Archaeologists have found thousands of clay tokens across Mesopotamia - some may be up to 10,000 years old! 🏺 Different shapes likely represented different goods: cones possibly = grain, round discs possibly = livestock. These preceded writing by millennia.
Clay tokens predate writing by thousands of years in Mesopotamia
Site mentioned
📍 Tepe Gawra🌍 Show on the globe
Key facts
- Thousands of clay tokens found across Mesopotamia
- Earliest tokens may be as old as 11,000 years old
- At Tepe Gawra, tokens predate writing by several thousand years
- Different shaped tokens (spheres, discs, cones, cylinders) likely represented different goods
- Cones possibly represented grain, round discs possibly represented flocks of animals
- Tokens sometimes found enclosed in clay envelopes
- Tokens not following a consistent weight system
Sources
penn.museum
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