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Uruk. The first city, under a priest-king, and the first writing: temple account tablets.
In plain words
Uruk, the first city, is ruled by a priest-king, and its first writing is temple accounts. Religion and administration held the written word together from the start: the original arrangement, not a later corruption.
The mechanism
ENCLOSURE AT BIRTH — fused religious-administrative seat is the original configuration, not a later corruption of it
How it was checked
- EvidenceT6 PHYSICAL / MANUSCRIPT; Status: COMMITTED; a capture
- Letter eraTHE ENCLOSURE AT THE BIRTH OF WRITING c. 3500 to c. 1150 BC
- Plate — Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin, proto-cuneiform tablet from Uruk · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Clay_tablet._Counting_board,_the_archaic_cuneiform_sign_%22DUG%22_(vessel)_appears._From_Uruk,_Iraq._End_of_the_4th_millennium_BCE._Vorderasiatisches_Museum,_Berlin.jpg
- SourcesARCHAEOLOGY — proto-cuneiform accounting tablets
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