ABSTRACT
The famous book title History Begins at Sumer that S. N. Kramer gave to a popular account of Mesopotamian ‘firsts’ in the history of humankind (first printing 1958) is in itself not without problems. Although the divide between history and prehistory is commonly marked by the invention of writing, the very earliest texts from Mesopotamia, when they can be read, offer only a small glimpse into archaic Mesopotamia, and moreover, only into the socio-economic history rather than chronology or a history of events. Additionally, the writing system of these earliest texts, which is referred to as either archaic or ‘proto-cuneiform,’ is still poorly understood, in spite of giant steps towards its decipherment (Englund 1998).
