The world's oldest known system of writing was influenced by symbols used for trade — engravings found on cylinders used in the exchange of farming produce and textiles, a new study suggests.

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

Researchers at the University of Bologna claim to have bridged the gap between symbolism and writing, therefore prehistory and history, in a significant study of the evolution of human thought. On ...

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. The ...

That alphabet, called Proto-Sinaitic, is based on hieroglyphic symbols repurposed as letters. The new finding suggests instead that people in farther-flung reaches of the Near East experimented ...