For decades, it’s been a common belief that the Ancient Egyptians were responsible for the very first alphabet.
Now, a shocking finding challenges this assumption, pushing back the age of the first known alphabetic writing by about 500 years.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland say small cylinders made out of clay have the oldest known alphabetic text engraved on them.
The finger-length cylinders were found at Tell Umm-el Marra, a former city located in today’s northwestern Syria, once a bustling crossroads for two trade routes.
Carbon dating techniques reveal that the objects date back 4,400 years to 2400 BC – preceding any other known alphabetic scripts by roughly 500 years.
The cylinders may have been labels for something – perhaps drinking vessels containing wine that were due to be transported.
The writing could denote names or descriptions of property, according to Glenn Schwartz, a professor of archaeology at Johns Hopkins University.
However, the academic admits he ‘can only speculate’ exactly what the writing says.
Clay objects roughly the size of fingers were discovered during a dig at the ancient city of Umm el-Marra. The engraved symbols may be part of the earliest known alphabet
Before the alphabet, humans relied on hieroglyphics, according to Professor Schwartz, who found the cylinders in 2004.
‘Alphabetic writing changed the way people lived, how they thought, how they communicated,’ he said.
‘This new discovery shows people were experimenting with new communication technologies much earlier and in a different location than we had imagined.’
With colleagues from the University of Amsterdam, the professor co-directed a 16-year-long archaeological dig at Tell Umm-el Marra, one of the ancient Near East’s oldest cities, located on a crossroads of two trade routes.
At Umm-el Marra, the archaeologists uncovered tombs dating back to the Early Bronze Age – a period stretching from about 3500 to 2000 BC.
One of the best-preserved tombs contained six skeletons, gold and silver jewelry, cookware, a spearhead and intact pottery vessels.
Next to the pottery was four of the ‘lightly baked’ clay cylinders or tubes with what seemed to be alphabetic writing on top.
Now, the researchers have used carbon-14 dating, a scientific method that can accurately determine the age of organic materials as old as 60,000 years.
Using carbon-14 dating techniques, the researchers confirmed the ages of the clay cylinders – around 2400 BC, or about 4400 years ago
What is Tell Umm-el Marra?
Tell Umm-el Marra is a former city located in today’s northwestern Syria.
Umm el-Marra was founded around 2700 BC, in the earlier part of the Early Bronze Age.
It’s one of the ancient Near East’s oldest cities, located on a crossroads of two trade routes.
The rate of decay of carbon-14, a carbon isotope, is constant and easily measured, making it ideal for providing age estimates for anything over 300 years old.
The technique confirmed the ages of the tombs, the artifacts, and the writing, which pre-dates other alphabetic scripts by half a century.
‘Previously, scholars thought the alphabet was invented in or around Egypt sometime after 1900 BC,’ Professor Schwartz said.
‘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.’
As for the nature of the cylinders, the academic thinks they may have been early and more primitive versions of today’s labels.
He suspects they might have been strung on the vessels to identify something about them, whether their contents, their owner, or their origin or destination.
‘The cylinders were perforated, so I’m imagining a string tethering them to another object to act as a label,’ Professor Schwartz said.
‘Maybe they detail the contents of a vessel, or maybe where the vessel came from, or who it belonged to.
At Umm-el Marra, the archaeologists uncovered tombs dating back to the Early Bronze Age – a period stretching from about 3500 to 2000 BC. One of the best-preserved tombs contained six skeletons, gold and silver jewelry, cookware, a spearhead, and intact pottery vessels
‘Without a means to translate the writing, we can only speculate.’
The generally accepted theory regarding the origin of the alphabet dates back to a group of illiterate ancient Egyptian miners in 1900 BC.
Inspired by the hieroglyphs they saw around them, the immigrant labourers forged letters for their own Semitic language based on the Egyptian glyphs’ shapes.
It eventually spread to the Levant – the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia – around 1300 BC.
From there, it began to spread around the Mediterranean, eventually developing into the Greek and Latin alphabets.
Prior to any alphabet, the earlier systems of writing such as hieroglyphs were ‘extremely difficult to learn’, according to Professor Schwartz.
‘There were thousands of symbols used in very complicated ways, which meant that only a very small group of people could ever learn how to write or read,’ he said.
‘With the invention of the alphabet, it meant that a much larger number of people could, in theory, learn how to read and write – and so it ultimately led to the democratization of writing.
In 2006, Egyptologist Orly Goldwasser argued that symbols (pictured) on artefacts unearthed from a temple in the Sinai in 1905 are prototypes of the letters that we use to write today
‘And of course it is the system that all Western European writing systems used because Greeks, who borrowed the Semitic alphabetic system, then used it to write their own language.’
Professor Schwartz has long publicized the discovery of the cylinders, which were found in one of the site’s Early Bronze Age layers.
But the carbon dating offers more conclusive proof that alphabetic writing began 500 years earlier than believed.
Professor Schwartz will share details of his discovery on Thursday (November 21) at the American Society of Overseas Research’s Annual Meeting at Hilton Boston Park Plaza, Massachusetts.
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