Mesopotamian Brand Names
Brand names 'as old as civilisation itself'
The urge to brand products with images of macho men and curvaceous women is as old as civilisation itself, according to a new analysis.
Bottle stops used five millennia ago in ancient Mesopotamia (today's Iraq), the birthplace of cities and writing, carried symbols that marked them out as the earliest evidence of branded goods.
A London based archaeologist believes that they were promotional logos, along the lines of those used by Microsoft and Nike.
Modern ad executives would be pleased to learn that such images have long been regarded as works of art by historians but he believes their use was much more practical.
In this case, the logos are ancient equivalents of Coke and Pepsi labels, or the royal warrant used by the likes of Burberry, according to Dr David Wengrow at University College London, reports New Scientist. "They project images of masculinity and femininity too," he tells the Telegraph.
Some, possibly from wines, show warriors involved in violent acts, perhaps appealing to a more macho or laddish individual of the kind targetted today by Lynx commercials. "You get some designs that show people in the act of drinking or eating," says Dr Wengrow. "They show people, gods, animals, even monsters doing all kinds of things together, including drinking beer through a straw, making textiles, but also killing each other too."
The first origins of branding date back to around 8000 years ago, when Mesopotamian villagers began making personalised stone seals, which they pressed into the clay caps and stoppers they used to seal food and drink. These marked commodities would have been traded directly with neighbours and travellers.
But they turned into brands when urbanisation began in Mesopotamia - a little over 5000 years ago - when traders encountered more strangers and city residents increasingly had to deal with products of uncertain origin. Not by coincidence, this was also the time when alcoholic beverages, textiles and dairy products began to be mass produced.
And that is when Mesopotamians turned symbols into logos, Dr Wengrow says in the journal Current Anthropology. In this way, the caps and stoppers came to play a key role in telling people about the quality and origins of oils, wine and other products.
When a traveller saw a familiar logo, that provided him with key reassurance about the provenance and the quality of what he was buying.
Many stoppers have been found in the ancient city of Uruk, now in southern Iraq, where some 20,000 people lived 5000 years ago. The symbols impressed on their surfaces are the first images in human history to be mechanically mass produced, says Dr Wengrow, referring to how the logo was shaped on a piece of stone pushed into wet clay in "urban temple-factories."
Furthermore, it is now becoming possible to do increasingly clever chemical analyses to reveal the contents of jars found by archaeologists.
The magazine is told by Prof Mitchell Rothman of Widener University, Chester, Pennsylvania: "I think Wengrow is onto something."
By Roger Highfield, Science Editor
Last Updated: 6:01pm BST 23/04/2008
The urge to brand products with images of macho men and curvaceous women is as old as civilisation itself, according to a new analysis.
Bottle stops used five millennia ago in ancient Mesopotamia (today's Iraq), the birthplace of cities and writing, carried symbols that marked them out as the earliest evidence of branded goods.
A London based archaeologist believes that they were promotional logos, along the lines of those used by Microsoft and Nike.
Modern ad executives would be pleased to learn that such images have long been regarded as works of art by historians but he believes their use was much more practical.
In this case, the logos are ancient equivalents of Coke and Pepsi labels, or the royal warrant used by the likes of Burberry, according to Dr David Wengrow at University College London, reports New Scientist. "They project images of masculinity and femininity too," he tells the Telegraph.
Some, possibly from wines, show warriors involved in violent acts, perhaps appealing to a more macho or laddish individual of the kind targetted today by Lynx commercials. "You get some designs that show people in the act of drinking or eating," says Dr Wengrow. "They show people, gods, animals, even monsters doing all kinds of things together, including drinking beer through a straw, making textiles, but also killing each other too."
The first origins of branding date back to around 8000 years ago, when Mesopotamian villagers began making personalised stone seals, which they pressed into the clay caps and stoppers they used to seal food and drink. These marked commodities would have been traded directly with neighbours and travellers.
But they turned into brands when urbanisation began in Mesopotamia - a little over 5000 years ago - when traders encountered more strangers and city residents increasingly had to deal with products of uncertain origin. Not by coincidence, this was also the time when alcoholic beverages, textiles and dairy products began to be mass produced.
And that is when Mesopotamians turned symbols into logos, Dr Wengrow says in the journal Current Anthropology. In this way, the caps and stoppers came to play a key role in telling people about the quality and origins of oils, wine and other products.
When a traveller saw a familiar logo, that provided him with key reassurance about the provenance and the quality of what he was buying.
Many stoppers have been found in the ancient city of Uruk, now in southern Iraq, where some 20,000 people lived 5000 years ago. The symbols impressed on their surfaces are the first images in human history to be mechanically mass produced, says Dr Wengrow, referring to how the logo was shaped on a piece of stone pushed into wet clay in "urban temple-factories."
Furthermore, it is now becoming possible to do increasingly clever chemical analyses to reveal the contents of jars found by archaeologists.
The magazine is told by Prof Mitchell Rothman of Widener University, Chester, Pennsylvania: "I think Wengrow is onto something."
By Roger Highfield, Science Editor
Last Updated: 6:01pm BST 23/04/2008