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 ...

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.

However, the academic admits he 'can only speculate' exactly what the writing says. Before the alphabet, humans relied on hieroglyphics, according to Professor Schwartz, who found the cylinders in ...

Archaeologists say they have uncovered evidence of what may be the world's oldest known alphabet. The alphabetic writing system was identified on finger-length clay cylinders excavated from a tomb ...

The writing, which is dated to around 2400 BCE, precedes other known alphabetic scripts by roughly 500 years, upending what archaeologists know about where alphabets came from, how they are shared ...