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Abstract

As Vilem Flusser had noted in "Die Schrift" p. 14-17, the origin of writing in Mesopotamia has many sexual connotations. Perhaps the more protestant-puritan mercantile theory of the origin of writing as described by Schmandt-Besserat will have to be palimpsested. The furrowing of the soft clay can be viewed as a symbol of the sex act, and the technique used gives more food for thought: the marks made by the stylus bear striking resemblance to the original glyph denoting the Sumerian character for "woman", the form of the vulva. When we trace the connotations of the word "cuneiform" denoting this script form, we find more interesting connections in the Greek words goono- , gono- , and gyne- between sexual terms and angular forms, similar again to the sumerian concept. This resurfaces in the similarity of the latin words cuneus and cunnus and the modern english conus and the vulgar cunt. Many characters of the semitic aleph-bayt system have sexual connections. If we re-extend the history of symbolization further into neolithic and paleolithic times, we will have many more occasions to find ancient symbolisms on "sex and the meaning of life". Most remarkable here are the symbols found by Mellaart in Chatal Hüyük and those of the ancient Vinca culture of the Balkans.


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