Development And Evolution Trajectories Of Sealing System In West Asia

As a historical region in West Asia,Mesopotamia is situated within the Tigris-Euphrates river system and is also called“the Two Rivers”.Around 3200 BC,world’s earliest written tablets were found in southern Mesopotamia.Before that,there have been many kinds of recording systems being used in West Asia.Written tablets are only the ones that winning through.These recording systems were involved in activities of administrative,tracking income,disbursements,and transfers within large organizations for very long time.It’s these activities that led to the invention of writing.Long before the appearance of writting,they have already played a vital important role in these activities.Recording systems in West Asia contain tokens,bullaes,envelopes,seals and clay tablets and so on.Previous researches usually focused on evolutionary relationships among reconding systems in southern Mesopotamia.There are relatively few studies exporing developmental trajectory of a single recording system.From 1970s’to 1990s’,Schmandt-Besserat’s works on prehistoric token system was the first study on a single recording system and its relationship with proto-cuneiform.Her explanations on numeral signs of proto-cuneiform and origins of counting in prehistoric West Asia have been widely accepted in academia.However,token system isn’t the only source of signs of proto-cuneiform.There should be other sources because hieroglyphic signs and ideographic signs of proto-cuneiform are obviously not from token systems.Among many recording systems,sealing system has the longest history and drawn attention to academia in a very early time.In1960s’,V.G.Childe proposed that origins of writing could be discovered in sealing system.Until 1990s’,most studies focused on corresponding relationships between impressions of cylinder seals and signs of proto-curniform during the period of rise of state in perspective of research on ancient writting languages,paying less attention on early period of formation and evolution of seal impressions and seldom discussing directly influences that clay sealings had on clay proto-cuneiform tablets in southern Mesopotamia.Thus,this paper aims to figure out development and evolution trajectories of sealing system in West Asia before the end of 4^th millemium BC and to analyze archaeological materials about sealing system from different regions of West Asia one by one so as to get a whole picture.In this way,diversities of prehistoric social complexities in West Asia might be revealed and explored as well.This paper includes eight chapters.Chapter One defines the scope of time and space of this paper,illuminates the research subject,reviews study history and also proposes aims of this thesis.Chapter Two is a basic morphological and typological analysis on seals related to this paper.Chapter Three constructs time and space frameworks for the paper,divide the time scope into three periods and nine phases and the space scope into eleven areas.From Chapter Four to Chapter Six,three main periods of developmental and evolutionary trajectories of seals and sealings in West Asia are presented according to their charactrtistics respectively.In Chapter Four,initial development of seals and sealings in West Asia will be revealed.Seals and sealings from the middle of the 7^th millennium BC to the end of the 6^th millennium BC are discussed region by region in three phases.In the second half of 7^th millennium BC,they occasionally appeared in northern Levant,Upper Euphrates and Upper Tigris,and were used to seal goods or record information.From the end of 7^th millennium BC to the middle of 6^th millennium BC,they spread to southeast Anatolia and Upper Khabur Region.Meanwhile,broken sealings were applied as receipts in public deposit.From the middle of 6^th millennium BC to the end of 6^th millennium BC,northern part of Weste Asia could divide into two regions according to distributions of seals.In west region,there were mainly stamps,while in the east,pendants and amulets were the dominant.Marking goods and recording information became important functions of seals.Besides,seals were probably used as administrative devices in communal management system at the end of the stage.In Chapter Five,seals and sealings from the end of the 6^th millennium BC to the beginning of the 4^th millennium BC are explored.During this period,they were fully developed morphologically and functionally.Three phases are included in this period of time according to Chalcolithic chronology of Upper Mesopotamia（Late Northern Ubaid to late Chalcolithic 3 period,that is,Ubaid 4 to the early Uruk in Lower Mesopotamia）,which are coresponding to the fourth,fifth and sixth phases in this paper.In Chapter Six,seals and sealings from the 4^th millennium BC are discussed.In this period,seals and sealings in West Asia underwent metamorphosis both functionally and morphologically.Three phases are also contained to show the specific processes.Chapter Seven is a conclusion to show origins,developmentand evolution trajectories of five kinds of seals in West Asia from the middle of the 7^th millennium BC to the end of the 4^th millennium BC.Some comments and thoughts are also listed in the end of this chapter according to analysis in above chapters.Last but not the least,Chapter Eight will pinpoint achievements and shortcomings of this papar briefly,and shed new light on further study in future as well.