In 2010, archaeologist Glenn Schwartz quietly suggested that the history of writing needs, well, rewriting. More than a decade later, he still thinks he's on to something. If he's right, the world's ...

SANTA CRUZ — While a graduate student at Johns Hopkins University, UC Santa Cruz history professor Elaine Sullivan unearthed ancient artifacts in Syria marked with an alphabetic script whose meaning ...

A recent archaeological discovery could overturn our understanding of the origins of alphabetic writing. Clay cylinders, dated to 2400 BCE, bear inscriptions that might represent the earliest traces ...

Clay objects roughly the size of fingers were discovered during a dig at the ancient city of Umm el-Marra. The engraved symbols may be part of the earliest known alphabet. Credit: Glenn Schwartz / ...

The oldest known alphabetic writing has been found etched onto finger-length clay cylinders unearthed from a tomb in Syria. Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University in the US dated the writing to ...

The earliest known example of alphabetic writing has been discovered etched onto small clay cylinders in an ancient Syrian tomb, which was excavated by researchers from Maryland’s Johns Hopkins ...

AN awe-inspiring discovery of the oldest known alphabet has been found in a tomb by a group of archaeologists. The ancient writing was found on several clay cylinders, each the length of a finger, in ...

Most of the world’s languages are written alphabetically; in an alphabetic writing system the basic components represent sounds only without any reference to meaning. For example, the letter “b” in ...