When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. An alphabetic inscription written on a jar fragment found at the site of Tel Lachish in Israel ...

A, B, C, D, E, F, G—makes you want to hum the alphabet song. But there’s no real reason why people should learn these letters in this order. There are plenty of ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. A, B, C, D, E, F, G – makes you want to hum the alphabet song. But there’s no real reason ...

What is the history of writing? "The origins of writing can be traced back to the early pottery phase of the Neolithic period, when clay tokens were used to record specific quantities of livestock or ...

Between 1994 and 2010, American and Dutch archaeologists excavated an Early Bronze Age site east of Aleppo, Syria. In a well-preserved tomb, they found skeletons, gold and silver jewelry, cookware, a ...

In late December I recommended one of my favorite recent books off my reading list – recent in this case meaning when I read them, not necessarily when they were published. That was Empires of the ...

In 2010, archaeologist Glenn Schwartz quietly suggested that the history of writing needs, well, rewriting. More than a decade later, he still thinks he's on to something. If he's right, the world's ...

The early history of the alphabet may require rewriting. Four clay artefacts found at an ancient site in Syria are incised with what is potentially the earliest alphabetic writing ever found. The ...