Tablet of pre-cuneiform script
South Mesopotamia
Uruk III, end of the 4th millennium BC.
Clay (?sun-baked clay)
H. 7.2 cm
AO 29560
Description
"The increasing complexity of transactions, provoked by the
volume of exchanges, was at the origin of the invention of means of
recording. At the end of the 4th millenium BC. Appeared
the first document written on clay tablets. These are accounting
documents on which the figures are shown by notches, and the goods
by pictograms. This tablet also mentions the names of Uruk and
Dilmun, the present island of Bahrain."
- Louvre