(ancient Karum Kanesh) was one, provide detailed information about one part of a lively international trade in the early second millennium B.C. that extended from Egypt to the Caucasus to Central Asia and the Indus Valley. The Assyrian tablets describe the exchange of tin and textiles from Ashur for silver from Anatolia as well as detail the specifics of contracts and lawsuits, and about bandits and other misfortunes. The tablet contained in this case (MMA 66.245.5a) is the record of court testimony describing an ownership dispute of a business firm. The case is sealed with two different cylinder seals rolled across the front and back of the envelope in five parallel rows separated by plain clay. Both seals illustrate presentation scenes in which worshippers approach a larger seated figure holding a cup. The obverse, shown here, is also inscribed in cuneiform.� MS 4631 Bulla-envelope with 11 plain and complex tokens inside, representing an account or agreement, tentatively of wages for 4 days’ work, 4 measures of metal, 1 large measure of barley and 2 small measures of some other commodity Bulla in clay, Adab, Sumer, ca. 3700-3200 BC, 1 spherical bulla-envelope (complete), diam. ca. 6,5 cm, cylinder seal impressions of a row of men walking left; and of a predator attacking a deer, inside a complete set of plain and complex tokens: 4 tetrahedrons 0,9x1,0 cm (D.S.-B.5:1), 4 triangles with 2 incised lines 2,0x0,9 (D.S.-B.(:14), 1 sphere diam. 1,7 cm (D.S.-B.2:2), 1 cylinder with 1 grove 2,0x0,3 cm (D.S.-B.4:13), 1 bent paraboloid 1,3xdiam. 0,5 cm (D.S.-B.8:14). Context: MSS 4631-4646 and 5114-5127are from the same archive. Only 25 more bullaenvelopes are known from Sumer, all excavated in Uruk. Total number of bullaenvelopes worldwide is ca. 165 intact and 70 fragmentary. Commentary: While counting for stocktaking purposes started ca. 8000 BC using plain tokens of the type also represented here, more complex accounting and recording of agreements started about 3700 BC using 2 systems: a) a string of complex tokens with the ends locked into a massive rollsealed clay bulla (see MS 4523), and b) the present system with the tokens enclosed inside a hollow bulla-shaped rollsealed envelope, sometimes with marks on the outside representing the hidden contents. The bullaenvelope had to be broken to check the contents hence the very few surviving intact bulla- envelopes. This complicated system was superseded around 3500-3200 BC by counting tablets giving birth to the actual recording in writing, of various number systems (see MSS 3007 and 4647), and around 3300-3200 BC the beginning of pictographic writing. Gonur Tepe View of the palace complex at Gonur North. At the right, diggers shovel loosened earth from the pits to expose the ancient mud-brick walls. Margianan Archeological Expedition, was directed today by the Russian archeologist Victor Sarianidi. Dr. Sarianidi's work focused on the Late Bronze Age sites, dating to the first half of the second millennium BC, located in the ancient delta of the Murgab River, in the southeastern part of present day Turkmenistan. Gonur Tepe was the largest of dozens of scattered Bronze Age sites established here in the early second millennium. Gonur appears to have served as an
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