Making the jump from using symbols to writing is considered a major development in human cognitive abilities. Tracing how and ...

It now lies in the British Museum, and researchers finally think they have decoded it. Curator Irving Finkel says that the cuneiform writing on the tablet tells of the ancient Babylonians' beliefs and ...

A new study revives the old argument that ancient seals came before cuneiform, humanity's earliest known example of writing.

Scholars consider cuneiform the first writing system, and humans used its wedge-shaped characters to inscribe ancient languages such as Sumerian on clay tablets beginning around 3400 BC.

In the dusty city states of ancient Mesopotamia, long before the advent of written language, mysterious symbols etched into ...

Researchers have uncovered links between the precursor to the world's oldest writing system and the mysterious, intricate ...

Researchers investigating how the first writing arose identified the motifs on preliterate "cylinder seals" used in the trade of agricultural products and textiles.

In the half-dark of a third-floor office, Danielle Levy lifted a clay tablet out of its box. Carefully examining it with ...

Italian researchers suggest that symbols from the oldest writing system in the world may have come directly from cylinder seal motifs.

In Mesopotamia, the birthplace of civilization, the earliest known writing system started around 3,000 BCE.

Before Mesopotamian people invented writing, they used cylinder seals to press patterns into wet clay – and some of the symbols used were carried over into proto-writing ...