Bronze-age necessitated an advance beyond the system of tokens and bullae used for counting. Categories of products which were 12 around 7500 BCE grew beyond 350. This large number could not be efficiently categorised by varieties in shapes of tokens or even seal impressions on bullae envelopes. Indus writing adopted a solution of rebus method of representation of hieroglyphs on tablets to abstract the goods represented in an accounting system for categories of minerals, metals and alloys and stages of metallurgical processing from furnace to forge to create varieties of metalware such as knives, sickles, arrow-heads, axes, plowshares (or ploughshares). The hieoglyphic method also enabled representation of seal-holders' professions such as merchant, smith, scribe. The accountant was the scribe. The rebus method used words which are substrate in Indian sprachbund. Thus, 1. ibha 'elephant' read rebus ib 'iron'; ibbho 'merchant'; 2. kola 'tiger' read rebus kol 'working in iron'; 3. ayo 'fish' represented ayas 'metal'; 4. sangada 'lathe' read rebus jangad 'article delivered on entrustment'; 5. tagara 'antelope' read rebus tamkaru 'merchant'; tagara 'tin'; 6. heraka 'spy' read rebus eraka 'copper'; 7. muh 'face' red rebus muhe 'ingot'; 8. kanka 'rim-of-jar' read rebus ganika 'accountant'; kanakku 'account'; 9. satthiya 'svastika glyph' read rebus satthiya 'zinc'; and so on. The problem of bronze-age accounting and bill-of-lading for shipments was thus resolved through Indus writing. Syllabic writing of kharoṣṭī (cognate with harosheth hagoyim 'smithy of nations') and brāhmī was a further advance to represent names, titles, for example on early punch-marked coins which were the direct result from bronze-age mints to facilitate trade exchanges using monetary media.
Section 1: Tokens of Susa evolve into hieroglyphic Indus writing in ancient Near East
Shape of a token representing one ingot of metal, Susa, Iran, ca. 3300 BCE.Denise Schmandt-Besserat, 2009, Tokens and writing: the cognitive development, Scripta, Vol. 1 (September 2009): 145-154
Abstract
The paper analyses the development of the power of abstraction as illustrated by the evolution of counting in the ancient Near East. Tokens indicate that counting was first done concretely in one-to-one correspondence. The clay tokens, that appeared in the Near East about 7500 BC, abstracted the goods they represented. For example a cone abstracted a measure of grain. About 3300 BC, when tokens were kept in envelopes, markings on envelopes abstracted the tokens held inside. Abstract numbers are the culmination of the process, following the invention of writing.
Excerpts:
‘For example, the number of token shapes which was limited to about 12 around 7500 BC, increased to some 350 around 3500 BC, when urban workshops started contributing to the redistribution economy. Some of the new tokens stood for raw materials such as wool and metal while others represented finished products, among them textiles, garments, jewelry, bread, beer and honey (Fig. 2).’ (p.148, ibid.)
Section 2: Bronze-age advance in accounting for metalware and metallurgical processing categories using Indus writing
The corpora of inscriptions with Indus writing has now grown to over 5,000 and the evidence, together with the lexemes of Indian sprachbund provide a method for validating the rebus readings of hundreds of hieroglyphs to categorise and account for work-in-process transactions from furnace or smelter to the forge (on workers' platforms) and for compiling metalware catalogs of minerals used, metals and alloys smelted or forged.
Hundreds of hieroglyphs are read rebus using the substrate lexemes of Indian sprachbund to decipher the inscriptions in Indus writing. S. Kalyanaraman, 2013, Indus writing in ancient near East, Sarasvati Research Center, Herndon, VA.
On this seal, ayo 'fish' read rebus ayas 'metal'; ḍangar 'bull' read rebus ḍangar 'blacksmith'; koṭ 'horn; red rebus: khoṭ 'alloy'; khoṇḍ 'young bull-calf' read rebus khuṇḍ '(metal) turner'.
The ayo 'fish' hieroglyph thus adequately categorizes the metalware contents of a pot discovered in Susa.
m1429B. Glyphs: crocodile + fish ayakāra ‘blacksmith’ (Pali)kāru a wild crocodile or alligator (Te.) aya 'fish' (Mu.) The method of ligaturing enables creation of compound messages through Indus writing inscriptions.Read on...Indus writing in ancient near East
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Kalyanaraman