Cylinders discovered in 2004 are inscribed with the earliest known examples of letters, say archaeologists Clay cylinders unearthed from a tomb in Syria and dated to 4,400 years ago are inscribed with traces of the earliest known alphabetic writing system, an analysis suggests. The tomb was discovered in Umm el-Marra near Aleppo in 2004 and contained human remains and other objects from the Early Bronze Age (2600–2150 bc). The items included four clay cylinders, each about the size of a finger, engraved with eight distinct symbols. “These inscriptions might rekindle the idea of the location of where we have the earliest alphabet,” says Chris Dobbs-Allsopp, who studies the Old Testament and Semitic languages at Princeton Theological Seminary in New Jersey. Archaeologist Gl...
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