Token

Collection number	製063-0961
Provenance	Mesopotamia
Period	Uruk period
Date	ca. 3500 BCE
Material	Clay
Dimension	L. 2.8 cm
Comment	This small clay object is called "token", one of the devices to record things before the invention of writing system in the Near East. Their various shapes and number are considered to represent kinds and quantity of goods. The tokens were often found in clay balls (envelopes) from archaeological sites of fourth millennium BC. They are considered to have been used as invoice in the interregional trading. When they received the goods imported from other region, they might have checked the tokens in clay envelope with the actual goods. The shapes and decorations of the tokens were to be depicted as pictographs on the clay tablets around 3000BC. This is the origin of the writing in Mesopotamia. Then the earlier pictographs were revised into combinations of straight lines, namely cuneiform around 2500 BC. It is known that this egg-shaped token with incised lines means "one bottle of oil", because it is revealed that the cuneiform letter means "oil" was developed from the pictograph which is quite similar with this token.
Classification	clay object
Keywords	White, Orange Tiny Western Asia, Iraq, Mesopotamia Chalcolithic Period, Late Chalcolithic Period, Uruk Culture Clay, Terracotta Document, Token Object
資料ID	1195