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 ...

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 ...

A Johns Hopkins archaeologist recycles a 20-year-old hypothesis that small clay cylinders found in an ancient tomb reset the ...

Just outside the Syrian city of Aleppo, archaeologists have discovered what may be the oldest example of alphabetic writing ever found. Ahmad Sofi via Unsplash UPDATE: This story has been updated ...

The discovery of clay cylinders in Syria could entirely reshape the history of alphabetic writing, suggesting it may date ...

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 ...

Clay cylinders that are 4,400 years old, unearthed from a tomb in Syria, are inscribed with traces of the earliest known alphabetic writing system. The tomb, discovered in Umm el-Marra in 2004 ...

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 ...