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ACCOUNTING WITH TOKENS IN THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST

by Denise Schmandt-Besserat

Small clay tokens of multiple shapes found in Near Eastern
sites of 8000-3000 B.C. constitute the earliest evidence for
accounting. ^1 (Slide 1) The tokens had two main functions: they
served as counters to calculate quantities of goods; they were
mnemonic devices used to store data. In this paper I will discuss this
latter function: 1. How accounting was practiced with tokens, and 2.
how accounting was related to sociopolitical changes.

I. Accounting Before Writing

The study of tokens may give an insight into several aspects of
accounting before the invention of writing and, in particular, what
information was kept, where, how, by whom, and for how long.

1. What Information Was Kept

The hypothesis that there was an evolution, from tokens to the
Sumerian pictographic writing, allows the meaning of a number of
counters to be established. The tokens matching Sumerian pictographs
stood for units of merchandise, suggesting that each counter stood for
a specific unit of a commodity such as, for example, a particular
measure of grain, a jar of oil or a fleece of wool. Consequently, it
appears that the token system was restricted to the recording of
exclusively economic data.

It is noteworthy that the goods recorded with tokens changed
over the millennia. When the token system came about, ca. 8000 B.C.,
the first assemblages of counters consisted mainly of cones, spheres,
disks, and cylinders ( See Slide 1) that stood for quantities of grain
and livestock. In other words, the earliest tokens probably recorded
the most basic staples.

These plain tokens continued to be used to the very end of the
system in the third millennium. About 3500 B.C., however, "complex
tokens," characterized by multiple new shapes and markings, appeared
in cities. The majority of these stood apparently for finished
products, such as bread, oil, perfume, wool and rope, and for items
produced in workshops such as metal, bracelets, types of cloths,
garments, mats, pieces of furniture, tools and a variety of stone and
pottery vessels. The object of accounting varied, therefore, in the
course of time. At first it dealt with the products of the farm and
the country and, later, with goods manufactured in cities.

2. Where Data Was Stored

When tokens were recovered within buildings, the structures
suggest that, from early on, accounting with tokens belonged to
non-secular places. For example, in the sixth millennium B.C. site of
Hajji Firuz, Iran, a number of cones were located in a house showing
no trace of daily life activities, such as cooking or flint chipping.
^2 The building also differed from the usual domestic architecture in
other ways. First, it was smaller, consisting of a single room,
instead of the normal two-roomed units. Second, unusual features, such
as a low platform and two posts, were erected inside. ^3 In sum, the
structure that yielded most tokens at Hajji Firuz was apparently
serving a special non-domestic function.

In the fourth millennium B.C., public buildings that produced
tokens took the form of citadels or temple precincts. It seems
revealing, for instance, that among the 778 tokens excavated at Uruk,
the first and most important Sumerian city, 685 or 88.1% were
excavated in the sacred precinct of the goddess Inanna, the tutelary
goddess. From the remaining 93 examples, 43 or 5.5% originated from a
second shrine, the Anu temple, and only 50 or 6.4% from the city's
private quarters. The tokens from Uruk, therefore, can be said to
belong primarily to sanctuaries. ^4

The repeated occurrence of complex tokens in gate rooms, and in
particular temple gates, may also be singled out as being of
particular significance. In Habuba Kabira, Syria, for instance, the
southern city gate, which led to the Temple area, produced not only
tokens, but other administrative material such as cylinders and seals.
^5 At Uruk, tokens were concentrated at the periphery of the religious
precinct, and in particular, in the eastern and western part of the
temple area, where the gates to the precinct were presumably located.
Now, gateways to cities, temples and palaces have traditionally been
associated with administrative centers in the ancient Near East. ^6
The Bible also alludes to the city gates as the location where public
procedures took place and where records were kept. ^7 The significance
of the gateway in administration in historical as well as prehistoric
times may therefore explain why the temple gates are so often depicted
in ancient Near Eastern art. The two bundles of reeds, symbolizing it,
appear time and time again on seals ^8 and on many fourth millennium
ritual stone vessels. ^9 In particular, on a famous vase from Uruk,
the Priest-King of Uruk was represented leading a procession of
offering bearers towards the temple gate, shown filled with goods. ^10

3. The Quantity of Data Stored

Clusters of counters recovered in situ seem to indicate that the
accounts kept in archives by the means of tokens dealt with small
quantities of different kinds of commodities.

Tokens are frequently found in clusters varying in size from two
to about one hundred counters. In one case, for instance, thirty-five
cones and one sphere were nestled together; ^11 Other Iranian sites
produced small hoards of 2 to 37 tokens of mixed types tightly packed
together. Yet another Iraqi excavation yielded a dozen clusters of 4
to 16 tokens. ^12 Finally in Syria, a room of Sabi Abyad produced 31
tokens and small groups of at most 9 tokens were recovered in five
different rooms of a large building of Habuba Kabira. Furthermore, the
token clusters were always composed of several types of counters. ^13
For example, Uruk produced a cache of 75 tokens, composed of spheres,
large spheres, cones, tetrahedrons and cylinders. ^14

4. The Method of Accounting

The system worked according to the most simple and basic
principle of one-to-one correspondence which consisted in matching
each unit of a set to be recorded with a token. Accordingly, one jar
of oil was shown by one ovoid, six jars of oil by six ovoids, etc...
(Fig. 1) There were seemingly only a few tokens that stood for a
collection of items, like the lentoid disk which probably meant "a
flock" (- perhaps 10 animals). The token system did not allow one to
express numbers abstractly. There was no token for "one," "two" and
"three" independently from the commodity counted.

The evolution of the token system seems to reflect an ever
increasing need for accuracy. This is exemplified, for example, by
tokens dealing with livestock: the early plain cylinders and lentoid
disks apparently stood for "heads of livestock" whereas the fourth
millennium complex tokens indicated the species, "fat-tail sheep;" the
sex, "ewe;" and the age, "lamb." The quantum jump in the number of
token types and subtypes, which occurred in large cities about 3500
B.C., seems therefore to indicate a concern for more precise data.

5. Who Practiced Accounting

In rare, but significant instances, tokens were recovered in a
funerary setting. These findings may reveal who handled the tokens and
practiced accounting.

Among the thousands of graves dating from 8000 to 3000 B.C.
excavated in the Near East, only a dozen are known to have yielded
tokens. In these instances the counters were visibly restricted to the
tombs of individuals of high status, some richly furnished. In one
case the interments held a variety of alabaster vessels and ornaments
of dentalia shells and carnelian. ^15 Three of the burials of the
North Mesopotamian site of Tepe Gawra seem particularly diagnostic.
They were among the richest of the site, holding gold rosettes and
beads, precious vessels of obsidian, serpentine, electrum. These
particular tombs also included symbols of power such as maceheads and
lapis lazuli seals. Tomb 107 included special architectural features:
a shrine was erected above the burial of an obviously very prestigious
individual who held six stone spheres as his only funerary gift. ^16

The rarity of funerary tokens, their association with luxurious
burial deposits, with artifacts symbolizing power and with special
architecture, seems to indicate that the counters did not belong to
the masses, but were the privilege of an elite.

6. How Long the Accounts Were Kept

An ancient rubbish pit of the fourth millennium B.C., excavated
in Iran may give an insight on the time span during which the accounts
were kept. The layers of trash that could be distinguished according
to seasons revealed that tokens were most often associated with early
summer deposits. The excavator noted, therefore, that the counters
were discarded in the traditional season for plenty, after the harvest
and threshing, when the crops would be stored. ^17 This in turn, might
suggest that transactions were made in the course of the year to be
completed at the time of the harvest. If this was so, the usual length
of keeping accounts in archives was less than a year.

II. Tokens and Socioeconomic Development

The fact that the first stage of the token system (plain tokens)
coincided with agriculture and the second (complex tokens) with urban
formation, seems of great significance. It clearly indicates that the
evolution of accounting coincided with major socioeconomic
developments.

The appearance of the first token assemblages in 8000-7500 B.C.
suggests that the system of counting and record keeping of goods
became necessary when survival depended on domestication of grains and
accumulation of the products of harvests. In other words, the token
system fulfilled new needs for accounting brought about by
agriculture, and data storage can be considered as directly related to
the "Neolithic Revolution."

The multiplication of token types and subtypes in the fourth
millennium B.C. was also not by chance. These complex tokens, which
included many new forms and which were characterized by bearing
incised lines and punctations, corresponded to the creation of cities.
It can be presumed that the creation of workshops, and the more
diversified urban economy that followed, required more accounting
techniques.

It is likely, however, that the two major changes in the token
system were not mere corollaries of farming and cities but were
determined by new sociopolitical structures that derived from
agriculture and urban settlements. I propose that accounting may be
related to the rise of an elite. This idea is supported by three sets
of data.

First, the creation of the token system coincided with a new
settlement pattern characterized by larger communities. For example,
in an early community in Syria, Mureybet, there is no evidence for the
use of counters in the two earliest phases of the site, about
8500-8000 B.C., when it was a small compound of 0.5 ha. Tokens occur
in the third phase, ca. 8000-7500 B.C. when the hamlet had grown to
become a village covering 2 or 3 ha. It is difficult to evaluate the
size of the population of Mureybet III. It is estimated, however, that
the community then exceeded the number of individuals manageable in an
egalitarian system. In other words, in the case of Mureybet, and
probably elsewhere, the first token assemblage coincided with the
advent of rank society characterized by a new type of leadership
overseeing the community resources. ^18

Second, as discussed above, the tokens recovered in the tombs of
prestigious individuals suggest that, from the Neolithic to the Bronze
Age (6000-3500 B.C.), the use of counters served as an instrument of
power for an elite controlling real goods.

Third, the fact that the complex tokens phenomenon took place at
the time of state formation was no coincidence. In all the major
ancient Near Eastern cities such as Uruk, Susa, Chogha Mish and Habuba
Kabira the complex counters occur in levels characterized by 1. seals
and sealings featuring the ruler; ^19 2. public buildings built
according to an identical plan and decorated with typical mosaics; ^20
and 3. potteries which probably served as grain measures. ^21 In other
words, the administrative centers that yield complex tokens were the
seats of a large bureaucracy, housed in similar buildings, using the
same administrative devices--complex tokens, seals and grain
measures--and, most importantly, were headed by the same powerful
ruler. The complex tokens can be considered, therefore, as being part
and parcel of the bureaucracy used by the Sumerian king to govern and
control real goods in the first city-states.

The appearance of tokens in the earliest rank societies, their
inclusion in rich burials, and the place of the complex tokens in the
state bureaucracy, suggest that, from the beginning, accounting was
the privilege of an elite and that the more the system became
efficient and precise, the more power it wielded.

Conclusion

A faint sketch of the places and people associated with ancient
accounting begins to emerge. Counting and data storage with tokens
started in open air compounds where subsistence was based on
cultivating or, at least, hoarding cereals. Their first purpose was to
record quantities of the traditional Near Eastern staples: grain and
small stock. In the fourth millennium B.C. complex tokens kept track
of manufactured goods in large centers. Starting in the sixth
millennium, tokens are recurrently found in public buildings. The
clusters of tokens found in situ range usually between a dozen to 75
artifacts, showing that the counters were never kept in large
quantities. There is some evidence that the counters were mostly
discarded during the summer, after the harvest. Tokens, together with
other status symbols, are sometimes included in the burials of
prestigious individuals, suggesting that they were used by the elite
who controlled the economy of redistribution.

CAPTION

Slide 1. Plain tokens, Mesopotamia, present day Iraq, ca. 4000 B.C.
The cone, spheres and disk represented various grain measures; the
tetrahedron stood for a unit of labor. Courtesy Denise
Schmandt-Besserat, The University of Texas at Austin. Text

Click for larger image

Slide 2. Complex tokens representing (from right to left above:) 1
sheep, 1 unit of a particular oil (?), 1 unit of metal, 1 type of
garment, (from right to left below), 1 type of garment, (?) and one
measure of honey. from Susa, Iran, ca. 3300 B.C. Courtesy Musée du
Louvre, Départment des Antiquités Orientales, Paris. Text

Click for larger image

Slide 3. Six ovoid tokens representing an account of six units of oil.
The tokens were held in an envelope which bore the seals of the
administrators involved. The artifacts were excavated in Uruk, Iraq.
Courtesy Archaeologiches Institut, Abteilung Baghdad. Text

Click for larger image

Slide 4. Envelope and its content of tokens representing 7 units of
oil, from Uruk, present day Iraq, ca. 3300 B.C. Courtesy German
Archaeology Institute, Division Baghdad. Text

Click for larger image

Slide 5. Envelope and its content of tokens and the corresponding
markings, from Susa, Iran, ca. 3300 B.C. Courtesy Musé du Louvre,
Département des Antiquités Orientales, Paris.

Click for larger image

Fig. 6. Impressed tablet featuring an account of grain, from Susa,
Iran, ca. 3100 B.C. Courtesy Musée du Louvre, Départment des
Antiquités Orientales, Paris. Text

[LINK]
Click for larger image

Slide 7. Pictographic tablet featuring an account of 33 measures of
oil, from Godin Tepe, Iran, ca. 3100 B.C. Permission to reproduce to
be requested from Dr. T. Cuyler Young, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto,
Ontairo M5S 2C6 CANADA      tel. 416 978 8669
Text

Click for larger image

1. Denise Schmandt-Besserat, How Writing Came About. The University
of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1996. Text

2. Mary M. Voigt, Hajji Firuz Tepe, Iran: The Neolithic Settlement.
University Monograph No. 50, Hasanlu Excavations Reports, Vol. I.
Philadelphia 1983, P. 87 and 181-184, H.F. 68-122, 68-170-172,
68-189 and 68-195. Text

3. Mary M. Voigt, 1983, P. 47-49. Text

4. Denise Schmandt-Besserat, Before Writing. The University of
Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1992, p. 49-73. Text

5. Denise Schmandt-Besserat, "Tokens, Envelopes and Impressed
Tablets at Habuba Kabira." In Eva Strommenger & Kay Kohlmeyer eds.,
Habuba Kabira S¸d - Die Kleine Funde. Wissenschaftliche
Veröffentlichung des Deutschen Orient Gesellschaft, (Forthcoming).
Text

6. Jean-Marie Durand, "L'Organisation de l'Espace Dans le Palais de
Mari: Le Témoignage des Textes." In E. Levy, ed. Le Système
Palatial en Orient, en Grèce et ý Rome. Actes du Colloque de
Strasbourg 19-22 juin 1985. Travaux du Centre de Recherche sur le
Proche-Orient et la Grèce Antique, Vol. 9, Strasbourg 1987, pp.
44-48. Text

7. J. Andrew Dearman, "On Record Keeping and the Preservation of
Documents in Ancient Israel (1000 to 587 BCE)" Libraries and
Culture Vol. 24, No 3, 1989, P. 346. Text

8. Anton Moortgat, Vorderasiatische Rollsiegel. Gebr. Mann Verlag,
Berlin 1988, P. 7, Pl. 2: 9; 5: 29b; 6: 30, 31. Text

9. Pierre Amiet, L'Art Antique du Proche Orient. Editions d'Art
Lucien Mazenod, Paris 1977, pp. 354-355, Figs. 231 and 236. Text

10. E. Lindemeyer & L. Martin, Uruk, Kleinfunde III. Philipp von
Zabern, Mainz am Rhein, 1993, No. 226, Plate 25 i. Text

11. Martha Prickett, Man, Land and Water: Settlement Distribution
and the Development of Irrigation Agriculture in the Upper Rud-i
Gushk Drainage, Southeastern Iran. Phd Dissertation, Harvard 1985,
P. 539. Text

12. Sabah Abboud Jasim & Joan Oates, "Early Tokens and Tablets in
Mesopotamia: New Information from Tell Abada and Tell Brak." World
Archaeology 1986, Vol. 17, No. 3, P. 352-355. Text

13. Peter M.M.G. Akkermans & Marc Verhoeven, "An Image of
Complexity: The Burnt Village at Late Neolithic Sabi Abyad, Syria."
American Journal of Archaeology Vol. 99, No. 1, 1995, p. 99, fig.
14; Denise Schmandt-Besserat, "Tokens, Envelopes and Impressed
Tablets at Habuba Kabira." In Eva Strommenger & Kay Kohlmeyer eds.,
Habuba Kabira S¸d - Die Kleine Funde. Wissenschaftliche
Veröffentlichung des Deutschen Orient Gesellschaft, (Forthcoming).
Text

14. Heinrich J. Lenzen, Vorläufiger Bericht über die von dem
Deutschen Archologischen Institut und der Deutschen
Orientgesellschaft aus Mitteln der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft
unternommenen Ausgrabungen in Uruk-Warka. Berlin, Vol. XXV, 1974,
P. 40. (Da XV 4/5 is to be read Oa XV 4/5). Text

15. F. El-Wailly & B. Abu Es-Soof, "Excavations at Tell es-Sawwan,
First Preliminary Report (1964)." Sumer Vol. 21, No. 1/2, 1965, pp.
26-28. Text

16. Arthur J. Tobler, Excavations at Tepe Gawra. Vol. II.
University Museum Monographs, Philadelphia 1950, pp. 110-111. Text

17. Henry T. Wright, Naomi Miller & Richard Redding, "Time and
Process in an Uruk Rural Center." In L'Archéologie de L'Iraq du
Début de l'Epoque Néolithique ý 333 avant notre ère. Paris 1980, p.
277. Text

18. Jacques Cauvin, Les Premiers Villages de Syrie-Palestine du
IXème au VIIème Millénaire Avant J.C. Collection de la Maison de
l'Orient méditerranéen ancien, No 4. Série Archéologique Vol. 3.
Lyon 1978, pp. 74-75. Text

19. The Priest-king is represented on an oblong bulla from Habuba
Kabira, (72 Hb 102). I am grateful to Eva Strommenger for this
communication. Pierre Amiet, Glyptique Susienne, Mémoires de la
Délégation Archéologique en Iran Vol. 43, 1972, Pl. 18: 695. Text

20. Julius Jordan, Vorläufiger Bericht über die von der Deutschen
Forschungsgemeinschaft in Uruk-Warka unternommenen Ausgrabungen.
Abhandlungen der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften,
Phil.-hist. Klasse, Berlin, Vol.II, 1931, fig. 16-17; M.J. Steve &
H. Gasche, L'Acropole de Suse, Mémoires de la Délégation
Archéologique en Iran, Mission de Susiane. Vol. 46, Paris 1971, P.
151 & Pl. 89. Pinhas P. Delougaz & Helene J. Kantor, "New Evidence
for the Prehistoric and Protoliterate Culture Development of
Khuzestan." Vth International Congress of Iranian Art and
Archaeology. Vol. 1, Tehran 1972, P. 27; André Finet, "Bilan
Provisoire des Fouilles Belges du Tell Kannas," Annual of the
American Schools of Oriental Research Vol. 44, 1979, P. 93. Text

21. Eva Strommenger, "The Chronological Division of the Archaic
Levels of Uruk-Eanna VI-III/II: Past and Present." American Journal
of Archaeology Vol. 84, No 4. 1980, P. 485-486; Louis le Breton,
"The Early Periods at Susa, Mesopotamian Relations." Iraq Vol. 19,
No 2, 1957, P. 97-113; Pinhas P. Delougaz & Helene J. Kantor, "New
Evidence for the Prehistoric and Protoliterate Culture Development
of Khuzestan." Vth International Congress of Iranian Art and
Archaeology Vol. 1, Tehran 1972, pp. 26-33. Text

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