Ancient Egypt and Sumer (contemporaries of Egypt.  Also the  inventors of writing  as noted in my previous  article in the Manhasset Times) also invented a method of guaranteeing the contents of a delivery.

It is to be remembered  that  in those days  the ability to  read and write  was limited to a very few highly trained scribes so the writing option did not  exist for the average man.   

Here is an example  of how the Sumerians guaranteed a  delivery. 

Suppose someone wanted to  send 10 sheep ands three bushels of wheat to a friend who lived far away. He would hire  a man to deliver it. 

But how  is the recipient or  sender to know whether the delivery man was honest. How would anyone know  that something was missing?

First the government made and stocked  standardized  little round balls of clay and impressed  a symbol each  one. Then baked them. 

There were symbols for many items, including for this  example, sheep and  a bushel of wheat.

So  the shipper would, in  this case, obtain 10 sheep tokens  and three  wheat tokens. These would be placed inside a clay sphere and baked hard.

When the delivery man delivered the items the recipient would then break open the sphere and match  the  tokens to the actual items. 

For security one more step is necessary in the preparation  of the envelope. Where we  use  our signature for identification the Sumerians would impress their personal seal on  the sphere. This before  it was baked. So now the recipient knew from whom the letter originated.

The Sumerian  system was, in many ways, even more secure  than our letter (or even registered letter) system.Today a competent crook  can among other devious tricks, steam open a letter! 

However for  the Sumerian crook duplicating the impressed seal would be as difficult as trying to duplicate a signature. 

Theodore Theodorsen

Manhasset