Bullae — Archaic Accounting System of the Near East

A clay bulla with tokens, excavated at the Tell of the Acropolis in the city of Susa, Elam. Uruk Period (c.3500 BCE). Excavated between 1933-1939 by Roland de Mecquenem. Sb 1932. Public Domain.

The Invention of the Bullae

The term for these clay spheres, bullae (called bulla in their singular form) is a Latin word that means “blob” or “bubble” because both the clay spheres (and often the clay tokens as well) are blobs of clay, that are imperfectly hand-molded spheroids. This Latin word derives ultimately from the Hebrew בול (pronounced “bool”). The clay bullae were hollow, because they enclosed within them small stone or clay tokens which by their shape represented various commodities, and by the number represented quantities of said commodities. Later on the Mesopotamians conceived of the idea to impress the tokens on the wet clay of the exterior of the sphere along with those enclosed inside so that the quantity and type could be verified without having to smash the clay to count the tokens.

The use of these clay bullae as representations of quantities of food products was discerned by the French-American scholar Denise Schmandt-Besserat who continued to find these mysterious clay pieces throughout the Near East in various sites that in some cases were quite distant from one another (relative to pre-wheel conceptions of distance at any rate). This peaked her interested and confirmed for her that these clay shapes were not as irrelevant as they appeared, and instead held meaning that was important for the understanding of these ancient cultures.

The earliest bullae found in Mesopotamia are probably slightly older than 8000 BCE, and were in use for around 5000 years until the late 4th millennium BCE (c.3100). Extrapolating somewhat from our understanding of how writing emerged (being driven by the necessary organization and administration of city-life) it is believed that the bullae system developed as a response to the different demands of settled life after the transition from hunting and gathering, to agriculture and animal husbandry. The fact that the bullae were invented at about the same time as agriculture and animal husbandry emerged in the Near East (which might have been anywhere between 10,000 to 8,000 BCE depending on where in the Near East you look, much later in Egypt) this seems unlikely to be coincidence.

A hunter-gatherer had no need to record the number of deer killed, fish caught, or dates collected, because they would be consumed almost directly from hand to mouth. Therefore they would have had no need for any system of marking quantity or type of goods because any individuals who would have been bartering to trade something (which might have went something like “I will trade you this deer thigh for a small satchel of dates and a few of the arrowheads you carved” – this is pure imagination and speculation, for we don’t even know how advanced their speech was at that time) there would have been no need to record any part of the transaction because both parties were present. Furthermore, nomadic hunter-gatherers where nomadic, which means that all objects on the table for trade were present also because these people would have brought every possession that they owned with them wherever they went.

However, with settled life, the grain and other products they planted as seeds, raised, and harvested had to be stored, which in some cases would have been done by the community (a practice exhibited by the Egyptian farmers at the Faiyum who practiced agriculture c.5000 BCE about 100 km southwest of Memphis (modern Cairo)). This may have driven the need for the bullae system of accounting. However, these grain stores appear to have been communal, and farming itself would have been communal too, which seems to make accounting of goods redundant once again.

Though if there was individual ownership of grain, dried fruit, freshly grown produce, or hunted/dried meats within a community, then the bullae system could have arisen from the practice of communal storage yet while attempting to retain individual ownership. So as to store goods collectively but to record and prove your goods (type and quantity) versus the goods of another: if there was a dispute, bullae were the solution. Though this does not personally feel convincing to me, though some scholars have suggested this.

Trade: the Probable Motive for the Invention of Bullae

I believe that a more powerful impetus for the emergence of the bullae system would have been trade. There just doesn’t seem to be enough relevant use for them if you could just hand over your goods to someone else in your village. Furthermore, we know that clay pottery was developed for its enormous benefit of storing personal foods – dates, grains, maybe even salted or smoked meats – which kept it dry, as well as protected it from mice and insects, all of which preserved it for a longer time. We also know that agriculture led to sedentary life. So small hamlets would have begun emerging throughout the Near East with the birth of agriculture, which would have grown larger and larger from hamlets, to villages, and eventually into towns until the emergence of the first cities in the 4th millennium BCE.

Therefore these villages would have probably been in some degree of contact. Wandering herdsmen may have been one route of communication between these different peoples and communities, not least because they would have, in their wanderings, come across a great many such communities and tribes and would have been able to tell all of them about one another including their locations. Thus they might have brought them into contact, and in telling each about the other they may have mentioned their main goods, products, unique skills or strengths in various crafts, arts, and “industries”, maybe one making better clothes than the other, one growing much greater quantities of barley than another with stalks “twice as tall.” This could very well have inspired the first merchants, and the first trade.

Bullae seem only to have been truly required if you were delivering goods to individuals whom you would not see with fair regularity, and whom you could not see with relative ease. For example, assuming that a experienced merchant can walk about 5 km per hour, in a day of walking where they walk for 8 hours they can walk 40 km. So they could reach a village 50 km from their own in 9 hours of walking, or they could reach a village 100 km away maybe in 2 or 2.5 days. A village 200 km distant might take anywhere between 4-7 days, and a very distance village say 1000 km might take around a month.

Clay Bullae with Token Impressions and Individual Tokens. Source: Sumerian Shakespeare (Image used without permission for educational purposes)

You would have had little way to ensure that all of the goods that you sent to another made it there in tact. Sending goods long distances was risky in the first centuries of the modern era, let along in 8000 BCE. The solution to these problems of trade is literally solved by the most fundamental function of the bullae system, which is why I find that the evidence best supports trade as the need which drove the invention of bullae.

The Function of Bullae

Bullae are hollow spheres with geometric shapes of various sizes impressed on their surface, with the token-shape that made the impression concealed within the hollow clay sphere. These such tokens have been recovered in archaeological strata dating from around the late 9th millennium to the 4th millennium BCE (about 8000-3000)! Also starting in about the 7th millennium BCE personalized “stamps” where also impressed on the outer surface, which were symbols belonging to an individual who possessed some authority within the community. The tokens took the form of a large number of shapes and sizes, some 3000 varied forms being unearthed so far. [15]

Basically they were small geometric objects shaped as cones, discs, cylinders, ovoid lumps, or spheroids (meaning they were roughly spherical). Each different type is believed to have represented a different commodity or a specific unit of a commodity. For example, a small circular impression on the exterior of the bullae may have represented 1 unit of grain whereas a larger circular impression represented a larger unit of grain. The impression/token shape also would have specified which type of grain. Other types of goods symbolized by the tokens would have been various types of animals, perhaps sheep, or a bundle of wool already sheared from the sheep, grain, different types of oils, textiles, maybe even dates and other fruits in a preservable form, as well as humans (as slaves, at least in later times).

The number of good was also symbols on the bullae surface by these token impressions. Though they did not possess any numerical system yet as far as we can tell. Instead to represent that a certain amount of a good was present, they would impress that same symbol again and again until the equal quantity was achieved. Thus they certainly had a conception of units of each good. One “jar-of-oil-token” impression was impressed 6 times to account for 6 jars of oil, for example. The “grain token” was likewise impressed 3 times to show that there were three of some (perhaps standardized) units of grain.

These tokens were impressed on the surface of the spheroid clay bullae to represent the type and quantity of commodity that was being exchanged in the (perhaps relatively long-distance trade) transaction. The same number of various token types impressed on the outside of the bullae were also concealed within the bullae. Lastly, protected within their clay envelope probably by the very hands of the official (or other village authority who was sending to goods) would have lastly impressed his own personal stamp on the exterior of the wet clay of the bullae to signify that he personally guarantees that whatever number of tokens within the bullae (and impressions on its surface) are the same in number and type as the goods that he/she was sending.

Various shapes and sizes of clay tokens, each representing a different commodity and quantity, which would be impressed onto Bullae and stored within. Credit: Sumerian Shakespeare (Used without permission for Educational Purposes)

Since the only way to check how many tokens were inside the bullae was to smash it, eventually the idea arose to impress the tokens onto the wet clay surface as well so that the quantity of goods could be verified without smashing the bullae. For example, what if a merchants bag broke and everything fell to the ground, now they could quickly check that they had recovered everything by counting out the symbols on the bullae before setting off. So at first tokens were just concealed within the bullae, but eventually the token symbols were impressed onto the exterior as well as concealed within, and also could be scratched into the bullae surface as symbols. Eventually however the Mesopotamians realized they could just impress the tokens on clay tablets without the need for bullae at all, resulting in the development of proto-cuneiform writing, though that is a story for another time.

Given the function of the bullae – everything from the concealment of the token, their representation of various goods, the smashing of the bullae for verification of goods and quantity upon reception, and even the stamps of authority by whoever was sending the goods (whose sole purpose seems to have been fraud prevention, preventing merchants from just gathering/crafting new tokens and bullae with clay found anywhere with a new number of tokens inside after they had skimmed whatever they had wanted to, as stamps were much harder to forge) – all of this seems only to be explained by trade. Local community storage amongst a tribe just doesn’t seem to have required such an elaborate system of accounting. Only trade at over fair distance at these incredibly early times seems to fit all the evidence, and all the measures taken against theft and fraud.

Proto-Writing, Numbers & Cylinder Seals

These markings upon the bullae can be described accurately as the first steps towards writing. Some have described them as the first evidence of “writing”, though this is an overstatement in my opinion because this was only the first stage of learning to associate symbols with objects, and noting their quantities. We are still a long way from expressing even simple ideas. Thus a better description of bullae may be counting with a chance of accounting, because there is a large difference between making note of numbers, and expressing ideas. Not unlike our modern tally system in fact.

This does indicate that the people of the time had an awareness of numbers at least as quantities, though not yet a symbolically defined numerical system. Though I believe they would have possessed a numerical system linguistically at least, because if one counted the token impressions and realized they were missing 3 units of barley, wouldn’t they have had to say to the merchant something on the order of “There is 3 units of barley missing”? Thus they would have almost had to have words for different numbers. It is almost inconceivable that they couldn’t somehow specify with language that there was 3 and not 2 or 10 units of barley missing, aside than using a far too general a phrase like “There is some barley missing”.

One wonders also if they would have understood the concepts of addition and subtraction. This seems likely for at least some of the ancient traders and merchants because they would have had to have understood that if there was a discrepancy in the number of tokens compared to actual goods that there was less by three barley compared to the tokens (going with the previous example) or conversely, that there was three more tokens than units of barley. And that 8 tokens compared to 5 barley units present indicates that there are 3 missing because 5 is 3 less than 8 (which is conceptually the same as our more advanced modern notation 8 – 3 = 5). If they did not understand this then the whole bartering system would have been utterly pointless. They would have recorded the quantities and symbols but not had the understanding to realize when the bullae system told them there were discrepancies!

It was from the 6000’s BCE on that stamp seals were impressed on bullae. They were also impressed on jars containing the good, or else on lumps of clay attached by some form of cord to the container, which were perhaps the mark of the manufacturer. Such that they knew that this oil or these textiles came from the individual whom they wanted them to come from. Or else they were the symbol of some authority figure (who’s stamp seal would have been recognizable) which would have indicated probably that they had checked the contents, and that they were the correct commodity, quantity, or quality when they had checked them.

As previously stated, the bullae system lasted for around 5000 years, until we reach what is known as the Uruk Period (4000 – 3100 BCE) when civilization in the Near East (and in the world at large) really begins to change. It was during this period that we begin to see a number of important developments, from the shift away from flax-produced linens to wool-working and more sheep (which would have been important at least to the Mesopotamians) along with the invention and widespread use of the potters wheel, to the transition from painted pottery to more work with metals, as well as the replacement of the stamp seal with the cylinder seal, for authorizing goods and trades.

The cylinder seal was a clay cylinder with a negative impression carved into its length depicting a scene (oftentimes gods, symbols, or scenes from mythology or life) which could be worn around the neck and then rolled over any wet clay to produce their “seal of approval” and so authorize something. In other parts of the world at later times (such as in Egypt or on Crete, as well as in the Near East if memory serves) the seal was used to lock storage doors: they would put wet clay over the lock then roll their cylinder seal across the wet clay noting that when they locked this door all the grain was there. Thus if it was broken they knew that someone broke in after it was checked, or if it was unbroken yet some was still missing, that the amounts were not checked properly.

Cylinder seals enabled a artistic scenes (that were also seals) to be rolled across, and impressed, upon large surfaces quickly. They ranged in size. Each seal belonged to an individual or an entire institution (such that each specific temple would have had their own seals) containing a wide variety of themes, motifs, symbols, and depictions of religious scenes which are surprisingly helpful in reconstructing the past.

These seals are found everywhere. They suggest that there existed a class of well-trained individuals – let us call them “officials”, though we could also call them “priests” which might be a good term because they worked at and ran the temples – who would have possessed some knowledge, training, or skills that set them apart from the general populace. They couldn’t give a seal to just anyone, because these seals meant something. They gave the power to supervise and legitimize transactions, which is training that they would have probably received at the edubba (Sumerian school) in later times, almost certainly possessing the ability to read and write.

Though the most important developments during the Uruk Period were the birth of the world first cities, the first schools for the training of young scribes and scholars (by the standards of those days), the development of surprisingly advanced bureaucracy, as well as the invention of writing.