Back Ground: What the earliest writings of human beings looked like.........?

In my journey towards the worlds oldest books, a keen interest aroused to find about the earliest writings of human beings. I have come across that as early as palaeolithic era or the stone age (40,000 -10,000 BC) hunters lived in caves began to draw pictures of bisons, horses or hunting scenes using powdered charcoal combining with animal fats, blood, urine and cave water to help the paint to stick to the rock. The reason why these cave paintings were drawn was still not clear but archaeologists believe that they could be drawn to decorative purposes or for their rituals. However these rock paintings do not represent or link with the language or writing of human beings until late as 8000 BCE Mesopotamians who lived in Mesopotamia
( today southern Iraq) used small tokens for the first time in the world history to record information such as number of cattle or sheep or agricultural goods they belong.

Where was Mesopotamia, Who were Mesopotamians ???...

Mesopotamia was an ancient region that existed primarily in what is now Iraq, and is recognized for its role in the development of the first literate societies. Though its borders were loosely defined, central Mesopotamia lay between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, with outward borders extending into regions now known as Syria and Turkey. 

Mesopotamians believed in a pantheon of gods and constructed large pyramid-like structures called ziggurats as worship sites. They enjoyed music and dancing and are often depicted playing a stringed wooden instrument called an Oud. Wrestling and boxing were popular sports among the ancients, commonly depicted in Mesopotamian art.

Map of Ancient Mesopotamia (above)
Image taken from http://www.bible-history.com/maps/maps/ancient_mesopotamia1.gif

Reconstructed Ziggurat at Ur at Iraq (above)
Picture taken from: ferrelljenkins.wordpress.com

Clay Tokens

Clay tokens are basically three dimension geometric shapes made out of clay. They are of two types, particularly plain and complex. Plain clay tokens are the oldest and widely used from 8000 BCE in all parts of ancient Mesopotamia. Plain Clay tokens were made of clay shaped in to simple geometric shapes like spears, cones and cylinders and they were widely used to record agricultural goods like buckets of grains or cereals, heads of cows, sheep or goats, bars of metal etc. The life spans of these plain tokens were higher comparing to the complex ones.


The complex tokens were found much later in the Mesopotamian civilisation around 4000 BCE and used to record manufactured goods. They had some kind of symbols marked on them basically few lines or other shapes. The first examples of complex tokens were found in the temple of Inanna a Sumerian goddess for love and fertility in the city of Uruk, used to record the goods manufactured for the temple.

A need arose to adapt a method to keep these clay tokens in one place safely. A clay container (which was a clay ball) was used to insert clay tokens and sealed it.  Once they were sealed in it was not easy to see what lies in the container without breaking it. To overcome this problem they placed the symbol of the clay token on the container or the clay ball according to the number of tokens in the ball.

Clay tokens with round clay envilope( above)
Image courtesy and Location: http://www.utexas.edu/features/archive/2003/graphics/vase3.jpg
  

Clay envilopes with clay tokens inside (above)
Image courtesy and location: http://designblog.nzeldes.com/2008/07/





Readings.....

1. Lawrence K Lo, Sumerian, viewed 07/09/2010,< http://www.ancientscripts.com/sumerian.html>

2. Suite101.com Media Inc., 2009, Mesopotamia - The Birth of Writing: Ancient Sumerians Invented Cuneiform, the First Language (Shri Desai) , viewed 02.09.2010,< http://www.suite101.com/content/mesopotamia-the-birth-of-writing-a154906 >

3. Conjecture Corporation, 2010, What Are the Clay Tablets of Mesopotamia?  (Written by R. Kayne, Edited by L. S. Wynn), viewed 07.09.2010  < http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-the-clay-tablets-of-mesopotamia.htm >

4. Suite101.com Media Inc, 2009, Clay Tablets as Books: The First Books Known to History

 (Written by Nichole Silvester ), viewed 07.09.2010 < http://www.suite101.com/content/clay-tablets-can-be-books-too-a155685>

5. L.C.Geerts The Netherlands, 2007, Clay Tablets from Sumer, Babylon and Assyria, viewed 07.09.2010  
< http://www.earth-history.com/Sumer/Clay-tablets.htm>

6. Cave Painting, encyclopeadia of irish and world art, 2010, <  http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=1448258090932871134&postID=7153927501788079497 >