Word.
Researchers have discovered evidence of what they call the world’s oldest alphabet, believed to have existed in the Middle East for hundreds of years before other ancient scripts,
The earliest human discovery, dated to 2400 BC, was made by analyzing soil fragments over a 16-year archaeological dig, Syria’s Bronze Age Tell Umm-El MarraEast of Aleppo.
“Previously, scholars believed that the alphabet was invented in or around Egypt sometime after 1900 BC,” Johns Hopkins University researcher Glenn Schwartz said,
“But our artifacts are older and from a different area on the map, which suggests that the alphabet’s origin story may be completely different than we thought.”
Carbon-dated graves were found at the site, including six skeletons as well as gold and silver jewelry, cookware, weapons, and pottery. The team also discovered four clay cylinders that contained a form of alphabet print.
The clay objects – about the length of a finger – were perforated, and Schwartz believes that during their use they were tied together and operated as an ancient label.
“They might describe the contents of a ship, or maybe where the ship came from, or who it belonged to,” he said. “Without the means to translate the writings, we can only guess.”
The Syrian region is about 875 miles north of the Great Pyramids of Giza, where ancient Egyptians used hieroglyphs as a form of written communication at least 500 years later.
Around the 11th century BC in modern-day Lebanon, just south of Syria, the Phoenicians – from whom the English word “phonics” derives – are credited with creating “the prototype for all alphabets in the world”. According to UNESCO,
“And this new discovery shows that people were experimenting with new communication technologies much earlier and in different places than we ever imagined,” Schwartz said.
