Ancient Sumeria. 3100-2900 BCE. Proto-Cuneiform clay tablet. 150g. Very rare. A very rare intact clay tablet with ancient early pictographic proto-cuneiform entries on 1 side. The inscriptions depict records kept of food products and quantities. These are depicted in pressed circles and various pictographic terms for food items such as fish, wheat etc. All are captured within sectional grids on the tablet likely representing respective quantities of associated products within divided segments. Proto-Cuneiform predates even much earlier than cuneiform, the oldest written system in the world originating and used widely across the Mesopotamian civilization. Unlike standard cuneiform, these Proto-Cuneiform system used a more pictographic system and simplistic inscriptions representing items without a specific grammatical system. It is from these pictographs that they eventually evolved into a more stylized and structured written system that would be standard cuneiform used for centuries after. Source: https://study.com/learn/lesson/cuneiform-writing-importance-symbols-history.html Unlike cuneiform tablets, Proto- Cuneiform tablets are significantly rarer. Given their age and rarity, limited specimens exists and mostly within museums and galleries in the world. Specimens of proto-cuneiform tablets can be referred to sources such as the Metropolitan and British Museums. Intact specimens are also rare given the delicate nature of these tablets. One of my favorite historical artifact as it represents the earliest written system in human history. Based on what I can decipher on my tablet, I can see a few pictographs of fish, a human, wheat and numerous quantitative figures (i.e. the circular indents). Most definitely a sort of ledger of sorts for an agricultural produce batch.
My pleasure.. I always thought that cuneiform in its standard form was the oldest. Only recently I realized and came across the knowledge that there was this even older proto-cuneiform system..
