Experts told Live Science it was probably the proto-Sinaitic script, which was invented about 4,000 years ago by Canaanite workers at an Egyptian turquoise mine in the Sinai region. The proto ...

A finger-sized clay cylinder from a tomb in northern Syria appears to be the oldest example of writing using an alphabet rather than hieroglyphs or cuneiform ...

While cuneiform is considered the world’s oldest writing system, having emerged before 3400 BCE in Mesopotamia, it is neither an alphabet nor a language but rather a set of characters denoting ...

While earlier writing systems had already emerged before 2400 B.C.—such as cuneiform, for example—these did not make use of an alphabet. Cuneiform, considered to be the oldest known writing ...

Cuneiform, the oldest identified writing system, defied deciphering – until 1857. What happened then makes a terrific read, in Joshua Hammer's The Mesopotamian Riddle ...

The cuneiform tablets that have been discovered over the years contain a wealth of information about ancient Iraq, from religious texts and myths to trade records and personal letters. Many of these ...

Before the invention of alphabets, literacy was the purview of Egyptian and Mesopotamian scribes trained in complex writing systems that could take years to master. Proto-Sinaitic script, which ...

A trilingual inscription discovered at Bisitun Pass in Iran was an early key to deciphering cuneiform script. The World's Oldest Writing May/June 2016 Letters ...

The finding reinforces an idea proposed in earlier research: that cuneiform script — which was developed in early Mesopotamia around 3100 B.C. and is thought to be the earliest writing system ...