around 3300 BCE.7 Tokens from this later era were incised with line-drawn depictions of sheep, cattle, ears of barley, and other agricultural commodities, and were often unearthed alongside (or even inside) spherical clay “envelopes” called bullae. These envelopes, Schmandt-Besserat theorized, were receipts. Ancient farmers trading their produce had been obliged to find some mutually acceptable way of recording their transactions, and, by enclosing one token per sheep, cow, or sheaf of barley within a sealed clay envelope, the subjects of such a transaction were simultaneously recorded and
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