“Il y a 5000 ans les Elamites inventaient l’écriture,”
Archéologia 12, 16-23.
The first identification of clay tokens (to which Amiet refers with the Latin word calculi) as the forerunners of writing. This particular corpus was found in Susa (Amiet refers to the finds of Uruk as well), and Amiet develops, briefly but pointedly (pp. 20-22), the argument that the gathering of the tokens within clay balls, and the authentication of the whole obtained by rolling a seal on the outer surface (hence the Latin term bulla), served as the springboard for the invention of writing.
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