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 ...

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, ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

But cuneiform writing fell out of use about 2,000 years ago in favour of alphabetic scripts. ... And cuneiform has even seen something of a revival in modern-day Iraqi visual culture.

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.

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.