Cuneiform, considered to be the oldest known writing system, was developed by the Sumerians of Mesopotamia (an ancient region centered on modern-day Iraq) more than 5,000 years ago.

In the fifth season of excavations at Tel Beth-Shemesh (Ain Shams, present-day Israel) in 1933, a fractured tablet with a cuneiform inscription dating to the Late Bronze Age was found. This find, ...

Researchers may have deciphered the oldest known scrap of alphabetic writing yet discovered, and it may be a nearly 4,500-year-old gift tag. A clay cylinder found in a tomb holding six skeletons ...

Archaeologists Say These Mysterious Markings Could Be the World’s Oldest Known Alphabetic Writing Found etched into clay cylinders in Syria, the strange symbols date to around 2400 B.C.E.—500 ...

After cuneiform was replaced by alphabetic writing sometime after the first century A.D., the hundreds of thousands of clay tablets and other inscribed objects went unread for nearly 2,000 years.

Archaeologist Glenn Schwartz unearthed four ancient clay fragments in northern Syria bearing inscriptions that may be the earliest known alphabetic writings. This cylinder could be inscribed with ...

This is a Sumerian cuneiform clay tablet from the Ur III period, c.2100 B.C. This was the heyday of the Sumerian civilisation which occupied much of modern day Iraq.

Early forms, such as hieroglyphics or cuneiform, were complex, representing words or concepts through numerous symbols. However, the alphabet, which breaks words into distinct sounds, allowed for ...

Cuneiform, considered to be the oldest known writing system, was developed by the Sumerians of Mesopotamia (an ancient region centered on modern-day Iraq) more than 5,000 years ago.