Dated to around 2400 BCE, the writing precedes other known alphabetic scripts by roughly 500 years, according to Johns Hopkins University’s Professor Glenn Schwartz.
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The 4,400-year-old clay object discovered at the ancient city of Umm el-Marra, Syria; the engraved symbols may be part of the earliest known alphabet. Image credit: Glenn Schwartz, Johns Hopkins University.
“Alphabets revolutionized writing by making it accessible to people beyond royalty and the socially elite. Alphabetic writing changed the way people lived, how they thought, how they communicated,” Professor Schwartz said.
“And this new discovery shows that people were experimenting with new communication technologies much earlier and in a different location than we had imagined before now.”
The alphabetic writing is etched onto finger-length, clay cylinders excavated at Tell Umm-el Marra, one of the first medium-size urban centers that popped up in western Syria.
At Umm-el Marra, the archaeologists uncovered tombs dating back to the Early Bronze Age.
One of the best-preserved tombs contained six skeletons, gold and silver jewelry, cookware, a spearhead, and intact pottery vessels.
Next to the pottery, the researchers found four lightly baked clay cylinders with what seems to be alphabetic writing on them.
The 4,400-year-old clay object discovered at the ancient city of Umm el-Marra, Syria. Image credit: Glenn Schwartz, Johns Hopkins University.
“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.”
“Without a means to translate the writing, we can only speculate.”
Using carbon-14 dating techniques, the scientists confirmed the ages of the tombs, the artifacts, and the writing.
“Previously, scholars thought the alphabet was invented in or around Egypt sometime after 1900 BCE,” 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.”
Professor Schwartz presented the findings today at the 2024 American Society of Overseas Research (ASOR 2024) annual meeting.
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Glenn M. Schwartz. The Case for Early Alphabetic Writing from Umm el-Marra, Syria, ca. 24th Century BCE. ASOR 2024
