5,500-Year-Old Seals Offer New Clues About the Birth of Writing

For centuries, scholars have puzzled over the origins of the world’s first writing system. Now, a study by Italian researchers reveals that some of these earliest proto-cuneiform signs may have evolved directly from motifs on prehistoric cylinder seals.

The research, published in Antiquity, identified individual symbols carved into ancient Mesopotamian seals—used for tracking goods and conducting trade—that seem to have directly transformed into proto-cuneiform signs, a script that emerged in Macedonia over five thousand years ago. These connections not only shed light on the first invention of writing, but could also help decipher additional proto-cuneiform symbols, more than half of which are still a mystery to scholars.

Experts widely agree that cuneiform, invented by the Sumerians in what is now modern-day southern Iraq during the fourth millennium BCE, is the oldest writing system in the world—and as far as we know, the universe. All the major Mesopotamian civilizations, including the Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians, and Hittites, used it until at least 100 BCE. Cuneiform evolved from proto-cuneiform, a precursor script composed of simple symbolic pictographs that gradually incorporated syllabic elements. The earliest evidence of proto-cuneiform appears in the highly influential ancient Sumerian city of Uruk and dates to between 3350 and 3000 BCE.

Researchers have long suspected that proto-cuneiform itself developed from ancient accounting methods. Now, the Italian research team suggests that some proto-cuneiform symbols may have been adapted directly from motifs found on fifth and fourth-millennium cylinder seals—a sort of hollow cylindrical stamp that, when pressed and rolled across soft clay, leaves behind a rectangular-shaped design.

Among other things, cylinder seals and proto-cuneiform tablets were ancient accounting tools. Cylinder seals were also invented in Mesopotamia, and administrators used them to track mostly agricultural and textile trade starting in the mid-fourth millennium BCE. Experts agree that proto-cuneiform tablets were used in accounting as well, though evidence of this is limited to southern Iraq.

“The close relationship between ancient sealing and the invention of writing in southwest Asia has long been recognised, but the relationship between specific seal images and sign shapes has hardly been explored,” Silvia Ferrara, a philologist from the University of Bologna who participated in the study, explained in a statement. “Did seal imagery contribute significantly to the invention of signs in the first writing in the region?”

To answer the question, the team decided to search for individual similarities between cylinder seal motifs and proto-cuneiform signs, with the aim of identifying links not just in shape but also in regard to meaning. They focused on cylinder seal motifs that originated before the invention of writing and continued to develop alongside the emergence of proto-cuneiform.

Ultimately, the researchers identified a number of seal motifs related to the transport of jars and cloth which they suggest were the direct precursor to specific proto-cuneiform signs—highlighting “a specific continuity between pre-literate symbol systems and the invention of writing,” for the first time, they wrote in the study.

“The conceptual leap from pre-writing symbolism to writing is a significant development in human cognitive technologies,” Ferrara concludes in the statement. “The invention of writing marks the transition between prehistory and history, and the findings of this study bridge this divide by illustrating how some late prehistoric images were incorporated into one of the earliest invented writing systems.”

Ultimately, this revelation sheds light on the potential origin of the first written script—arguably one of the greatest achievements of ancient civilizations—which allowed for other crucial advancements, such as long-distance communication, record-keeping, and literature.