AKRON, Ohio - Small clay tokens were used for bookkeeping at least 2,000 years after the advent or writing, a University of Akron professor has found.
An analysis, based on artifacts excavated over 17 summers at a site in southeastern Turkey, contradicts scientists' earlier conclusion that the tokens quickly faded from use as humans began using reeds to make inscriptions on clay tablets, the university said in a news release.
Timothy Matney, a professor of anthropology and classical studies, has directed the Ziyaret Tepe Archaeological Expedition since it began in 1997. His international team of collaborators includes researchers from England, Germany and Turkey.
A report on their finding appears in the June issue of the Cambridge Archaeological Journal.
Researchers believe that during the time of the Assyrian empire, about 900 to 600 B.C., the simple tokens, whose varying shapes represented different items, were used to account for animals or grain that farmers brought there to sell, and also perhaps for commodities such as oil and wood.
Other artifacts recovered at the site indicate that the information the tokens represented was ultimately inscribed onto cuneiform tablets. Cuneiform is the earliest form of writing, developed around 3,000 B.C.
Matney writes about his research at blogs.uakron.edu/zyaret.
This summer is the last for the expedition. Completion of the Illisu Dam on the Tigris River is expected next year and eventually Ziyaret Tepe and other ancient sites in southeastern Turkey will be covered by a lake.
Home to be renovated for new UA president: The University of Akron will spend about $375,000 to renovate the home for its new president, Scott Scarborough.
Scarborough, his wife Tammy, their six-year-old daughter and his wife's parents are expected to move in by the holidays.
Ted Curtis, UA vice president of capital planning and facilities management, told the Akron Beacon Journal that it is the first major update for the 28-year-old home since UA bought it and a neighboring lot in 1999 for $850,000 when Luis Proenza was named president.
Little had been done to the 7,600-square-foot home since then and Curtis said he found water leaking in the basement, wallpaper lifting from the walls, stones that had heaved in terraces and walkways and 1980s-era kitchen and bathroom fixtures.
Renovation costs will be covered by money in a house fund and from the UA Foundation.
Scarborough and his family will live in a rented home until their home is completed, the university said.
Donations exceed $400 million at Ohio State: Ohio State University received $404 million in donations in the year ending June 30 from a record 233,185 donors, the university said Monday.
Nearly $70 million was contributed by 73,737 OSU alumni.
The "But for Ohio State" campaign raised 8 percent more than the previous year's fundraising of $374 million.