World's oldest known alphabet: 4,400-year-old discovery in Syria rewrites history

The clay cylinders were excavated from a tomb at Tell Umm-el Marra, an ancient urban center in western Syria.

In Short

• This discovery is dated to around 2400 BC
• It predates previously known alphabetic scripts by approximately 500 years
• The tomb dates back to the Early Bronze Age

In a remarkable archaeological breakthrough, researchers from Johns Hopkins University have uncovered what appears to be the oldest known alphabetic writing, etched onto clay cylinders found in a tomb in Syria.

This discovery, dated to around 2400 BCE, predates previously known alphabetic scripts by approximately 500 years, challenging existing theories about the origins and dissemination of alphabetic writing.

The clay cylinders were excavated from a tomb at Tell Umm-el Marra, an ancient urban center in western Syria.

The site has been the focus of a 16-year-long excavation led by Professor Glenn Schwartz, a Near Eastern archaeologist from Johns Hopkins University, in collaboration with the University of Amsterdam.

The tomb, dating back to the Early Bronze Age, also contained six skeletons, gold and silver jewelry, cookware, a spearhead, and intact pottery vessels.

The writing on these finger-length cylinders suggests that early civilisations were experimenting with new forms of communication much earlier than previously thought.

"Alphabets revolutionised writing by making it accessible to people beyond royalty and the socially elite," said Schwartz. "This discovery shows that people were experimenting with new communication technologies much earlier and in a different location than we had imagined before now."

The cylinders feature perforations, leading researchers to speculate that they might have been used as labels, possibly indicating the contents or origin of vessels found nearby. However, without a means to translate the writing, these interpretations remain speculative.

Carbon-14 dating techniques have confirmed the age of the tombs and artifacts, placing them significantly earlier than other known alphabetic scripts.

This finding suggests that the alphabet may have originated in a different region than previously believed. "Previously, scholars thought the alphabet was invented in or around Egypt sometime after 1900 BCE," Schwartz explained. "But our artifacts are older and from a different area on the map, suggesting the alphabet may have an entirely different origin story than we thought."

Schwartz presented these groundbreaking findings at the American Society of Overseas Research's Annual Meeting on November 21.

This discovery not only reshapes our understanding of early writing systems but also provides new insights into the cultural and technological advancements of ancient societies.