Dr. Irving Finkel

They have to add up because in the structure of the organization, whoever wrote that tablet knew that somebody higher up the pecking order was going to look at this tablet and make sure it was right.

So accountability is definitely intrinsic to the whole structure.

And this is what happened.

The primary one was used for beer, because beer is a very important thing in the history of the world.

It appears on stage at the very earliest moment and never goes away.

So the sign for beer, which...

In Sumerian, it's pronounced cash.

This is the word for beer.

If you go into a pub now, well, I was going to say you have to give the cash to get the beer because they don't take cash anymore anyway.

So the whole thing is redundant.

But in principle, this tells you a lot about the script.

So for example, everybody I think will agree with this matter.

that when the script was in its nascent phases, in its early phases, and somebody had this idea and a couple of other people said, this is brilliant.

And then someone said, okay, let's do it.

And then they say, well, we've got to have a sign for this, this, this, this, this, this, this.

And then they gradually do.

And there are pictographic recognizable things.

As they do that,

you have the situation that you have to have a sign for beer.

So they do a jug of a type which has a pointy bottom, which I think you can, if the ground is, floor ring is soft, can be made to stand upright.