Refining the tool: the first period of canonisation – Uruk IIIUntil recently it was thought that the Uruk IV texts were the first to be written. Now
we know of texts that may be even earlier; until they are published it is impossible to
judge what developments had taken place by the time of Uruk IV. But the Uruk III
sources seem to reveal a thorough-going set of reforms. The sign repertoire had
exploded, allowing the scribes to record ever-finer levels of detail; it may now have
started to contract. Certainly variation in the sign repertoire was tackled, with preferred
versions of each sign being authorized. Given the potential of proto-cuneiform to
generate signs, it is remarkable how few existed; cuneiform always maintained a much
smaller character set than does Chinese. Each sign became more abstract and simpli-
fied, and was now written with a shaped rather than pointed stylus. While the scribes
surely had a sense of aesthetics and would have been careful in their execution of the
signs, this was writing not drawing and what was of prime importance was that each
of these now abstract characters could be distinguished from each other. One might
wonder if by this period we can talk of a collegiumof scribes. At the same time tablet
formatting conventions take on a high level of sophistication. There is routine separa-
tion of sign groups using rulings, more complex conventions determining meaning
through location in the document, as well as the use of additional notations (Green
1981 ). This phenomenon is perhaps partly driven by the increase in the quantities
of commodities being managed (see Englund 1998 ). The system suggests central
control.
The first lists of signsStandardizations in the script were paralleled in the canonization of the control lists
of signs. We begin to see the first signs that the scribal art was a prized skill, and its
practitioners guardians of a valued heritage. Few such lists survive from Uruk IV, but
we can see evidence in them of thematic ordering principles (Englund 1998 : 82 – 106 for
an overview). There are copies of the so-called Standard Professions List, Vessels, Metal,
Cities and Grain. Already at this point, and continuing throughout their history, the
Standard Professions List is the most commonly found of the lists. It is not imme-
diately obvious why this should be. One might speculate that this is connected to the
relatively unintuitive nature of the signs used to write official titles (exacerbated by the
lack of a common determining sign) compared to those used for animals or vessels,
for example. Or perhaps we can see in this a reflection of official titles being the
significant new category of information brought by proto-cuneiform; beyond numbers
and commodities the records could now include the identity of the issuer (bringing
accountability) and the recipient (bringing traceability).
In the early twentieth century, researchers saw in the lists a particular importance
(von Soden 1936 ). The idea was that the lists were an attempt by the scribes to classify
the world around them, satisfying a supposed drive for order. Everything was assigned
to a conceptual category, a special character then marked each category, and everything
within each category was arranged in order in comprehensive lists. However, new
material, increased understanding of older material, and improved methodologies now
render this theory implausible, if not outright untenable. These seductive claims
nevertheless persist among modern survey works.
–– The first scribes ––