In the dusty city states of ancient Mesopotamia, long before the advent of written language, mysterious symbols etched into stone cylinders told stories of trade, ownership, and governance. Today, these imprints, pressed into clay tablets over 5,000 years ago, may reveal the secrets behind the birth of writing itself.

A team from the University of Bologna has uncovered striking links between the engraved designs of these ancient cylinder seals and the world’s first writing system, proto-cuneiform. Their findings offer tantalizing insight into how the symbolic imagery used in these seals laid the groundwork for one of humanity’s most profound inventions: the written word.

“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,” said Silvia Ferrara, professor in the Department of Classical Philology and Italian Studies at the University of Bologna and lead researcher.

Bridging the Gap Between Prehistory and History

Proto-cuneiform, a precursor to the fully developed cuneiform script, emerged in the city of Uruk around 3000 BCE, in what is now southern Iraq. The system comprised hundreds of pictographic signs, yet more than half remain undeciphered. For decades, researchers have struggled to piece together the meaning behind these symbols. Now, the University of Bologna team believes the answer lies in the cylinder seals that predated proto-cuneiform by centuries.

These seals may represent the “Rosetta Stone” we’ve been looking for to decode these undeciphered symbols. In the process, scientists may glean insight into the leap from pre-writing symbolism to formal writing, a major step up in the evolution of human cognitive technologies.

The seals, typically made of stone, were engraved with detailed imagery ranging from animals to textiles. And they were used to stamp patterns onto clay tablets. Scholars have long recognized the seals’ role in early Mesopotamian culture, primarily for recording transactions and ownership. However, it was only recently that the connection between these pictograms and proto-cuneiform came to light.

The Long Path to Decipherment

When Ferrara and her colleagues, Kathryn Kelley and Mattia Cartolano, began their investigation, they aimed to uncover whether specific seal designs directly influenced the shapes of proto-cuneiform signs.

“This was our starting question: did seal imagery contribute significantly to the invention of signs in the first writing in the region?” Ferrara said.

By systematically comparing thousands of impressions from seals with the symbols found on proto-cuneiform tablets, they found evidence of a direct link.

“We focused on seal imagery from the pre-literate period and traced its development into the proto-literate phase,” said Kelley. “This allowed us to identify designs associated with goods like textiles and pottery, which later evolved into proto-cuneiform signs.”

For instance, a fringed cloth pattern found on several seals appeared in later proto-cuneiform texts, symbolizing the transport of goods. A similar transitional meaning was found with symbols representing pottery, highlighting how everyday trade influenced the earliest writing.

These findings suggest that writing in Mesopotamia was not the product of a single breakthrough but a gradual, decentralized process involving many people over a wide geographic area. “The invention of writing was, in fact, much more distributed than we think,” Ferrara noted in an interview with New Scientist. It wasn’t just a top-down creation by elites in Uruk but involved administrators and tradespeople from across the region.

The Evolution of Early Writing

Proto-cuneiform itself represents a form of early writing, meaning it lacked the grammatical complexity of full writing systems. It was primarily used for state affairs and accounting purposes — such as recording the quantity of wheat or the number of sheep being traded. Writing at that time wasn’t about storytelling. It was about organizing materials, goods, and people.

Yet, proto-cuneiform laid the foundation for true writing, which would later emerge in the fully-fledged cuneiform script. This system, dating back to around 3200 BCE, allowed for more complex records, including the Code of Ur-Nammu (c. 2100–2050 BCE), the oldest known law code surviving today.

While the researchers’ findings are groundbreaking, they acknowledge that much of proto-cuneiform remains a mystery. Over half of the known symbols are still undeciphered, and Ferrara’s team believes that continued study of cylinder seals could help unlock the meaning of more signs in the future.

The implications of these findings extend beyond archaeology. By piecing together the puzzle of proto-cuneiform, scholars not only decode the past but also enhance our understanding of how humans organize complex societies. In this case, writing seems to have begun as a tool for managing goods and transactions — a system that would eventually blossom into the rich, narrative-driven literature of ancient civilizations.

The findings appeared in the journal Antiquity.