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.

According to the researchers, several symbols engraved on stone "cylinder seals" were developed into signs used in "proto-cuneiform," an early version of the cuneiform script used in southern ...

A recent study published in the journal Antiquity unveiled a significant link between ancient trade symbols and the development of cuneiform writing in Mesopotamia. Researchers from the University ...

A cylinder seal (left) engraved with symbols that was used to press markings into wet clay (right) Franck Raux © 2001 GrandPalaisRmn (Musée du Louvre) While ...

These connections not only shed light on the first invention of writing, but could also help decipher additional proto-cuneiform symbols, more than half of which are still a mystery to scholars.

they saw correlations and found a link between the use of this cylinder seal system of communication and the eventual invention of writing. For example, a proto-cuneiform symbol designated as ...

Some of the symbols on these cylinder seals correspond to those used in proto-cuneiform, a form of proto-writing used in Mesopotamia. The finding indicates that the invention of writing in ...

“The morphology of the letters on the cylinder seals parallels quite nicely that of the existing corpus of early alphabetic writing,” adds Christopher Rollston, a professor of biblical and ...