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

The early writing appears to date to around 2400 B.C.—preceding the previous most bygone examples by roughly 500 years.

Found etched into clay cylinders in Syria, the strange symbols date to around 2400 B.C.E.—500 years before other known ...

The early human discovery dating back to 2400 BC was made by analyzing clay fragments at a 16-year-long archaeological dig in ...

For centuries, the world believed the ancient Egyptians pioneered the alphabet. Now, a groundbreaking discovery has pushed ...

Archaeological discoveries indicate that alphabetic writing dates back 500 years earlier than previously believed. What ...

Small clay cylinders from an ancient Syrian tomb have letters etched into them. The 2400-year-old tablets are the oldest ...

and the writing. "Previously, scholars thought the alphabet was invented in or around Egypt sometime after 1900 BCE," Schwartz said. "But our artifacts are older and from a different area on the map, ...

Although far from the oldest writing we have found, these cylinders are 500 years older than any previously known example of alphabetic script, if that is indeed what they carry.

Four clay cylinders inscribed with what might be the oldest known evidence of alphabetic writing are 500 years older than other early alphabets, according to new research.

At an archaeological excavation site in western Syria, Schwartz unearthed a “finger-length” clay cylinder with etched letters ...