history of mathematics - National STEM Centre

The Babylonians
Figure 1.6a Figure 1.6b
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A drawback of these opaque clay envelopes was that they concealed the tokens from
view, so they could not be counted or checked without destroying the bulla. So
people began to impress the surface of the fresh, pliable clay ball with the number
and rough shape of the tokens within.
These marks are the crucial link between the three-dimensional token system and a
two-dimensional writing system. Anyone familiar with the tokens could now 'read'
the clay balls; the tokens themselves soon became superfluous.
The earliest tablets, which supplanted the bullae but resembled them in size, shape
and even convexity, also functioned as economic records. In time, the signs on the
tablets became simplified, and small drawings of the tokens were incised with a
pointed stylus. Although the signs used on the earliest tablets were not actual
pictographs, newer words came to be depicted by true pictographs in the likeness of
the objects that they represented, as shown in Figure 1.7.
gin/gub
walMstand
Figure 1.7
musen
bird
hand
gi sim mar
dale-palm