| # | Polity | Coded Value | Tags | Year(s) | Edit | Desc |
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Mongols did not have writing. However, the Naimans used Uyghur script. (Note: we need a category for syllabaries)
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There exist descriptions of mnemonic devices meant to help keep track of Christian festivities in the period of Russian domination, but this does not seem sufficient to infer that similar practices were in use in earlier times. "On the wall of every Yakut dwelling is a calendar, usually consisting of a small board with holes corresponding to the number of days in the year. The immovable feasts are marked by crosses over the holes. A wooden peg is placed in the hole to indicate the current date, thus showing whether it is an ordinary day or a holiday. Fig. 1 shows a circular calendar; the inner circle has seven perforations, corresponding to the seven days of the week. A peg is shown in the hole for Sunday, over which there is a cross. The outer ring has thirty holes. When the month has thirty-one days, the peg is kept in the last hole for two days. If the month has twenty-nine or twenty-eight days, the peg must be transferred to the first day of the next month. The calendar is called kün ahar, it counts the days, or sibaska (Russian, svyatzy, calendar of saints), or nädiälä asarar mas, board which shows the week."
[1]
[1]: Jochelson, Waldemar 1933. “Yakut”, 101 |
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Glyphs dating to this period have been deciphered as either calendrical dates or the names of prisoners. Sources do not suggest that evidence for other types of writing has been found.
[1]
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. |
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The Hittite language was related to Luwian and Palaic. Hittite adopted the Akkadian cuneiform to write their language. Approximately 375 cuneiform signs were adopted from Akkadian cuneiform. As in Akkadian, signs can be roughly categorized into phonograms, logograms, and determinatives.
[1]
[1]: Gamkrelidze T. (2008) The Problem of the Origin of the Hittite Cuneiform, Bulletin Of The Georgian National Academy Of Sciences, vol. 2, no. 3,pp. 169-174 |
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Glyphs dating to this period have been deciphered as either calendrical dates or the names of prisoners. Sources do not suggest that evidence for other types of writing has been found.
[1]
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. |
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Glyphs dating to this period have been deciphered as either calendrical dates or the names of prisoners. Sources do not suggest that evidence for other types of writing has been found.
[1]
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. |
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Genealogical registers of noble ancestry (including important marriages, and sometimes important life events of individuals) were recorded in stone during this period. Also carved glyphs denoting calendrical dates. Sources do not suggest that evidence for other types of writing has been found.
[1]
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. |
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Glyphs dating to this period have been deciphered as either calendrical dates or the names of prisoners. Sources do not suggest that evidence for other types of writing has been found.
[1]
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. |
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Detailed documentation was written in Spanish after the end of this period.
[1]
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. |
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SCCS variable 149 ’Writing and Records’ is coded as ‘1’ or ‘None’, not ‘Mnemonic devices’, or ‘Nonwritten records’, or ’True writing, no records’, or ‘True writing; records’ This code may be in need of re-evaluation. The eHRAF materials are not coded for any mnemonic devices.
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No information on mnemonic devices has been found so far.
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Sources do not suggest that evidence for writing other than carved glyphs has been found.
[1]
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. |
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"The khipu is most often associated with Inca accounting, but it was borrowed from Andean traditions that were developed at least a thousand years before the Incas. Some scholars think that the earliest systematic use of the khipu as a recording tool occurred in Wari or other expansionist states. It may owe its genesis to institutional demands, such as keeping track of supplies (Quilter and Urton 2002; Brokaw 2010). If they are right, then the Incas elaborated a package of administrative techniques developed by their imperial predecessors. It is certainly the case that the tool was well established across the Andes before the Inca empire came along, as different societies reportedly used a variety of knot-tying conventions. The chronicler Murua wrote that, “each province, as it had its own language, also had a different form and logic [razón] of quipo” (translation from Platt 2002: 229). In short, the Incas’ challenge most likely lay in systematizing recording for state institutions and in bringing many thousands of knot-masters up to speed in the preferred format, not in developing a specific inscription technique for state interests from scratch."
[1]
According to Alan Covey: "We should not assume that Wari used khipus, as none have been found. The “Wari” khipus that Urton reports from the AMNH are from poorly known coastal provenances, and Wari never really ruled over the coast. The Middle Horizon dates suggest that someone on the coast was using a khipu-like device, but it is a stretch to say that this was an imperial accounting device invented or used by Wari, and there is no evidence for Wari khipus in excavations of well-preserved Wari sites that have yielded abundant textile remains. I would also not infer their use in the LIP (AD 1000-1400)"
[2]
[1]: (D’Altroy 2014, 150) [2]: (Alan Covey 2015, personal communication) |
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Memorial posts were erected for the dead: ’A suggestion made to me of a further link between the Kacharis and the Garos is the resemblance which exists in form between the monoliths of Dimapur, the former capital of the Kacharis, and the k˘imas or memorial posts which the Garos erect in memory of their dead. The comparison is of great with small, for the Dimapur stones are of immense size, while the k˘imas are but wooden posts. Still, the resemblance certainly exists, and the fact that k˘imas are always carved to the same pattern (except when they represent a human face) tends to prove that the carving is done on some definite principle, handed down perhaps from one generation to another, the origin of which has long been lost. When we consider further the small number of the monoliths, it is not improbable that they were erected to commemorate a chief or person [Page 17] of high degree, while the ordinary person had nothing better erected in his memory than the k˘imas which are set up in every Garo village.’
[1]
Ceremonial gifts served to ’record’ obligations between families: ’Kokam is a payment given to those who slaughter a cow in honor of the deceased. Slaughtering may be done by a son, but also by a more distant relative, whether a member of the same lineage or not, and it is frequently done by the man who leads a party from another village to attend a funeral. Killing a cow brings honor both to the deceased and to the man who organizes the killing, and the occasion provides a fine meal to the friends and relatives who help. The organizer receives the kokam from the household of the dead man, and like magual this is most appropriately a brass heirloom gong, though something else may be substituted if no gongs are available. The gong is carried back to the organizer’s village, where the cow is killed and a slender wooden post erected to advertise the event. The gong thus acquired can be used for nothing other than to be returned to the original family when somebody in the acquiring family dies. At that time the original family must sacrifice a cow in return. In other words, the kokam gifts form a symbolic record of the obligations that are set up for returning the honor of killing a [Page 200] cow, and in this way households bestow honor upon one another. One man may be followed in death by several cows.’
[2]
But are symbolic buildings or moveable objects mnemonic devices? Probably they should not count as such. A mnemonic device, like the abacus, or knots on string, will usually be a reusable tool designed specifically to assist the memory in a particular area and serve no other function, such as ceremonial or form of payment.
[1]: Playfair, Alan 1909. “Garos”, 16 [2]: Burling, Robbins 1963. “Rengsanggri: Family And Kinship In A Garo Village”, 199p |
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SCCS variable 149 ’Writing and Records’ is coded as ‘1’ or ‘None’, not ‘Mnemonic devices’, or ‘Nonwritten records’, or ’True writing, no records’, or ‘True writing; records’.
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This variable is in need of further elaboration. The eHRAF materials are not coded for any mnemonic devices.
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SCCS variable 149 ’Writing and Records’ is coded as ‘1’ or ‘None’, not ‘Mnemonic devices’, or ‘Nonwritten records’, or ’True writing, no records’, or ‘True writing; records’ Bollig mentions shell signals and spears, but no mnemonic devices per se: ’A custom destroying marital fidelity in a really systematic fashion is the mosou. That is, on a shell signal all the men must gather in the men’s house, so that their wives are alone at home. Anyone can go to them at night without being punished, since, indeed, his wife too is abandoned.’
[1]
’Closely bound up with the war history of the Truk people is the mateu; the word means ray spine or spear with ray spines. The mateu is the symbol of war. One who was experienced in military affairs received the name wasen mateu, bearer of the mateu. On the Truk Islands there were two large war parties, which usually stayed together except for minor internal quarrels. These war parties were called mateulap, large spear, and mateutun, small spear. The mateulap included the kin group of the Sapulupi with all the related kin groups. Mateutun included the kin group of the Soufar with the affiliated kin groups. Distributed by islands, Polvas /Poloas/, Wöla, Uman, and Paituk /Faituk/ were [Page 122] adherents of the mateulap; Pefan /Fefan/ with its little secondary islands, mateutun. These two mateu were continually contesting as to which of them was the more important. Numerically mateulap was considerably superior to the mateutun. The division into the two parts is connected with the kin-group system and the ida[unknown] institution, since even today they say ida[unknown]en mateulap, ida[unknown]en mateutun. I am not venturing to decide whether the institution is to be ascribed to the original inhabitants or to immigrants.’
[2]
Goodenough mentions ’mnemonic exercises’, but does not mention any techniques or devices used in the process: ’The first ethnographer to work in Truk, J. Kubary, equated Achaw (Kachaw) with Kosrae (Kubary 1880:295). With one notable exception (Finsch 1893:450), subsequent scholars, myself included (Goodenough and Sugita 1980:19), have accepted this equation and sought to understand events in the oral tradition and to interpret the archeological record accordingly (Bollig 1927; Krämer 1932; Hambruch 1932-36; Fischer, Riesenberg, and Whiting 1977; Lessa 1980). Indeed, in the translations of native texts, they regularly render Kachaw as Kosrae or Kusaie. In his accounts of Carolinian navigators’ lore, Riesenberg (1972) does the same thing when the name Kachaw (Achaw, Araw) appears in the mnenomic exercises he recorded (see also Damm and Sarfert 1935:102-103). The effect for the reader is to make it appear as a matter of fact that Kosrae is the place designated. But the texts say nothing of Kosrae; they speak of Kachaw.’
[3]
[1]: Bollig, Laurentius 1927. “Inhabitants Of The Truk Islands: Religion, Life And A Short Grammar Of A Micronesian People”, 106 [2]: Bollig, Laurentius 1927. “Inhabitants Of The Truk Islands: Religion, Life And A Short Grammar Of A Micronesian People”, 121 [3]: Goodenough, Ward Hunt 1986. “Sky World And This World: The Place Of Kachaw In Micronesian Cosmology”, 553 |
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SCCS variable 149 ’Writing and Records’ lists no mnemonic devices or nonwritten records or ’True writing, no writing’ ’Adinkra are visual symbols, originally created by the Akan, that represent concepts or aphorisms. Adinkra are used extensively in fabrics, pottery, logos and advertising. They are incorporated into walls and other architectural features. Fabric adinkra are often made by woodcut sign writing as well as screen printing. Adinkra symbols appear on some traditional akan gold weights. The symbols are also carved on stools for domestic and ritual use. [...] Akan oral tradition dates the arrival of adinkra among the Akan to the end of the 1818 Asante-Gyaman War. However, the Englishman Thomas Edward Bowdich collected a piece of adinkra cloth in 1817, which demonstrates that adinkra art existed before the traditional starting date.[2] Bowdich obtained this cotton cloth in Kumasi, a city in south-central Ghana. The patterns were printed using carved calabash stamps and a vegetable-based dye. The cloth features fifteen stamped symbols, including nsroma (stars), dono ntoasuo (double Dono drums), and diamonds. It is now in the British Museum.’
[1]
Other kinds of mnemonic devices were also in use: ’Oral creators also attached their texts to material objects. A particular tree or rock could serve as the starting point for a narrative that was associated with this landmark. In the Asante kingdom in Ghana, an elaborate material culture was developed which filled the social space with verbal texts: the finials on chiefs’ ceremonia lumbrellas embodied proverbs; gold-weights -small brass figurines used to weigh gold dust in the extensive trading networks centered on the Asanta kingdom- were often designed to represent sayings or epithets relating to the owner; adinkra symbols, also evoking proverbs and other verbal formulations, were carved into wooden prestige objects and metal jewellery, and stamped on cloth. Across West Africa, cloth carried woven, dyed or appliquéd symbols that alluded to oral texts. [...] Thus the Asante gold-weight showing two leopards might call to mind different proverbs [...] And most proverbs can be interpreted in more than one way.’
[2]
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adinkra_symbols [2]: Barber, Karin and Newell, Stephanie 2015. "Dissent and Creativity", 122p |
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SCCS variable 149 ’Writing and Records’ lists no mnemonic devices or nonwritten records or ’True writing, no writing’ Ritual specialists used symbols marked out on wooden boards describing past spirit journeys: ’The boards are marked with symbols representing stages, in particular persons and places, encountered or passed in the course of the pengap spirit journey. The papan turai ‘characters’ are personal to the extent that the individual selects an ideograph which will remind him or her of a particular ‘verse’ or stage in the journey through the spirit world. ‘The way people write is not the same; each one does it his own way’ ( tulis orang enda sabaka; siko ngaga ka diri ). The signs may or may not be understood by another lemambang : for example, a Melugu, Dor, lemambang was able to ‘read’ nearly half the signs on a Lemanak board, but his understanding of the characters was partly derived from his knowledge of the stages of the journey. It is not certain whether the use of ‘standard’ characters should be attributed primarily to common patterns of Iban thought and analogy or the direct influence of the lemambang who instructs the novices (thus channelling traditional ideographs) or a combination of the two. But it is certain that similar symbols are found on boards in widely separated areas and are immediately intelligible.’
[1]
We have assumed that this was true before the Brooke Raj period.
[1]: Jensen, Erik 1974. “Iban And Their Religion”, 67 |
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SCCS variable 149 ’Writing and Records’ lists no mnemonic devices or nonwritten records or ’True writing, no writing’ Ritual specialists used symbols marked out on wooden boards describing past spirit journeys: ’The boards are marked with symbols representing stages, in particular persons and places, encountered or passed in the course of the pengap spirit journey. The papan turai ‘characters’ are personal to the extent that the individual selects an ideograph which will remind him or her of a particular ‘verse’ or stage in the journey through the spirit world. ‘The way people write is not the same; each one does it his own way’ ( tulis orang enda sabaka; siko ngaga ka diri ). The signs may or may not be understood by another lemambang : for example, a Melugu, Dor, lemambang was able to ‘read’ nearly half the signs on a Lemanak board, but his understanding of the characters was partly derived from his knowledge of the stages of the journey. It is not certain whether the use of ‘standard’ characters should be attributed primarily to common patterns of Iban thought and analogy or the direct influence of the lemambang who instructs the novices (thus channelling traditional ideographs) or a combination of the two. But it is certain that similar symbols are found on boards in widely separated areas and are immediately intelligible.’
[1]
[1]: Jensen, Erik 1974. “Iban And Their Religion”, 67 |
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This may warrant a bracket once the coding schemata is complete, because I have not found direct mentions of mnemonic devices; my "present" code is due to the use of mnemonic devices in Latin instruction, for the late Middle Ages.
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SCCS variable 149 ’Writing and Records’ lists no mnemonic devices or nonwritten records or ’True writing, no writing’ Memorial posts were erected for the dead: ’A suggestion made to me of a further link between the Kacharis and the Garos is the resemblance which exists in form between the monoliths of Dimapur, the former capital of the Kacharis, and the k˘imas or memorial posts which the Garos erect in memory of their dead. The comparison is of great with small, for the Dimapur stones are of immense size, while the k˘imas are but wooden posts. Still, the resemblance certainly exists, and the fact that k˘imas are always carved to the same pattern (except when they represent a human face) tends to prove that the carving is done on some definite principle, handed down perhaps from one generation to another, the origin of which has long been lost. When we consider further the small number of the monoliths, it is not improbable that they were erected to commemorate a chief or person [Page 17] of high degree, while the ordinary person had nothing better erected in his memory than the k˘imas which are set up in every Garo village.’
[1]
Ceremonial gifts served to ’record’ obligations between families: ’Kokam is a payment given to those who slaughter a cow in honor of the deceased. Slaughtering may be done by a son, but also by a more distant relative, whether a member of the same lineage or not, and it is frequently done by the man who leads a party from another village to attend a funeral. Killing a cow brings honor both to the deceased and to the man who organizes the killing, and the occasion provides a fine meal to the friends and relatives who help. The organizer receives the kokam from the household of the dead man, and like magual this is most appropriately a brass heirloom gong, though something else may be substituted if no gongs are available. The gong is carried back to the organizer’s village, where the cow is killed and a slender wooden post erected to advertise the event. The gong thus acquired can be used for nothing other than to be returned to the original family when somebody in the acquiring family dies. At that time the original family must sacrifice a cow in return. In other words, the kokam gifts form a symbolic record of the obligations that are set up for returning the honor of killing a [Page 200] cow, and in this way households bestow honor upon one another. One man may be followed in death by several cows.’
[2]
[1]: Playfair, Alan 1909. “Garos”, 16 [2]: Burling, Robbins 1963. “Rengsanggri: Family And Kinship In A Garo Village”, 199p |
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System of accounting used tokens. Some tokens might have been simple mnemonic devices. In neighbouring Mesopotamia c2200 BCE: "The Akkadians invented the abacus as a tool for counting"
[1]
[1]: J J O’Connor, J J. Robertson, E F. December 2000. http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/HistTopics/Babylonian_mathematics.html |
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In neighbouring Mesopotamia c2200 BCE: "The Akkadians invented the abacus as a tool for counting"
[1]
[1]: J J O’Connor, J J. Robertson, E F. December 2000. http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/HistTopics/Babylonian_mathematics.html |
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In neighbouring Mesopotamia c2200 BCE: "The Akkadians invented the abacus as a tool for counting"
[1]
[1]: J J O’Connor, J J. Robertson, E F. December 2000. http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/HistTopics/Babylonian_mathematics.html |
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In neighbouring Mesopotamia c2200 BCE: "The Akkadians invented the abacus as a tool for counting"
[1]
[1]: J J O’Connor, J J. Robertson, E F. December 2000. http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/HistTopics/Babylonian_mathematics.html |
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In neighbouring Mesopotamia c2200 BCE: "The Akkadians invented the abacus as a tool for counting"
[1]
[1]: J J O’Connor, J J. Robertson, E F. December 2000. http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/HistTopics/Babylonian_mathematics.html |
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In neighbouring Mesopotamia c2200 BCE: "The Akkadians invented the abacus as a tool for counting"
[1]
[1]: J J O’Connor, J J. Robertson, E F. December 2000. http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/HistTopics/Babylonian_mathematics.html |
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In neighbouring Mesopotamia c2200 BCE: "The Akkadians invented the abacus as a tool for counting"
[1]
[1]: J J O’Connor, J J. Robertson, E F. December 2000. http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/HistTopics/Babylonian_mathematics.html |
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"Otahara (2000:108) has proposed that the Middle Jomon (c. 2,500 b.c.) six-post structure at Sannai Maruyama, Aomori Prefecture, is a monument for calendrical reckoning. The long side of the structure lines up with the sunrise on the summer solstice and the sunset on the winter solstice. He proposes that the six post structure at the Chikamori Site, Kanazawa Prefecture,had the same function.Such places were designed to map out the yearly cycle and to permit local people to participate in the ceremonies of the cycle either by living at the site or coming to participate (Mizoguchi 2002:104)."
[1]
[1]: (Pearson 2007, 364) |
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’Each year the mandarin chooses a day in the month which corresponds to the fourth Chinese month and notifies all the country. Each family with a daughter subject to chen-t’an notifies the mandarin. The mandarin sends a candle on which a mark is made. At nightfall of the appointed day, the candle is lighted and when it burns up to the mark, the moment of chen-t’an has arrived.’
[1]
[1]: (Briggs 1951, p. 246) |
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’Each year the mandarin chooses a day in the month which corresponds to the fourth Chinese month and notifies all the country. Each family with a daughter subject to chen-t’an notifies the mandarin. The mandarin sends a candle on which a mark is made. At nightfall of the appointed day, the candle is lighted and when it burns up to the mark, the moment of chen-t’an has arrived.’
[1]
[1]: (Briggs 1951, p. 246) |
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’Each year the mandarin chooses a day in the month which corresponds to the fourth Chinese month and notifies all the country. Each family with a daughter subject to chen-t’an notifies the mandarin. The mandarin sends a candle on which a mark is made. At nightfall of the appointed day, the candle is lighted and when it burns up to the mark, the moment of chen-t’an has arrived.’
[1]
[1]: (Briggs 1951, p. 246) |
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SCCS variable 149 ’Writing and Records’ is coded as ‘1’ or ‘None’, not ‘Mnemonic devices’, or ‘Nonwritten records’, or ’True writing, no records’, or ‘True writing; records’ Tokens called heratu served multiple purposes: ’There is another use similar in principle. When a hungry man sees a ripe bunch of bananas in the garden of his friend he will not hesitate to help himself. It is to be feared that he would not hesitate over long if he met-the same temptation in the garden of a stranger. In the first instance, however, he will eat his fill of the bananas, or whatever it may be, and leave his heratu. When the owner comes to his garden and sees this, he will be satisfied, for no native grudges food to his friend.’
[1]
’Of the three main uses of the heratu previously described, viz. (1) as an identity token, (2) as a mark of individual abstinence, (3) as the naterari, or village tabu post, the last will seem tolerably clear. The naterari stands as a symbol of the dead man in whose behalf the tabu is imposed. Formerly it may have been something more than a formal symbol of the dead, in fact a crude image. This association between the wooden post and the dead man which it represents is strengthened by using his particular namesake tree: then, besides other associations, the two have this important bond between them-a common name.’
[2]
[1]: Williams, F. E. (Francis Edgar), and Hubert Murray 1930. “Orokaiva Society”, 115 [2]: Williams, F. E. (Francis Edgar), and Hubert Murray 1930. “Orokaiva Society”, 125 |
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SCCS variable 149 ’Writing and Records’ is coded as ‘1’ or ‘None’, not ‘Mnemonic devices’, or ‘Nonwritten records’, or ’True writing, no records’, or ‘True writing; records’ Tokens called heratu served multiple purposes: ’There is another use similar in principle. When a hungry man sees a ripe bunch of bananas in the garden of his friend he will not hesitate to help himself. It is to be feared that he would not hesitate over long if he met-the same temptation in the garden of a stranger. In the first instance, however, he will eat his fill of the bananas, or whatever it may be, and leave his heratu. When the owner comes to his garden and sees this, he will be satisfied, for no native grudges food to his friend.’
[1]
’Of the three main uses of the heratu previously described, viz. (1) as an identity token, (2) as a mark of individual abstinence, (3) as the naterari, or village tabu post, the last will seem tolerably clear. The naterari stands as a symbol of the dead man in whose behalf the tabu is imposed. Formerly it may have been something more than a formal symbol of the dead, in fact a crude image. This association between the wooden post and the dead man which it represents is strengthened by using his particular namesake tree: then, besides other associations, the two have this important bond between them-a common name.’
[2]
The Constabulary relied on sticks and other ad hoc devices for the purpose of record-keeping: ’The producer’s half of the income from the coffee was paid, not on delivery, but at the end of each year. The official in charge of the scheme visited each village to make the payments. The ordinance required that payment was to be made in proportion to days worked and, as the village constable who was in charge of the plantation was almost invariably illiterate, some of them kept an “attendance stick” for each man. A notch was cut in the stick for each day of absence other than that caused by illness or the death of a close relative. When the government officer visited the village to make the payments the constable produced the attendance stick of each man as he came up for payment. Some constables relied on memory to inform government officers of absentees, but the few literate ones (e. g. at Sombo) were provided with attendance books.’
[3]
[1]: Williams, F. E. (Francis Edgar), and Hubert Murray 1930. “Orokaiva Society”, 115 [2]: Williams, F. E. (Francis Edgar), and Hubert Murray 1930. “Orokaiva Society”, 125 [3]: Crocombe, R. G. 1964. “Communal Cash Cropping Among The Orokaiva”, 15 |
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The burial grounds "of distinguished war chiefs were marked by an upright tree trunk, painted to record their exploits. To this was tied a small log for each enemy killed by the person it commemorated"
[1]
.
[1]: C. Callender, Illinois, in B. Trigger, Handbook of North American Indians, vol. 15: Northeast (1978), pp. 673-680 |
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Wampum beads served as mnemonic devices: ’Wampum. Of the beads that were manufactured and used by the Iroquois those known as “wampum” are by far the most significant. Though the term wampum has been used in some places to include both the discoidal and the cylindrical beads, the true wampum is an Indian-made shell bead, cylindical in form, averaging about one-quarter of an inch in length by an eighth of an inch in diameter, perfectly straight on the sides, with a hole running through it the long way. Some of the wampum beads prepared for commercial trade were as long as half an inch but none of the long beads has been found in the wampum belts. Wampum was made from the quahaug or hard shell clam (Venus Mercenaria) which provides both white and purple beads. The central axis (columellae) of the great conch shell (pyrula Carica), was used for white wampum.’
[1]
’The longhouse owns “wampums” which validate its position as a ritual center but which are rarely brought out. Wampum occasionally figures in the ritual, such as the string of wampum used in the rite of confession. But the significance of wampum generally is that because it is a valuable object, it is used to indicate the significance of the event, either by giving it as a commemoration of the event or as being shown in remembrance of the event. Wampum belts, for example, were given at treaties to indicate good faith in the making of the treaty, and might be brought out to remind others of the treaty. In and of itself, wampum is not sacred.’
[2]
Wampum encoded regulations and agreements: ’The League of the Iroquois was governed by a carefully worked out constitution that was transmitted orally from one generation to another by certain leaders (lords or sachems) whose business it was to learn and to recite the laws and regulations. For many generations these laws and regulations were recorded in a collection of wampum belts and strings, twenty-five of which are preserved today in the New York State Museum, whose director has been proclaimed “the keeper of the wampums.”’
[3]
[1]: Lyford, Carrie A. 1945. “Iroquois Crafts”, 45b [2]: Tooker, Elisabeth 1970. “Iroquois Ceremonial Of Midwinter”, 30 [3]: Lyford, Carrie A. 1945. “Iroquois Crafts”, 9b |
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“In the Aido Hwedo house, then, rested these thirteen boxes. When a birth occurred during the year, a stone was put in the proper part of the first box, according to whether the baby was a boy or a girl. At the end of the year the woman in charge took the stones out of the thirteenth box and threw them away, for after a child had reached fourteen years of age, he was regarded as an adult and was included in the annual counting. The stones in the twelfth box were put into the thirteenth, those in the eleventh into the twelfth, those in the tenth into the eleventh, and so on until the second had been emptied into the third, the first into the second, and this last one, now empty, was ready to receive the stones which indicated the births for the new year. Inside the palace walls there was another house named Abodji, watched over by a woman called Ndana. In this house, also, there were cases, but here they numbered fifteen. These cases received the stones which marked the deaths of Dahomean citizens. When a chief came to report deaths, he was asked the age and sex of the persons who had died. These reports were brought at short intervals during the year to the proper officials. For the region about Abomey, they were told to the Mingan, and for the other districts of the Kingdom to the chiefs who ruled over them. When a report was made at the palace, if the death was that of an adult male, a stone was placed in the fourteenth box; if it was a woman who had died, one was put in the fifteenth. If a boy aged three had died, a stone was placed in the proper half of the third case.”
[1]
[1]: HERSKOVITS, M. J. (1932). POPULATION STATISTICS IN THE KINGDOM OF DAHOMEY. Human Biology, 4(2), 252–261: 258. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/8T74FM7D/collection |
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Abacus’ and chequered cloths were used as part of the accounting process at court. Wooden tallies were used as receipts.
[1]
[1]: (Prestwich 2005: 58) Prestwich, Michael. 2005. Plantagenet England 1225-1360. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/XTBKFDCI |
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“Although the ancient people of the Southwest didn’t have a written language, they had effective ways to communicate. Cultures worldwide have used rock art to transmit ideas and beliefs. There are two types of rock art, petroglyphs and pictographs… At Chaco, and throughout the American Southwest, rock images were probably an important form of visual communication. Some are images of clan symbols; others are records of important events during migrations. Still others are memory aids for recalling stories, songs, and ceremonies.”
[1]
[1]: (“Chaco Culture - Communication”) “Chaco Culture” NPS Museum Collections, accessed May 8, 2023, https://www.nps.gov/museum/exhibits/chcu/index6.html. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/NMRVDA5I |
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"The Akkadians invented the abacus as a tool for counting"
[1]
[1]: J J O’Connor, J J. Robertson, E F. December 2000. http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/HistTopics/Babylonian_mathematics.html |
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In neighbouring Mesopotamia c2200 BCE: "The Akkadians invented the abacus as a tool for counting"
[1]
[1]: J J O’Connor, J J. Robertson, E F. December 2000. http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/HistTopics/Babylonian_mathematics.html |
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In neighbouring Mesopotamia c2200 BCE: "The Akkadians invented the abacus as a tool for counting"
[1]
[1]: J J O’Connor, J J. Robertson, E F. December 2000. http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/HistTopics/Babylonian_mathematics.html |
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Chinese chroniclers indicate that the Hepthalites were a non-literate people, although they were described as having used tally sticks.
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At a minimum, the scholarly community of Rabbinic Judaism made constant use of memorization and mnemonics, since it was forbidden for the Oral Law to be written down. (The precise date at which the Rabbinic academies began is a matter of scholarly dispute, but Rabbinic tradition records several generations of leaders prior to Shimon ben Shetach, who was a contemporary of King Alexander Jannaeus.)
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Wampum beads served as mnemonic devices: ’Wampum. Of the beads that were manufactured and used by the Iroquois those known as “wampum” are by far the most significant. Though the term wampum has been used in some places to include both the discoidal and the cylindrical beads, the true wampum is an Indian-made shell bead, cylindical in form, averaging about one-quarter of an inch in length by an eighth of an inch in diameter, perfectly straight on the sides, with a hole running through it the long way. Some of the wampum beads prepared for commercial trade were as long as half an inch but none of the long beads has been found in the wampum belts. Wampum was made from the quahaug or hard shell clam (Venus Mercenaria) which provides both white and purple beads. The central axis (columellae) of the great conch shell (pyrula Carica), was used for white wampum.’
[1]
’The longhouse owns “wampums” which validate its position as a ritual center but which are rarely brought out. Wampum occasionally figures in the ritual, such as the string of wampum used in the rite of confession. But the significance of wampum generally is that because it is a valuable object, it is used to indicate the significance of the event, either by giving it as a commemoration of the event or as being shown in remembrance of the event. Wampum belts, for example, were given at treaties to indicate good faith in the making of the treaty, and might be brought out to remind others of the treaty. In and of itself, wampum is not sacred.’
[2]
Wampum encoded regulations and agreements: ’The League of the Iroquois was governed by a carefully worked out constitution that was transmitted orally from one generation to another by certain leaders (lords or sachems) whose business it was to learn and to recite the laws and regulations. For many generations these laws and regulations were recorded in a collection of wampum belts and strings, twenty-five of which are preserved today in the New York State Museum, whose director has been proclaimed “the keeper of the wampums.”’
[3]
’Despite the efforts of the Onondagas at Onondaga tohave them returned to Onondaga, the council fire of theConfederacy and its wampum records remained at BuffaloCreek until after that reservation had been sold andCaptain Cold (“The League of the Iroquois: Its History,Politics, and Ritual,” fig. 11, this vol.), keeper of thecouncil fire and the wampum, had died. In 1847 bothwere moved back to Onondaga (Clark 1849, 1:109, 124).However, a number of Onondagas (approximately 150)continued to live on the Seneca and Tuscarora Reservationsin western New York State, the largest number onthe Allegany Reservation (New York (State) Secretary ofState 1857:507; Fletcher 1888:551; New York (State)Legislature. Assembly 1889:59; U.S. Census Office. 11thCensus 1892:6).’
[4]
’After the Revolution, about 225 Onondagas chose tofollow Joseph Brant, the Mohawk chief, to Canada andto settle on the Six Nations Reserve (Johnston 1964:52). [...] Thus, after the Revolution, two separate League councils were established, one in the UnitedStates and the other in Canada, each with its owncomplement of hereditary chieftainships. Each also had its own wampum for the wampum of the League held bythe Onondagas had been divided, half being given to theOnondagas at the Six Nations Reserve and half remainingin New York State (see “The League of the Iroquois:Its History, Politics, and Ritual,” this vol.).’
[5]
[1]: Lyford, Carrie A. 1945. “Iroquois Crafts”, 45b [2]: Tooker, Elisabeth 1970. “Iroquois Ceremonial Of Midwinter”, 30 [3]: Lyford, Carrie A. 1945. “Iroquois Crafts”, 9b [4]: Blau, Harold, Jack Campisi, and Elisabeth Tooker 1978. “Onondaga”, 496 [5]: Blau, Harold, Jack Campisi, and Elisabeth Tooker 1978. “Onondaga”, 495 |
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"The historicity of mnemonic devices in the Middle East (and particularly in Egypt and Palestine) remains to be hereafter demonstrated. The scribes of ancient Egypt were quite fond of word-games; this was a natural development for the land which Jean Capart chose to dub the “pays du symbolisme.”7 J. J. Clère has shown that the Egyptians composed not only crosswords, but acrostics as well.8 Etienne Drioton, the renowned Belgian Egyptologist and Catholic priest, in his “La Cryptographie Egyptienne,” gives several examples of Egyptian cryptograms (symbols — ornamental and otherwise — which convey dual meanings). These may consist of one or more symbols composing but a single word, or of entire sentences which have dual meanings. The latter most often display their dual meanings through homophones,9 to which we have had recourse in our Hor Sensen Papyrus investigations."
[1]
[1]: THE USE OF MNEMONIC DEVICES IN ORAL TRADITIONS, AS EXEMPLIFIED BY THE BOOK OF ABRAHAM AND THE HOR SENSEN PAPYRUS By John A. Tvedtnes A paper read at the Nineteenth Annual Symposium on the Archaeology of the Scriptures, held at Brigham Young University on October 18, 1969. |
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The following comments refer to the Ashanti period: ’Oral creators also attached their texts to material objects. A particular tree or rock could serve as the starting point for a narrative that was associated with this landmark. In the Asante kingdom in Ghana, an elaborate material culture was developed which filled the social space with verbal texts: the finials on chiefs’ ceremonia lumbrellas embodied proverbs; gold-weights -small brass figurines used to weigh gold dust in the extensive trading networks centered on the Asanta kingdom- were often designed to represent sayings or epithets relating to the owner; adinkra symbols, also evoking proverbs and other verbal formulations, were carved into wooden prestige objects and metal jewellery, and stamped on cloth. Across West Africa, cloth carried woven, dyed or appliquéd symbols that alluded to oral texts. [...] Thus the Asante gold-weight showing two leopards might call to mind different proverbs [...] And most proverbs can be interpreted in more than one way.’
[1]
We have provisionally assumed that, despite of the later introduction of adinkra symbols, some of these mnemonic devices must have been present before Ashanti rule already, given the tradition of story-telling in the area.
[1]: Barber, Karin and Newell, Stephanie 2015. "Dissent and Creativity", 122p |
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"The accountants at the temple adapted a long-used system of accounting with clay tokens by impressing stylized outlines of tokens to denote numbers, with pictograms and other symbols to denote the objects that were being counted. A number of different numeration and metrological systems were used depending on the objects counted."
[1]
[1]: (Joseph 2011, 135) Joseph, George Gheverghese. The Crest of the Peacock: Non-European Roots of Mathematics (Third Edition). Princeton University Press. |
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"The accountants at the temple adapted a long-used system of accounting with clay tokens by impressing stylized outlines of tokens to denote numbers, with pictograms and other symbols to denote the objects that were being counted. A number of different numeration and metrological systems were used depending on the objects counted."
[1]
[1]: (Joseph 2011, 135) Joseph, George Gheverghese. The Crest of the Peacock: Non-European Roots of Mathematics (Third Edition). Princeton University Press. |
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Balzer only mentions memorial hitching posts: ’The most important ceremony, associated with a founding Yakut ancestor named Ellei, is the annual summer YHYAK festival, a celebration of seasonal change, of KUMYS (fermented mare’s milk), and of kin solidarity. Once a religious celebration led by a shaman, the ceremony has been adapted since World War I into a secular commemoration of Yakut traditions. Practiced in villages and towns, it features opening prayers (ALGYS) and libations of KUMYS to the earth. Although some Yakut debate its "authenticity," the festival still includes feasting, horse racing, wrestling, and all-night line dancing to improvised chants. It lasts three joyous days in Suntar, where it is especially famed. Wedding rituals, pared down from previous eras, center around memorial hitching posts (SERQE), carved for the occasion, with couples honored by prayers, special food, and dancing. New rituals marking wedding anniversaries and graduations at all educational levels include the placement of SERQE, on which names of those honored are carved. But traditional rituals of birth, supplicating the goddess of fertility, Aiyycyt, have become less popular, with some Yakut women even mocking the restrictions that were once associated with beliefs about female impurity. Russian Orthodox holidays are rarely celebrated.’
[1]
The use of calenders as described by Jochelson more closely resembles mnemonic devices than written records: ’After becoming Christians the Yakut no longer followed this method of reckoning time, but oriented themselves by the Christian holidays, for instance: kirisiäniye (Russian, krestcheniye ), baptism, January sixth; Kiristiäp (Russian, Kristov ). Easter: Orosuospa (Russian Rozhdestvo ), Christmas; bul[unknown]astar (Russian, Vlasii ), or ynax tañarata (cow’s holiday), February eleventh. Russians regard Saint Vlasii as the protector of domestic cattle and among the Yakut this saint replaced the female deity, Ayisit, of their old mythology. Among the Yakut are experienced individuals who know the number of days between holidays since it is easier to deal with immovable feasts. For movable festivals, they must often consult their priest. On the wall of every Yakut dwelling is a calendar, usually consisting of a small board with holes corresponding to the number of days in the year. The immovable feasts are marked by crosses over the holes. A wooden peg is placed in the hole to indicate the current date, thus showing whether it is an ordinary day or a holiday. Fig. 1 shows a circular calendar; the inner circle has seven perforations, corresponding to the seven days of the week. A peg is shown in the hole for Sunday, over which there is a cross. The outer ring has thirty holes. When the month has thirty-one days, the peg is kept in the last hole for two days. If the month has twenty-nine or twenty-eight days, the peg must be transferred to the first day of the next month. The calendar is called kün ahar, it counts the days, or sibaska (Russian, svyatzy, calendar of saints), or nädiälä asarar mas, board which shows the week.’
[2]
[1]: Balzer, Marjorie Mandelstam and Skoggard, Ian: eHRAF Cultural Summary for the Yakut [2]: Jochelson, Waldemar 1933. “Yakut”, 101 |
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use of mnemonic devices in Latin instruction in the late Middle Ages.
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use of mnemonic devices in Latin instruction in the late Middle Ages.
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mnemonic devices in Latin instruction in the late Middle Ages. perhaps retained for this period.
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use of mnemonic devices in Latin instruction in the late Middle Ages.
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’Each year the mandarin chooses a day in the month which corresponds to the fourth Chinese month and notifies all the country. Each family with a daughter subject to chen-t’an notifies the mandarin. The mandarin sends a candle on which a mark is made. At nightfall of the appointed day, the candle is lighted and when it burns up to the mark, the moment of chen-t’an has arrived.’
[1]
[1]: (Briggs 1951, p. 246) |
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The earliest phonetic hieroglyphic writing was found in the tomb J at the Abytos Cemetary U - on the pottery vessels and small bone/ivory labels
[1]
. They are dated to Naqada IIIA. But it should be noticed that already in Naqada I, signs similar to hieroglyphs have been found, especially on the pottery vessels (pot marks). However "none of these signs hints at the existence of phonograms, phonetic complements or detenninatives" and "the absence of an important component of the hieroglyphic writing system does not allow us to designate these signs as "hieroglyphic writing""
[2]
. It can be rather treated as an abstract symbolic system
[3]
[1]: Köhler, E. C. "Theories of State Formation". [in:] Wendrich, W. [ed.]. Egyptian Archaeology. Chichester: Blackwell Publishing. pg: 41. [2]: Kahl, J. "Hieroglyphic Writing During the Fourth Millennium BC: an Analysis of Systems". Archeo-NiI 11 (2001); 122, 124. [3]: Meza, A. 2012. ANCIENT EGYPT BEFORE WRITING: From Markings to Hieroglyphs. Bloomington: Xlibris Corporation. pg: 25. |
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The earliest phonetic hieroglyphic writing was found in the tomb J at the Abytos Cemetary U - on the pottery vessels and small bone/ivory labels
[1]
. They are dated to Naqada IIIA. But it should be noticed that already in Naqada I, signs similar to hieroglyphs have been found, especially on the pottery vessels (pot marks). However "none of these signs hints at the existence of phonograms, phonetic complements or detenninatives" and "the absence of an important component of the hieroglyphic writing system does not allow us to designate these signs as "hieroglyphic writing""
[2]
. It can be rather treated as an abstract symbolic system
[3]
[1]: Köhler, E. C. "Theories of State Formation". [in:] Wendrich, W. [ed.]. Egyptian Archaeology. Chichester: Blackwell Publishing. pg: 41. [2]: Kahl, J. "Hieroglyphic Writing During the Fourth Millennium BC: an Analysis of Systems". Archeo-NiI 11 (2001); 122, 124. [3]: Meza, A. 2012. ANCIENT EGYPT BEFORE WRITING: From Markings to Hieroglyphs. Bloomington: Xlibris Corporation. pg: 25. |
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’There were two kinds of writing systems. Until the introduction of Christianity around 1000 CE runes were used. Very few runes are preserved and these are mostly labels or scratches that cannot be interpreted. They were probably used for the exchange of notes between people and also had some ritualistic function. The evidence is extremely patchy. From 1000 CE onward the Latin Alphabet was used. Mnemonic devices are unknown.’
[1]
[1]: Árni Daniel Júlíusson and Axel Kristissen 2017, pers. comm. to E. Brandl and D. Mullins |
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The majority of written sources used are written in Greek and Latin, and were written by people from outside the Parthian empire looking into it. The Parthian language survives on potsherds and some graffiti.
[1]
Lukonin comments, “The sources in the Parthian language consist mostly of fragmentary epigraphic material.”
[1]
[1]: Lukonin, V.G., ‘Political, Social and Administrative Institutions: Taxes and Trade’, in The Cambridge history of Iran: the Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian periods. Part 2, ed. by Ehsan Yar-Shater (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), vol. III, p.681. |
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The majority of written sources used are written in Greek and Latin, and were written by people from outside the Parthian empire looking into it. The Parthian language survives on potsherds and some graffiti.
[1]
Lukonin comments, “The sources in the Parthian language consist mostly of fragmentary epigraphic material.”
[1]
[1]: Lukonin, V.G., ‘Political, Social and Administrative Institutions: Taxes and Trade’, in The Cambridge history of Iran: the Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian periods. Part 2, ed. by Ehsan Yar-Shater (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), vol. III, p.681. |
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Mnemonic devices have not been mentioned in the sources consulted.
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The first written records in the Valley of Oaxaca are from the Rosario phase (700-500 BCE).
[1]
[2]
Written records are therefore coded as absent for this period.
[1]: Flannery, K. V. and J. Marcus (1983). "The Cloud People." New York. [2]: Marcus, J. and K. V. Flannery (1996). Zapotec civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley, Thames and Hudson London. |
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’There were two kinds of writing systems. Until the introduction of Christianity around 1000 CE runes were used. Very few runes are preserved and these are mostly labels or scratches that cannot be interpreted. They were probably used for the exchange of notes between people and also had some ritualistic function. The evidence is extremely patchy. From 1000 CE onward the Latin Alphabet was used. Mnemonic devices might be unknown for the whole period.’
[1]
[1]: Árni Daniel Júlíusson and Axel Kristissen 2017, pers. comm. to E. Brandl and D. Mullins |
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Possehl states that there was no writing before the urban phase in the Indus valley.
[1]
While seals have been found in Mehrgarh III layers, these show no evidence of script or writing.
[2]
[1]: Gregory L. Possehl. The Indus Civilization. A Contemporary Perspective. Walnut Creek, Altamira, 2002, p. 51. [2]: , C. A. (in press) Chapter 11, Case Study: Mehrgarh. In, Barker, G and Goucher, C (eds.) Cambridge World History, Volume 2: A World with Agriculture, 12,000 BCE - 500 CE. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. |
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The following may or may not be relevant: “The terracotta seals form a collection of little more than fifty examples, to which we can add a whole series of seal-impressions from a period II locus in PK.C… In the Indus valley and in the Kachi Plain, notably at Pirak (Pl. XXXV, A), they [seals found at Mehrgahr and Pirak] are replaced after 2500 BCE by inscribed seals of the Harappan civilisation, which perhaps represent a phase of state control that is exceptional in these regions. But the disappearance of the seals with geometric designs is only temporary and we see them re-appear once more as part of regional cultures, such as that of Pirak or of Jhukar, which followed upon the Harappan civilization.”
[1]
[1]: Jarrige, J-F. (1979) Fouilles de Pirak. Paris : Diffusion de Boccard. p396-7 |
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The only surviving written records about Cappadocia are from the historians writing from outside Cappadocia either at the time of the kingdom or later.
[1]
Detailed information about the written records of Cappadocia cannot, therefore, be given.
[1]: Bowder, D. (ed.) (1982) Who was Who in the Greek World, 776 BC - 30 BC. Phaidon: Oxford. p171-172, 196 |
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