The Alphabet Song

Two decades ago, a tomb was discovered in Tell Umm el-Marra near Aleppo, Syria, containing human remains and other objects from the Early Bronze Age (2600–2150 BCE), including four clay cylinders.

Recently, researchers from Johns Hopkins University who were examining the cylinders, each about the size of a finger and engraved with eight distinct symbols, realized the symbols could represent the world’s oldest-known written alphabet.

That discovery is turning what scholars and linguists had thought they knew about the origins of the alphabet on its head.

“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,” said lead archeologist Glenn Schwartz in a statement.

Schwartz and his team dated the cylinders to around 2400 BCE, predating previously known alphabetic scripts by 500 years. One cylinder bears the word “silanu,” which could be a name, possibly identifying the owner or sender of goods found in the tomb.

The researchers believe the perforated cylinders may have served as labels, tied to objects with string.

They said that earlier writing systems, such as Egyptian hieroglyphs or Mesopotamian cuneiform, relied on hundreds of symbols. But an alphabet system breaks words into sounds using fewer characters.

“Alphabetic writing changed the way people lived, how they thought, how they communicated,” Schwartz said.

Scholars previously thought that the first alphabet appeared around 1900 BCE by populations speaking a Semitic language on the Sinai Peninsula in modern-day Egypt. Known as Proto-Sinaitic, the alphabet was based on hieroglyphic symbols repurposed as letters, according to Scientific American.

But the recent discovery in Syria suggests an earlier and more widespread development.

Even so, some researchers remain skeptical.

“When you only have a few very short inscriptions, it can be difficult to tell how many signs the system has,” Philippa Steele of the University of Cambridge told Scientific American. “I think we have to hope for more finds.”

Others feel more confident.

“It’s an alphabet. It’s easy-peasy,” Silvia Ferrara, a professor of early languages at the University of Bologna in Italy, said.

The findings also underscore the influence of ancient trade networks that played a role in spreading writing systems.

“It’s not that surprising, knowing how far and wide these things traveled,” Ferrara added.