According to the passage, the primary impetus for developing early written records in Sumer was:
The birth of writing in fourth-millennium BCE southern Mesopotamia arose not from artistic impulses, but out of pressing economic necessity. In the burgeoning city-states of Sumer, such as Uruk, rapid urbanization and centralized religious temple economies generated administrative logistics too intricate for human memory alone. Priests and overseers required infallible records of agricultural yields, surplus grain silos, livestock inventories, and trade contracts. Initial mnemonic devices comprised three-dimensional clay tokens of varied geometric shapes representing commodities. By approximately 3200 BCE, temple scribes transitioned to impressing standardized two-dimensional pictographs onto damp clay tablets using sharpened reeds. Over subsequent centuries, scribes simplified these pictorial curves into stylized wedge-shaped impressions, yielding cuneiform. This technical transition enabled administrators to communicate abstract fiscal concepts, legal statutes, and tax obligations, consolidating institutional authority across Mesopotamian society.
Answer and explanation
Correct answer: C. The logistical demands of managing complex municipal economies and trade surplus.
- Step 1: Locate the primary historical motive for the invention of writing outlined in the first two sentences.
- Step 2: The author explains that writing arose "not from poetic expression or religious epiphany, but from pressing economic necessity" to administer agricultural surplus, redistributive economies, and expanding municipal transactions.
Answer
The logistical demands of managing complex municipal economies and trade surplus.
Practise more Academic Reading: Social Sciences & Humanities.
Free questions with an explanation for every one, and full timed TOEFL mock tests.
More Academic Reading: Social Sciences & Humanities questions
- The word burgeoning in the passage is closest in meaning to:
- Prior to two-dimensional impressions on clay tablets, Sumerian accountants recorded commodities using:
- The word infallible in the passage is closest in meaning to:
- Why does the author mention 'stylized wedge-shaped impressions'?
- It can be inferred from the passage that the transition to cuneiform script:
- According to the passage, mobile hunter-gatherer groups were typically characterized by: