The University of Cambridge just released a press release about some of our on-going research spearheaded by John MacGinnis and recently published in the Cambridge Archaeology Journal.
The link to the press release is here.
This element of our research focuses on a collection of “tokens”, small clay artifacts in simple geometric shapes that were used to account for commodities such as sheep, cattle, and grain. This technology first appeared during prehistoric periods in the Near East and, as demonstrated at Ziyaret Tepe, continued well into the time when cuneiform documents were being used in the Iron Age. The press release provides a summary of our research and explains how these important, and often overlooked, artifacts were used.
The full citation for the reserch article is: MacGinnis, J., M. W. Monroe, D. Wicke and T. Matney (2014) “Artefacts of Cognition: the Use of Clay Tokens in a Neo-Assyrian Provincial Administration” Cambridge Archaeology Journal 24(2): 289-306.
