World's oldest alphabet found in Syria: 4400-year-old text overturns everything we knew about the origins of writing

In Tell Umm-el Marra, a former city located in northwestern modern Syria that was once a busy crossroads of two trade routes, an ancient text that is 4400 years old was found. It was found in a tomb on small cylinders made of clay.

Previously, it was believed that the ancient Egyptians were responsible for the creation of the writing system. Now, a shocking discovery casts doubt on this assumption, pushing back the age of the first known alphabetic writing by about 500 years, MailOnline reports.

Researchers from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, USA, say that the oldest known alphabetic text is engraved on these small cylinders made of clay. Carbon dating methods show that the objects were created between 4400 and 2400 BC – about 500 years earlier than any other known alphabets.

According to Glenn Schwartz, a professor of archaeology at Johns Hopkins University, the inscription may refer to names or descriptions of property. However, the scientist admits that he can only speculate on what the text says.

"This new discovery shows that people were experimenting with new communication technologies much earlier and in a different place than we had imagined," he said.

Together with colleagues from the University of Amsterdam, the professor led a 16-year archaeological excavation in Tell Umm-el Marra, one of the oldest cities in the Middle East, located at the crossroads of two trade routes. They found tombs from the Early Bronze Age, a period covering approximately 3500-2000 BC.

One of the best-preserved tombs contained six skeletons, gold and silver jewelry, cooking utensils, a spearhead, and intact pottery vessels.

The researchers now used carbon-14 dating, a scientific method that can accurately determine the age of organic materials. The decay rate of carbon-14, an isotope of carbon, is constant and easy to measure, making it ideal for estimating the age of anything over 300 years old.

The technique has confirmed the age of the tombs, artifacts, and writing, which predates other alphabetic scripts by half a century.

"Previously, scientists believed that the alphabet was invented in or around Egypt sometime after 1900 BC. But our artifacts are older and come from a different area on the map, which suggests that the history of the alphabet's origin may be completely different than we thought," Professor Schwartz said.

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