از توكن تا نوشتار احجام سفالين ، بدوي ترين فرم نوشتار

From Tokens to Alphabet; Clay Objects, Primitive Forms of Writing

The idea of using visual symbols as a medium for data reservation and concept transmission is one of the most important inventions of the humans. This invention puts the image forth as a medium that transforms data between minds. As time went by, visual structure of these mediums developed, transformed and finally resulted in alphabet as abstract form that could express various words and meanings. What we know as the writing includes a series of visual symbols that each one of them in isolation as well as in combination transmits specific concept. This article concerns one of the greatest visual transformations unintentionally made by human at the beginning of fourth millennium BC.: three-dimensional symbols (Tokens) altered to two-dimensional writing symbols. The study of tokens may give an insight into several aspects of accounting before the invention of writing and, in particular, what information was kept. Archaeology can interpret the technological innovations of the token system, such as the creation of new shapes and envelopes. But the cognitive dynamics that led writing to create logograms, numerals, standard units of measure and phonograms are far beyond the scope of traditional archaeology. These remarkable leaps in abstraction can be identified and dated to the early fourth millennium BC. The early logograms, i.e. signs in the form of tokens standing for a unit of merchandise, represented a second degree of abstraction. The signs impressed or traced with a stylus, abstracted tokens, which were themselves abstracting actual goods. A circular marking replaced the round token, which means that the written signs kept the outline of the counters and their symbolic significance but did away with their volume. Intangible written signs replaced the awkward piles of three-dimensional tokens. Written numerals abstracted the common denominator between sets such as three baskets of grain and three jars of oil. As a result, "three" became a concept that could be expressed by a sign. The invention of abstract numerals had extraordinary consequences. First, it put to an end dealing with goods in one-to-one correspondence. Second, numeral signs made obsolete the use of different counters or numerations (different number words) to count different products. Finally, with the abstraction of numbers counting had no limit. About 3000 BC. the abstraction of numbers (how many) was followed by that of quantity (how much.) Thereafter writing abstracted each of the concepts involved in for instance "one" "sila" of "oil," requiring a sequence of 3 signs for notation. Instead, a century earlier, in 3100 BC, two signs were sufficient to record a similar amount, namely, "one" "jar of oil," and in 3500BC, a single token fused the three concepts together "one jar of oil." Finally, the invention of phonograms, that abstracted the sounds of speech, removed writing from the concrete world of real goods. The signs no longer referred to concrete objects, but instead to the sound of a word. This was the beginning of a phonetic script when , by emulating speech, writing was no longer on fined to the recording of goods.