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

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

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

Ancient cylinder seals in Mesopotamia shaped the development of proto-cuneiform writing in Uruk around 3000 BCE, linking prehistoric imagery to the inception of written communication. Researchers from ...

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“It is a complicated, and arguably gradual, phenomenon and it is difficult to set a zero point in time in which the invention took place.” In Between Symbols and Language For this study, researchers ...

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 ...

"The invention of writing marks the transition ... Among the first cities to emerge in Mesopotamia, Uruk was an immensely important centre throughout the fourth millennium BCE, exerting influence ...

"There's been this longstanding reconstruction of how writing appeared in Mesopotamia, which is arguably the earliest invention of writing in the world. We're retracing the trajectory in a way ...

[Related: Ancient Mesopotamian texts show when and why humans first kissed.] “The invention of writing marks the transition between prehistory and history, and the findings of this study bridge ...

"The invention of writing marks the transition ... Among the first cities to emerge in Mesopotamia, Uruk was an immensely important center throughout the fourth millennium BCE, exerting influence ...