Beginnings of the writing in Mésopotamie

The conditions and the mechanisms which governed the appearance of the writing at the end of the thousand-year-old IVe front J. - C. in Mésopotamie are generally held for asset: before becoming a tool with the service of the Language, the writing would have been a simple system of recording, a kind of memory assistance to the use of some scribe S whose only concern was to preserve the trace of accounting transactions increasingly more and more complexes, inherent in the management of the first large urban centres.

For a few years such an approach has had to however be moderate even corrected. Grace, with the recent publication of the corpus of the antiquated documents left sands of about fifteen sites the Mésopotamie antique and its vicinity, it is not possible any more, indeed, to accept the idea of a slip of a writing of things towards a writing of words . Such as we seize it at its beginnings, the writing appears already organized on principles which, in so far as we include/understand them, hardly evolved/moved during the following millenia. Well far from limiting itself to a primitive system associating with the things with numbers, it reveals, as of its first traces, the narrowness of its relationship with the language and its implications cognitive S in a vast movement of thought of the world in which it includes/understands itself like an object.

However, our comprehension of the genesis of the system is still far from being acquired. To date, the history of the beginnings of the writing in Mésopotamie is still written in dotted lines and the white are still far from being filled. Conscious of these difficulties, by questioning them in their archaeological context and historical, we will thus seek to present what the oldest written documents teach us we have.

Time and space

The first problem raised by with the historian the corpus few 5.500 antiquated shelves found with Uruk, Suse, Djemdet Nasr, Kish or Ur, is before all that of its dating. In a general way, if paleography makes it possible to propose a relative chronology of it, there remains however difficult to attach this one to the absolute chronology. This difficulty is due primarily to stratigraphic ambiguities. The majority of the discovered documents with Uruk, come indeed from archaeological debris having been used as fill during construction of certain buildings of the Eanna what thus makes them difficult to date. Moreover, as we reveal it the reports/ratios of excavations, the identification of the archaeological level with which these documents are associated was precisely conditioned by the presence of the shelves themselves. What, in a tautological way, amounts saying that having been useful chronological markers, the shelves were dated from themselves! Actually, only seven of them were discovered on their ground of origin. All come from the “red temple” that the archeologists hesitate from the IVa level or IVb of Eanna. It is thus understood that in all honesty, without additional detail, any attempt at dating starting from the site of Uruk thus remains not exploitable. By chance, the site of excavations of the acropolis of Suse offers a very different situation to us and makes it possible to circumvent the difficulties. This site located in the Khuzistan Iran IEN offers, indeed, a chronology without hiatus which it is possible to hang up again with that of Uruk and by this skew, to consider the appearance of the first documents written shortly after medium of or more precisely in a temporal fork oscillating between 3400 and 3200 front J. - C.

The interpretation of the first documents

To include/understand for which reasons of such documents made their appearance at this time precise of the history poses before all things the problem of their interpretation. Unfortunately, their seniority as their originality seemed to relegate in the field of illusory or hypothetical the any attempt at deciphering. By chance, a certain number of these texts presented similarities with certain more recent shelves, discovered on the site of Such Fāra, old the Shuruppak. These last, completely understandable, constituted long lists of signs, gathering in manner set of themes, the names of cities, fish, birds, vases or civils servant. Being based then on the correspondences existing between these more recent documents and the shelves antiquated, it then became possible to identify a great number of signs and by apprehending there the contents of the remainder of the corpus. Consequently, three great types of documents could be identified: the lexical Lists from which we come to speak, of the documents in countable matter or Gestion “school” naire and some shelves

Countable documentation constitutes, by far, the most important mass of these antiquated texts. In rather general manner, one milked there operations managers concerning of the cereal products, the dairy products, the inventories of herds or personnel and even of estimated calculations on the outputs of the fields and the livestock. If the identification of the various actors of these operations remains difficult, committed volumes reveal that they emanate from important official structures. In testifies the shelf MSVO 3,64 pertaining to a batch coming from a great distribution center of cereal products, directed by an administrator whose name is conventionally read KU.ŠIM, where it is question of the distribution of batches of cereal with four civils servant: one of 7.776 liters, another of 1.176 liters a third of 1.008 and the last of 4.752 liters. The lexical lists of which it was question higher, constitute, on their side, a whole of approximately 650 shelves forming the duplicates of 14 different lists. They count, while implying it in a vast cognitive movement, the universe of the texts in economic matter by organizing it according to a given order governed by hierarchical or typological considerations, while probably offering to the various actors of the writing a reference material within which they draw signs according to their needs.

If one excludes the “school” texts which testify to the existence of a formative authority of the scribe S, it is thus a documentation mainly related to concerns managers or economic which makes its appearance during the Period of Uruk Récent. Consequently, the question of socio-economic specificities of this moment of the history mésopotamienne arises which conditioned making of this new tool which was the writing.

Conditions of the genesis of the system

Bubble with calculi with the shelf

Used since the end of the culture of Halaf, around first half of, for the sealing of the vases, the bundles even of the parts locking up of the goods, the small seals with the shapes evoking that of a button equipped with a face punt decorated with a reason engraved into negative make place, towards the end of, with small cylinders, comprising on their surface of revolution decorations incised to the contents symbolic system. The reason of this replacement is probably explained by the possibility of this new support to develop a more elaborate image and by delivering there a message more detailed while continuing to guarantee the integrity of contents.

At the same period, small traditionally called clay spheres inside bubbles appear whose one locked up objects with the varied forms: sticks, balls, discs, small cones or large perforated cones whose similarities are not without evoking certain signs of writing used later to transcribe numeral values. Their analogy with the stones which were used with the training of calculation being worth name to them as calculi.

The surface of these bubbles is occupied by unfoldings of Sceaux-cylindres while notches, obtained by application of a Calame or perhaps by impression of a calculus, announce the contents of the envelope outside. If there always does not exist of strict correspondences between the printed forms and those of the calculi contained in the bubble, there exists nevertheless in all the cases a correspondence of number.

The use of these objects remains relatively vague. Of aucuns see a kind of form accompanying there a transaction. The Seal X guaranteeing the integrity of the recording while the marks would indicate the quantities of goods engaged in the operation. All lets think that once the broken clay envelope, it was enough, to make sure of the conformity of the transaction, to confront the quantities and the nature of the goods with the calculi locked up in the bubble and the marks printed on its surface. However, probably perceived like redundant, this double recording was simplified by making the economy of the calculi. Consequently, it is thinkable that the central vacuum of the sphere having lost its raison d'être, the bubbles were flattened to form small bearings at the origin of the first shelves. Besides the oldest shelves of Suse, pertaining to level 18 of the survey of the Acropolis, appear in two distinct forms, one oblong and the other round, direct imitations of the two shapes of clay envelopes also known on the site.

If one admits the passage of the bubble to the shelf, that of which seems to testify the Stratigraphie to Suse, it is advisable to note that the system of recording is done as for him more complex. So following the example bubbles, certain shelves continue to associate a seal and numeral marks, others on the other hand, associate from now on these same marks with signs evoking, probably in a more or less figurative way (Pictogramme S), the nature of the products implied in the operation. The coexistence of these two types of shelves remains difficult to include/understand. It is possible as it the presence of several different signs suggests on the same “pictographic” shelf that these last brought into play several types of products where the “numerical” shelves recorded only one goods.

The nature of the signs

This stage, it is trying to consider that while returning to a reality, itself in relation to a word of the Langue, each sign graphic was then naturally perceived as the visible expression of the globality of a linguistic Meaning is in other words, than this system was only one simple writing of words, able, at most, to return the segments of a speech in relation to any manager activity. In fact, many details prove, quite to the contrary, that as of its beginnings the system is capable of a phonic analysis. The example of the sign GI is from this completely revealing point of view. Indeed, as of its older certificates, meaning it of this sign representing a “reed” is used on the principle of the rebus to make a term homophonous: GI meaning in Sumérien “receipt”. Moreover, like showed it J. - J. Glassner, some signs show that an analysis in unit phonological is also concerned in the system. Thus, the sign MEN, indicating a kind of crown, is composed of two signs: GA₂ and EN which one can think that the last constitutes a phonic indication specifying the reading of the sign. In the same way, the sign DUB locked up in the sign GA₂ points out one of the phonological segments of this compound which must be read ŠADUBA.

As it is seen it, so right from the start, phonic dimension constitutes doubtless one of the characteristics of the system, it does not remain about it less, that to date not enough elements makes it possible to think the wide one of its field of application. If we discover it, with many unknown factors, in the Onomastique or the Toponymie, one should not lose sight of the fact that at this stage, the faithful transcription of the language is not from the point of view of “the writing”. Only, indeed, into account only the basic elements have reasons to be taken making it possible to apprehend the various methods of the operations like their nature, their moment, their duration, their place as well as the people, the things and the quantities implied. Besides the place of the Oralité is let still feel in the system since the reader, to include/understand the exact content of the message, must know about his significance.

The development of the system

So from a paleographic point of view antiquated documentation reveals stages in the evolution of the writing, the principles which governed its genesis however remain difficult to appreciate. The strongly stereotyped character of the oldest signs thus encouraged some to suppose the existence of a precursory system Symbolique. For D. Schmandt-Besserat such a system can be identified in small tokens with the various forms whose one knew the existence in all the the Middle East since the Neolithic . If this theory is still a broad success in the scientific community, it presents nevertheless good numbers of weaknesses. If it is undeniable, indeed, that similarities of forms exist between some antiquated and unquestionable signs of these tokens, force is to note that their resemblances remain often very vague and almost always impossible to evaluate on objective criteria. Moreover, the majority of these objects generally found except archaeological context, constitute a heteroclite corpus as well from the space point of view as temporal whose some elements are even posterior several millenia with the birth of the writing! In fact, in the absence of more coherences, any will to recognize precursory symbols there thus remains fragile and largely suspect. At most it is possible to advance perhaps that the two systems share common sources and that they possibly grew rich mutually during the centuries.

To date, to tell the truth, our knowledge of the genesis of the signs is only brought back to apprehend some graphic conventions even some processes of creation. One discovers thus that the head of a mammal always returns to the entire animal whereas part of its body anything else designates only the member or the body in question. The signs AB₂ or ŠAG₂ thus respectively return meant “cow” and of “pig” while UR₂ and GEŠTU returns simply to those of “cuisseau” and of “ears”. Moreover, as the signs SIG testify some indicating the “evening” and U₄ indicating the “morning”, the drawing out of mirror of a sign can be used to return its antonym.

Though in an obscurer way, the signs GIR₃ and DU testify on their side of the existence of a true theoretical design of the system. Thus, without we being able to reach the subjacent logic which is in work in these associations, the sign GIR₃ representing a head of ass is curiously used to write the word “foot” whereas the sign DU drawing a “foot indeed” is never used for to indicate this one.

During 2nd and of the thousand-year-old 1st, in long spelling-books, the well-read men Babylonian S of the time, using of a made terminology of a Pidgin of Sumérien and Akkadien, have perhaps also the echo of older processes having also governed the development of the system. Among most representative let us mention:

the gunû “hatched”, which consists in hatching a sign or one of its parts of a certain number of features in order to underline an aspect on which one wants to insist;
the thin “inclined”, which consists in inclining a part even totality of a sign;
the “unfinished” nutilû , where a sign is presented as the not completed shape of a sign with which it is compared;
the “double” minabi , which consists in doubling a sign;

With these processes, it is also advisable to add that of the composition, consisting in juxtaposing simple signs to form new, such GU₄ composed of the signs SAG and GAR,

Or, that of the inscription where a sign is inserted within an other, as SUG whose matrix LAGAB contains the sign A.

The language

As we saw, numbers of indices phonic such as the sign GI, representing a “reed”, used to return the homophon GI, meaning “receipt” in Sumérien, encourage to think that this language hides behind antiquated documentation. But is it legitimates to formulate such a conclusion, considering the rare examples we have? It is true that other arguments come to support this thesis. As suggested it A. Falkenstein, if it is admitted on the one hand that the order of succession of the signs does not follow yet obligatorily that of the spoken sequence and on the other hand that the sign E₂ is interchangeable with LIL₂, it is then reasonable to propose that a sequence such as E₂-EN-TI attested in a late document of the Uruk Récent can be read EN.LIL₂.TI and correspond, by there, with a meaning Anthroponyme sumérien: “(the god can) Enlil (to give) life” or “that (the god) Enlil vivifies”. Unfortunately, here still, the example remains about insulated.

Conclusion

Thus, if it arises, of the inventory of fixtures which has just been drawn up, that the writing under a long process whose ramifications sometimes enracinent very high in the Neolithic , paradoxically, it falls does not remain about it less one specific invention of its time. The character strongly standardized and standardized system as well as the existence of a theoretical dimension having governed its genesis, strongly pleads in the favor of an invention developped at the point by a small number of individuals on a relatively short amount of time.

If it is accepted that to its beginnings the system presents a phonic character, it is not possible any more, then, to recognize a memory assistance simply there but well a true writing and that even, if the order of the signs makes only imperfectly the chain linguistic of the words or notes only sporadically the mark grammatical.

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