Glossary of linguistic terms pdf

Download Free PDF. Sarah Smyth. A short summary of this paper. Download Download PDF. Translate PDF. A word that describes a noun, e. A word or phrase that describes an action, e. Also called Imperatives. The basic form of the verb as used in lists, dictionaries etc. It is independent of the grammar of the rest of the sentence, i. Glossary-of Terms of English Phonetics- 1st Year. Important terminology in sociolinguistics.

This glossary contains 7, French linguistic terms and 8, English linguistic terms. As a glossary, it does not define the terms but simply gives the The ultimate glossary of fiction writing terms. The following is a glossary of terms specific to fiction writing the way in which linguistic This glossary contains key words that appear frequently in NSW Education Standards Authority syllabuses, English as a Second Language Glossary-of Terms of English Phonetics- 1st Language and Linguistics, 3rd ed, 10 vols.

Any analysis of language, including 8th-grade grammar, can be called linguistics. Work in progress! Glossary of Linguistic Terms. Added by. Choose the initial letter of the term you wish to visit and click on it. Over terms are defined. May Organized into the core subject areas of linguistics, followed by definitions of terms and concepts. And with recent finds from Abydos in Upper Egypt — which may very well not only challenge the primacy of writing in Mesopotamia, but undermine common assumptions about the origins and evolution of writing — this topic promises to continue to draw the interest of scholars and the public alike.

Finally, if we may be permitted to boast, it is particularly fitting that the Oriental Institute present an exhibit on early writing, given our long history of study in this area. Indeed, the modern study of writing systems has its beginnings at the Oriental Institute with the publication in of Igance J. These ideas are most closely associated with Gelb, although they had earlier proponents and an- tecedents. In its essentials, the theory is that writ- ing originated only once, namely, in Mesopotamia with the Sumerian invention.

And, from southern Iraq, the idea of writing, rather than the technol- ogy itself, spread during periods of strong cultural influence, to Egypt at the beginning of the third millennium and, by uncertain processes and me- diums, eventually to China at the end of the sec- ond millennium. Writing in the New World, which was little understood at the time, Gelb discounted, claiming that it was not real writing at all.

And recent finds at Abydos that have pushed back the date of writ- ing in Egypt, making it contemporaneous with the Mesopotamian invention, further undermine the old assumption that writing arose in Egypt under Sumerian influences.

Finally, it is difficult to ac- cept that Mesopotamian writing could inspire the type of system that developed in China at the end of the second millennium, the Sumero-Akkadian writing system at that time being so completely different from the one developed by the Chinese, not to mention the distances involved.

Acceptance of the independent invention of writing in these four cultures naturally raises ques- figure 1. Ignace J. There can be no doubt that the appearance of writing here was closely related to the sudden expansion of Mesopotamian civilization, an expansion that is particularly well attested at the city-state of Uruk — a settlement that in a short period of time became the largest in Babylonia, and the place where writing is first found and, in all likelihood, invented in Mesopotamia.

Uruk writing can be convincingly connected with the dramatic increase in the sociocultural complexity that defined the city-state at the end of the fourth millennium. Given that the vast majority of the earliest cuneiform texts are administrative — detailing transactions involving property, materials, and labor — it is indeed difficult not to see the invention of writing as a solu- tion to the practical bureaucratic problems posed by an increasingly complex economy.

And the Egyptian invention may corroborate the utilitarian basis of writing. Long connected with ceremonial display, early writing in Egypt arguably now finds closer associations with bureaucratic necessity. The some two hundred small bone and ivory tags and the more than one hundred inscribed jars found at Abydos bear short in- scriptions consisting of numerical notations limited to the tags and, what may be, personal names, place names, and the names of institutions.

The tags and jars plausibly relate to the management of deliveries, documenting their places of origin. Similar to the Mesopotamian development, the invention of writing has been connected to the increase of sociopolitical complexity, which included the emergence of a vast territorial state near the end of the fourth millennium see Baines , pp.

The nexus between administration, social complexity, and writing is more tenuous in the Chinese and Maya cases. In China, the social component is clearly in evidence as witnessed by the emergent Shang state ca. Written on turtle shells and ox scapulas, these inscriptions recorded the answers to queries that were put to the gods see The Beginnings of Writing in China, this volume. The Mesoamerican case is even more nebulous.

The earliest writing in the Americas — the undeciphered Zapotec and Isthmian scripts and the first Maya writing — is essentially commemo- rative with a considerable theological component, many of the glyphs having a basis in long-established iconographic traditions and a calendrical system of great cultural significance see Houston b, pp.

Further, in the better-understood Maya case, the advent of sociopolitical complexity, as witnessed by monumental architecture and increased social stratification, predates the first texts by several centuries Houston b, pp.

These are contexts that may suggest religious and cultural motivations for writing, rather than administrative or economic necessities see The Development of Maya Writing, this volume; Houston b, p. It has been suggested that in those cultures for which we do not have direct evidence for record keeping, utilitarian administrative necessities were nevertheless the driving force behind the invention of writing Postgate, Wang, and Wilkinson The absence of these kinds of records in these cases, it is claimed, is to be attributed to the perishable media on which they were likely to have been kept — papyrus in Egypt, wood or bamboo slips in China, or bark or palm leaves in Mesoamerica.

Although based entirely on circumstantial evidence, the hypothesis is, in many ways, compelling. Yet, there are reasons to question the utilitarian basis of all writing, and whether we are correct in as- suming that writing must have a universal basis in the first place. The aforementioned tags discovered at Abydos, for instance, were found within the context of an elite burial and were the result of a fairly labor- intensive manufacturing process, the inscriptions being incised into bone and subsequently colored with black paste see 6.

The Earliest Egyptian Writing, this volume. The inefficiency in terms of the effort and costs involved suggests that writing in this case had a purpose beyond practical administration, though not necessarily incompatible with it. Even in the best-documented case, Mesopotamia, where writing is unquestionably bound to administration, the relationship may not be one of cause and effect — for writ- ing emerges at the end of the Uruk period, appearing just as the sociopolitical institutions that gave rise to it collapse.

And if the breaks in the written record have a reality beyond the vagaries of discovery, then this new technology was not indispensable for Mesopotamian administration. The same can be said for Mesoamerican writing, which likewise makes its appearance shortly before the polities out of which it grew began to crumble Houston a, p.

Conversely, we may point to those complex cultures that managed quite well without writing, for instance, the civilizations of West Africa, the Incas, or the Aztecs before the Spanish conquest Trigger , p.

And so questions remain as to the relationship between writing and social complexity — what role does writing play in shaping civilization? Is writing a defining characteristic of civilization? And, more specifically, is all writing ultimately based in administration and record keeping? At present, it appears that we are dealing with likelihoods and general tendencies rather than universals. Writing tends to arise as societies become more complex, and writing is often tied to bureaucracy — again as a response, not a cause — but there are, of course, exceptions.

It is a question that is more difficult than first appearances suggest. Broadly defined, writing represents speech. One must be able to recover the spoken word, unambiguously, from a system of visible marks in order for those marks to be considered writing. The bond to the spoken word is prerequisite to any definition of writing.

Those systems that meet this criterion, and so represent true writing, are labeled glottographic, while sys- tems of communication that represent ideas only, without that essential bond to speech and so do not meet our definition of writing — for example, musical and mathematical notation, international road signs and the like — are labeled semasiographic Sampson , pp.

An often-cited example of semasiography is the so-called Cheyenne letter fig. This nine- teenth-century pictographic letter was posted by a Cheyenne father named Turtle-Following-His-Wife to his son, Little-Man, both of whom are represent- ed by icons above the drawings of the respective figures. The letter contains a request from the fa- ther for his son to return home. The fifty-three small circles between the two figures represent fifty-three dollars, which the father is sending Little-Man to cover expenses in connection with the trip DeFrancis , pp.

A Cheyenne semasiographic letter Gelb , pp. In order for the letter to be intelligible, the father and the son presumably would have had a prior understanding of the symbols and their arrangement.

Far from representing an outdated, primitive form of communication, semasiography is being increasingly used in this era of globalization and mass media, in which it is necessary to communicate with speakers of various languages Sampson , pp. Implicit to most discussions of writing is that the invention represents a punctual event — that there is a knife-edged division between the eras of the oral and the written, between prehistory and history.

But upon closer inspection, the situation is not as sharply defined figure 3. An example of contemporary semasiography — unpacking instructions from Ikea as we often assume, and there is no distinct watershed moment when full speech begins to be made visible. First, in terms of the origins of the individual signs, writing grows in part out of earlier, long-standing symbolic communicative systems that are not writing at all, that is, out of semasiography.

Second, in their earliest phases, writing systems have more in common with the semasiographic systems from which they spring than the mature, full-fledged writing systems that they become.

This first point is particularly well illustrated in Mesopotamia. At the end of the Uruk period, around — bc, there were a number of communicative devices utilized by administration that were decid- edly not writing. These included pictographic and iconographic elements known to us from the glyptic and visual arts, clay envelopes, counters of various kinds, and numerical tablets.

When writing was created, it was not a simple evolutionary development since many of these same devices persevered along side it Michalowski , p. Rather, writing in Mesopotamia borrowed elements from these various non-linguistic structures, added many new ones, codified and integrated the whole into a system that was quite different from the ones in which the individual elements originated Michalowski , pp.

Similar developments are attested for the Egyptian, Chinese, and Maya systems as well. In all cases, early writing contains signs, or graphs, that have an ancestry — for example, as symbols, icons, emblems, or pot marks — in earlier communicative systems. There is a distinction to be drawn, however, between the origins of individual graphs and the origins of the system. The systemization of the various elements of the writing was itself a more or less punctual event. In Mesopotamia — and the same applies to Me- soamerica, Egypt, and China — writing appears full-blown, from a structural point of view Michalowski , pp.

The essential organizing principles are in place at the very begin- ning. Certainly, each writing system would evolve further — mostly in terms of sign inventory and the relative proportions of signs representing words and those representing syllables or consonants without meaning see below — but these were developments that were separated by often long periods of stability.

What is at issue, however, returning to the second point made above, is the degree to which nascent writing systems represented speech.

The operative word here is degree, for early writing did not reflect spoken language, nor was it invented to do so. Each of the pristine systems was of limited dissemination and each was used to record information within restricted domains.

As such, early writing systems could rely heavily on oral context and non-linguistic background information to make their abbreviated, mnemonic messages intelligible.

Prior to the invention of writing, the transmission of information and knowledge was the purview of oral traditions. The invention of writing did not immediately change this. Hundreds of years would pass in most cases before writing was used to record literature, letters, historical accounts, and other genres that originally belonged to the realm of speech, but that we most closely associate with writing.

Particularly for early Mesopotamian and Egyptian writing, the bond with the spoken word was tenuous and, as Stephen Houston has pointed out, we do not know how the ancients read these documents, or if it is even appropriate to speak of reading in the sense that we understand it today a, p. The earliest Egyptian writing displays a significantly closer relationship with speech than its Sumerian counterpart; early Chinese and Maya scripts more so, but again, here the extant materials do not necessarily represent writing in its incipient phases.

Indeed, early writing in Mesopotamia and Egypt, which may be the most representative of writing in its earliest stages, is not so different from the Aztec codices that recorded ideas and that we categorize as non-writing Trigger , pp. The rebus principle is integral to writing, as it allows the writing of those elements of language that do not lend themselves easily to graphic representation, such as pronouns, grammatical markers, and, of particular importance for early writing, personal names and foreign words.

There is an element of economy here as well. By assigning homonyms to a common sign, the system can make do with fewer signs, thus facilitating the learning of the script. Early Mesopotamian writing, in particular, displays a remarkably limited degree of phonetization and use of the rebus principle.

In this sense, in terms of reflecting full speech, the development of early writing was gradual. It was not before the first quarter of the third millennium bc that rebus writings would play a significant role, and not until the second half of the third millennium that the linear order of signs reflected sequential speech.

The Mesopotamian case demonstrates that we must accept a continuum between se- masiography and glottography, for the distinction between the two disappears without the representation of connected speech and confirmed rebus writings. In the case of Egyptian writing, phonetic signs appar- ently played a larger role in its incipient stage.

Nevertheless, over five hundred years would pass before the script recorded continuous speech. The rebus principle was obviously known at an early date in both systems, and so the potential to represent speech was there from the very beginning or nearly so. What is at issue, then, is not so much the evolution of script in terms of developing new strategies, but rather the limited application of writing and its perception within the culture. But beyond the social perception of writing, there are also functional reasons for the divide between speech and writing in pristine systems, motivations that extend to the nature of writing itself.

Although writing is born of speech, it belongs to the realm of the visual rather than the oral and aural, and so it has a differ- ent basis from speech.

First, there is an intrinsic element of economy in all writing — no writing system notates all of the linguistic structure of speech. Tone, stress, and loudness, for instance, are most often omitted in writing systems that are considered to be highly phonetic. In the name of economy writing omits those elements that can be recovered from context.

Given the limited and predictable domains in which early writing was applied, much of the linguistic structure, particularly with regard to grammatical markers, could be omitted. We must also take into account the way in which language is first committed to writing.

At the root of pristine writing is the logogram — graphs representing individual words — although a more accurate description would be to say that early writing is ultimately based on the morpheme.

Morphemes represent the smallest meaningful units in language, and include lexemes, or words, as well as affixes that may be added to form larger words: for example, drink contains one morpheme, while undrinkable contains three the verb drink and the affixes un- and -able.

Morphemes have a greater psychological salience for native speakers than the phonemes, or sounds, that constitute morphemes Sampson , p. People think in terms of morphemes and syllables, and they are immediately apparent to speakers without the linguistic awareness that allows for the dissection of language into units smaller than the syllable. Although not im- mediately apparent to those of us reared on the alphabet, dividing words into individual sounds smaller than morphemes is not intuitive, but requires a level of linguistic training, which we acquire when we learn how to read and write.

Thus, it comes as no surprise that none of the pristine writing systems is alphabetic. Further, morphemes, specifically nouns, can often be represented by motivated, iconic symbols — that is, by pictures or pictographs — an option that naturally facilitates both the creation and learning of a script. On the other hand, morphemes that do not lend themselves to iconic representation can be expressed by relying upon homonymy and the rebus principle.

But in many cases, these very morphemes represent the grammar. And, as we have seen, grammatical elements can often be recovered from context and so may be omitted. As previously observed, all four have logograms, which are used to write nouns, verbs, and adjectives. And all have phonograms, signs that represent sound but not meaning, that are used to write bound morphemes, such as grammatical affixes.

A phonological component is essential to a writing system for the simple reason that a system would have, quite literally, an impossibly large sign inventory — numbering into the tens of thousands, at least — if it assigned a different graph to each and every morpheme in a language, not to mention that without a phonological component the script would have no obvious bond to the language it was representing.

Once again, economy is essential to writing and it is for the sake of economy that a phonological dimension and redundancy must be built into every logographic system. Consequently, there are no purely logographic writing systems. Furthermore, all the pristine writing systems have a class of semantic determinatives, al- though these are apparently rare in Maya writing.

These are signs that belong to the realm of writing only, as they were not spoken but rather were used in reading to classify nouns and disambiguate homonyms by semantic class. In addition to the rebus strategy, which relies on homonyms, each system also exploited the existence of synonyms by assigning semantically related concepts or nouns to the same graph, and distinguishing the individual readings with phonograms or semantic determinatives.

But there are also important differences between these writing systems, some of which correspond to different language structures. It comes as no surprise then that Egyptian writing is logo-consonantal with uni-consonantal, biliteral, and triliteral consonant graphs. Sumerian and Maya, on the other hand, lacking this distinction between consonants and vowels, are logo-syllabic with the phonograms consisting of syllables.

And although Chinese writing is built on the same principles, structurally it is quite different. The relationship between language structure and writing has been pursued by Peter Daniels , and recently by William Boltz in connection with Chinese. Both suggest that highly monosyllabic languages such as Sumerian and early Chinese, in which syllables are equivalent to morphemes, possess homonyms in large numbers and so more readily lend themselves, structurally, to productive rebus forma- tions.

They argue that it is more than simple coincidence that early writing tends to represent monosyllabic languages — that language structure affects writing. Critics of this idea contend that the theory of mono- syllabicity stands in opposition to cultural models for the origins of writing, while, on the other hand, it appears not to be applicable to all cases Houston a, p.

Maya and Egyptian do not share the same structure and degree of monosyllabicity as Chinese and Sumerian, while Inca, which was largely monosyllabic, did not develop a script.

This suggests that monosyllabicity is just one among other possible motivations for writing — it likely did play a role in the commitment of Chinese and Sumerian to a visible form, yet it was not the only force at work, or, necessarily, a requisite one. Certainly, there are cul- tural factors involved in writing, and they may play a more critical role, but this does not exclude structural motivations. We must admit that there are correlations between the internal structure of spoken language and script type — we need only point to consonantal writing in Semitic languages to show this much.

Historically, we can also speak of broad similarities, but among them we see differences in detail. In terms of the formal development of individual graphs, we observe that pictographs — those signs that resemble their referents — may become in the course of time increasingly symbolic, that is, they become bleached of their iconicity and lose the visual similarity that they once shared with their referents.

The degree to which iconicity is lost depends in part upon the medium of writing and the relationship between art and text. In Mesopotamia, where writing was done on clay, graphs became less iconic and more symbolic once they were no longer drawn with curvilinear lines but rather pressed into the clay in wedge-like strokes.

But in Egypt and Mesoamerica, where the bond between art and writing was greater, in part owing to the use of the pen and the brush, iconicity was retained to a much higher degree Cooper , pp.

However, again, we must be careful not to take this as a universal development. In China, for example, where graphs were also drawn and painted, the iconic value of the graphs was lost, although the semantic basis of the logograms remained robust.

The transition to increased symbolism concerns not only the shape of the signs, but also their values in terms of phoneticism. As we have seen, historically, each pristine writing system increased its phonetic representation, becoming more closely linked to spoken language and thus better able to represent it. Each system, theoretically, could have simplified in the interests of efficiency, abandoning its logographic and semantic origins and developing into a purely phonetic system.

Such a development would have greatly simplified the sign inventories of each: Sumerian, Chinese, and Maya could have conveyed language en- tirely with syllabic signs; and Egyptian could have done the same with its small class of uni-consonantal graphs — certainly, in all these cases there was the potential for this. That this development did not take place, that none of the pristine writing systems evolved into a purely phonographic one, speaks to over- riding social pressures and the role of ideology in writing see Cooper , pp.

Writing systems are inherently conservative and once they reach their stable, mature phases they tend to persevere over long periods, resisting large-scale changes and maintaining their organizing principles. Issues of cultural identity and perpetuating long-established scribal traditions and the prestige attached to them are im- portant contributing factors.

However, we must not overlook other, compelling linguistic reasons for maintaining logography. Logography tends to mask morphophonemic alternations — that is, the various pronunciations that mor- phemes acquire in different phonological environments.

This is particularly true of Maya writing, and, although often misunderstood, of Sumerian writing as well Robertson , pp. In short, a morpheme has one fixed spelling even though it may have multiple pronunciations depending on the context. In other words, English orthography ignores allomorphic alternation with respect to the past-tense suffix.

Native speakers intuitively apply the same phonological rules that they use when speaking, and subconsciously read written -ed as d following voiced consonants or vowels, and as t following voiceless consonants. Again, economy is the motivating factor, as a single written form can represent several allomorphic realizations. But there are further advantages to this type of logography, or more accurately, morphography.

It has been claimed, for instance, that one of the advantages of morphographic systems is that they provide a common orthographic foundation for various dialects and historical stages of a language. Writing systems of this type tend to represent morphemes in their most basic shapes — in other words, the written form is the most common allomorph or the one that is perceived by speakers to be, on some level, the default form. These basic allomorphs, it is argued, are often remarkably stable and resistant to secondary sound changes.

Consequently, logographic writing systems that exploit basic allomorphs can provide speakers of different dialects with a mutually intelligible written language, while preserving access to older documents Chomsky and Halle , p. In this light, there were distinct benefits to logography beyond the distinguishing of homonyms. And as Japan bears witness, heavy doses of logography, while seeming to complicate a writing system, particularly in the eyes of alphabet users, in no way diminishes literacy rates Trigger , p.

The retention of logography, for both linguistic and cultural reasons, appears to be one of the most stable tendencies when comparing pristine writing systems. And, as Jerrold Cooper has recently admon- ished us, it is of tendencies that we must speak when we discuss the similarities in early writing , pp. In the end, as unsatisfying as it may be, we must content ourselves with the likelihood that there will never be a set of universals for pristine writing.

The independence that characterizes the invention of each of the four writing systems extends to their internal structures, social contexts, and the evolutionary processes themselves — no two are identical. Yet, still there are similarities and tendencies.

The study of the points of agreement, and disagreement, in early writing is in itself enlightening of the social and psycho-linguistic processes by which humans first made language visible.

Houston, pp. Cambridge: Stephen D. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cambridge University Press. Gelb, Ignace J.

Revised 2nd edition. Chica- Preprint London: Harper and Brothers. Cam- Cooper, Jerrold S. Houston, Stephen D. Keightley, David N. Daniels, Peter T. Keightley, pp. Lima, and Michael Noonan, pp. Typological Studies in Language Ox- Writing Systems, edited by Peter T. Daniels and ford: Oxford University Press. William Bright, pp. Oxford: Oxford Uni- versity Press. Wash- Daniels, Peter T. Oxford: Oxford Reprint edition, New York: University Press.

Dover Publications. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Near East, edited by Ann C. Gunter, pp. Englund, Robert K. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.

Houston, cy: Interdisciplinary Conversations, edited by pp. Cresskill: Press. Stan- iels and William Bright, pp. Oxford: ford: Stanford University Press. Oxford University Press. Senner, Wayne M. Trigger, Bruce G. Translated by Gilbert L.

Monograph Series 4. Berkeley: The Society Houston, pp. Woods, Christopher Robertson, John S. Chicago: Process, edited by Stephen D.

Edith Porada sug- signs were used to mark ownership of goods gested that cylinder seals, which appeared at a time in the ancient Middle East. With the development when fine stone vessels were being produced, were of urban economies in the fourth millennium bc , a by-product of the stone-carving process. She seals were used to mark ownership, origin, autho- claimed that because both vessel carving and seal rization, acknowledgment, or obligation, as well as engraving were done with the drill, the craftsmen individual or institutional responsibility for goods.

On the from unauthorized access. After the advent of writ- other hand, Henri Frankfort suggested that since ing, seals were impressed on tablets by administra- cylinders could be rolled on wet clay in one con- tive officials and witnesses to legal transactions.

As the most important tools of the remained in use for two thousand years Frankfort complex administrative system developed prior to , pp. Finally, Hans Nissen has suggest- the invention of writing, stamp and cylinder seals ed that cylinder seals emerged as a result of the tell us about the intricate practices of record keep- need for a more effective administrative control ing, administrative hierarchy, and beliefs of ancient in the complex social system of fourth-millenni- Mesopotamians.

Cut from a variety of materials um Mesopotamia, since with a cylinder the entire such as shell, bone, limestone, and semiprecious surface of an object could be sealed and protected stones, seals also functioned as amulets, votive ob- from tampering while the small impressions of jects, and jewelry. In Stamp seals first appeared in the seventh mil- addition, the wider surface of the cylinder allowed lennium bc in northern Iraq and quickly spread into increased variability in design, which in turn pro- the neighboring regions of Syria, Anatolia, and Iran.

Early in Seals functioned as markers of ownership the fourth millennium, elaborately sculpted, ani- through their designs, which differed for each seal. Crouching accompanied the design. Inscriptions on seals that rams and the heads of lions and rams were the most identified seal owners by name and profession ap- popular seal shapes Catalog No.

The fourth mil- peared in the first half of the third millennium bc. After a short period of co-existence, in the absence of contemporary textual evidence. The Earliest Mesopotamian trative system where the visual expression comple- Writing, this volume. It is still uncertain why mented the textual one. Initially this central riod comes from the sacred Eana precinct in the figure appears as a man mastering the forces of ancient city of Uruk in southern Mesopotamia.

The iconography of the Such is the importance of this city that scholars figure signals the emergence of a powerful ruler at have named the period of its dominance the Uruk the top of the increasingly hierarchical society and period. Seals and related materials were also found complex administrative system of the Uruk period. Comparisons between Cultic scenes depict humans approaching a Mesopotamia and Iran allow us to see the extent building identified as a temple, carrying objects of shared ideology, technology, and administrative interpreted as offerings on their shoulders and in practices between the two regions.

Another common design shows Despite difficulties of interpretation, represen- animals emerging from reed huts fig. The Earliest Mesopotamian such as social organization, rituals, economy, archi- Writing, this volume , which indicates their sacred tecture, and warfare. Major themes were expressed character. Designs institution through their identification as temple on protoliterate seals depict mostly rituals or cer- herds Catalog Nos.

Finally, scenes involving emonies central to the functioning of the state. The manufacturing activities, in particular weaving, also most common subjects were cultic scenes, scenes belong to the group of scenes related to the func- depicting the priest-king, battles, animals in front tioning of the state Catalog Nos. Textual of architectural facades Catalog Nos.

These scenes with their ucts in associated workshops. The close association lively figurative imagery constitute the beginning of narrative in Mesopotamian art. Toward the end of the Uruk period ca. One recurrent figure on the protoliterate seals is a bearded man wearing his hair gathered in a bun, a thick, rolled band around his head, and a long diaphanous skirt covered with crosshatching.

He is the central figure in a variety of scenes ranging from rituals, feeding plants to animals representing his active role in preserving the fertility of crops and herds fig.

The figure 1. Cylinder seal with handle in the form of a sheep; imprint of same seal showing the ruler feeding plants to animals. Modern impression of a cylinder seal depicting two human figure 1. Modern impression of a cylinder seal carved with a scene figures approaching a building facade. One holds a feline whose of cattle emerging from and standing around a reed hut paws are cut off, the other a string of beads.

Behind them with emblems of Inana barley and sheep are visible between rituals and activities of production, both of a dark stone called steatite or chlorite that was of which were fundamental parts of religious and baked at a temperature high enough to cause the economic life in ancient Mesopotamia, prove the material to turn white and to take on a glazed ap- importance of the temple institution in the econo- pearance.

Some examples are also cut in bone. Based on this knowledge, scenes depicting men What makes them different is the distinctive im- and women involved in activities such as weaving, agery with which they are carved, depicting either threshing and storing grain, working the fields, fully abstract elements or abstract elements com- herding animals, and carrying goods Catalog No.

Symbolic are hatched meander, hourglass, crosses, triangles, scenes depicting vessels, tools, or products of manu- lozenges, rosettes, and chevrons. Is there any correlation be- In the battlefield scenes, the central male fig- tween seal imagery and administration in protolit- ure of the ruler holding a long spear dominates the erate Mesopotamia? Several scholars have suggested scene fig. He stands on the right side of the composition looking over his troops and is larger in comparison to the rest of the figures.

The rest of the scene is populat- ed by two groups of people, one victorious group standing up and holding weapons and another group on the ground with their legs bent up and hands tied behind their backs.

It is clear that the scene in question is one of conquest over the fallen enemy where the priest-king and his troops are celebrat- ing their victory. Such battlefield scenes suggest the existence of armed conflict and coercion in the protoliterate period Catalog No.

Ancient impression of a cylinder seal. Battlefield scene showing part of the ruler standing on the right-hand side, bound Nos. These cylinder seals are normally made and naked prisoners at the center, and victorious troops looking over them. In addition, Proto-Elamite script developed in Iran around while in the historical periods the owner of a seal the same time as the proto-cuneiform system in was identified primarily through an inscription on Mesopotamia.

In One suggestion is that the quality of craftsman- other words, variation in the imagery of piedmont ship of seals and the complexity of their designs style seals was not introduced for decorative pur- may be related to the status of the seal owner and poses, but it was meaningful within the adminis- his standing within the administrative hierarchy.