern modus operandis correlating wealth, land ownership, and the institution of policy that dictates and perpetuates it as a stratified network. As expressed in this research report from the International Land Coalition:

Land inequality is fundamentally related to political inequality, particularly in societies where accumulation of land conveys political power. This feeds elite control and increases income, wealth, and asset inequalities. When the quality of institutions is low, policies that support the powerful tend to find favour while policies that benefit the poor, the landless, smallholders, indigenous peoples, women, and family farmers do not. Also, highly concentrated land ownership or control can subvert political processes and thwart efforts at fairer redistribution. In this way, land inequality ultimately weakens democracy. (Anseeuw, 2020) 

In a way, it, therefore, does not merely represent the invention of writing but reflects the invention of privatizing land ownership as a facilitator of hierarchical social order that is reinforced by documentation. Therefore, the innovation of this artifact is not only relevant to history in its heralding of a new communicative medium that would begin a tradition of writing in the form of an impartable system but also relevant in the sense that it signifies the inception of this medium as intended to serve a hierarchical framework. In the words of Claude Levi-Strauss, “the primary function of written communication is to facilitate slavery” (1955/1976, pp. 391-393).

To this day, literacy is a craft that has the capacity to alter a human being's relationship with society. In Sumer, literacy circulated only amongst the elite, “Literacy in those eras … was a craft profession, intended at that time to serve the purposes of elites” (Thompson, 2015, p. 62). Today, it arguably occupies the same sphere because it is accessible and ascertainable through schooling, as it was in Sumer, and whether or not someone is involved in schooling or has access to a method for which to learn to read or write, is highly reliant on opportunity determined by social environment regarding things like class and wealth. “Research has identified a strong relationship between childhood literacy and SES” (Chaney, 2014, as cited in Alfred & Chlup, 2009; Baxley & Boston, 2009; Davis-Kean, 2005; St. Pierre et. al., 2005). Chaney elaborates, “In particular, children of more affluent, better-educated, and metropolitan parents progressed better in schools, attained higher levels of education” (2014, p. 32).

At the least, writing has maintained the tradition of keeping track of ownership. A property document today in 2023 has similar implications as this one from 3100-2900 BCE because today, it would undoubtedly serve as an attestation to the still stratified existence of land ownership and the limited purpose of this kind of written documentation as inherently tethered to this stratification. “Like stocks, income and wealth in general, land ownership is tightly concentrated among the upper class” (Ingraham, 2017). 

References

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Bentley, Ziegler, Streets-Salter (2016). Traditions and Encounters: A Brief History: Volume 1: To 1500 (Ed.4), 107. McGraw-Hill Education.

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Chaney, C. (2014). Bridging the Gap: Promoting Intergenerational Family Literacy among Low-Income, African American Families. The Journal of Negro Education, 83(1), 29–48. https://doi.org/10.7709/jnegroeducation.83.1.0029

Damerow, K. (2006). The Origins of Writing as a Problem of Historical Epistemology. Cuneiform Digital Library Journal. http://cdli.ucla.edu/pubs/cdlj/2006/cdlj2006_001.html 

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Ingraham, C. (2017). American Land Barons: 100 Wealthy Families Now Own Nearly as Much Land as That of New England. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/12/21/american-land-barons-100-wealthy-families-now-own-nearly-as-much-land-as-that-of-new-england/

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Maiocchi, M. (2019). Writing in Early Mesopotamia: The Historical Interplay of Technology, Cognition, and Environment. In A. C. Love & W. C. Wimsatt (Eds.), Beyond the Meme: Development and Structure in Cultural Evolution (pp. 395–424). University of Minnesota Press. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/j.ctvnp0krm.13 

Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Wealth. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved November 24, 2023, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wealth https://www.worldhistory.org/article/900/cuneiform-lexical-lists/

OIP 104, 002 artifact entry (No. P005987). (2001, December 4). Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (CDLI). https://cdli.ucla.edu/P005987

Protoliterate tablet: The Walters Art Museum. Online Collection of the Walters Art Museum. (2022, August 1). https://art.thewalters.org/detail/11639/protoliterate-tablet/ 

Proto-Cuneiform tablet with seal impressions: administrative account of barley distribution with cylinder seal impression of a male figure, hunting dogs, and boars: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Online Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. (2010). https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/329081

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