At a calligraphy class in Hanoi, Hoang Thi Thanh Huyen slides her brush across the page to form the letters and tonal marks ...

Paper’s invention was a revolutionary breakthrough. Following the invention of paper in 105 CE, forms of communication, learning, and record-keeping were drastically simplified. We track its rich ...

Yet, in English, this monumental writing system remains shackled to an inadequate term: “Chinese characters.” Unlike cuneiform (“wedge-shaped”) or hieroglyphics (“sacred carvings”) — names that evoke ...

Orpiment not only provided an attractive golden color, but also improved the mechanical properties of the wax, making it less sticky and more suitable for engraving cuneiform characters. Five ...

Cuneiform, one of the oldest writing systems, consists of more than 1,000 characters that vary widely by location, age, and culture. Maybe this local variability was just as intelligible to the ...

This approach allowed communication across different languages. For example, the Proto-Cuneiform script, Linear A script and Cretan Hieroglyphs mainly used ideograms (meaning symbols) and logograms ...

The symbols did not resemble Mesopotamian cuneiform or Egyptian hieroglyphs, the main writing systems used in the Near East during the Early Bronze Age. Schwartz did, however, note that several of ...

but an even older precursor existed in the cuneiform script of Mesopotamia. Neither hieroglyphics nor cuneiform were alphabets in the modern sense, relying instead on symbols and syllables. The first ...

A clay tablet with proto-cuneiform writing. Image credits: Jim Kuhn/Wikimedia Commons. The Mesopotamians didn’t write full text as we do today. They used symbols and markings with a stylus ...

Around 2900 BC, these characters were impressed onto wet clay using a reed stylus, creating wedge-shaped marks now known as cuneiform. This innovative writing method marked a significant advancement ...