Delve into the world's earliest writing systems, exploring diverse origins beyond cuneiform. Uncover how ancient ...

The ancient Sumerians developed this writing system more than 5,000 years ago. Tens of thousands of cuneiform tablets still await translation. It’s not a language. It’s not an alphabet, either, ...

Explore the Sumerian innovations that birthed civilization! Discover their groundbreaking contributions to law, writing, and ...

CHICAGO One of the stars of the Oriental Institute’s new show, “Visible Language: Inventions of Writing in the Ancient Middle East and Beyond,” is a clay tablet that dates from around 3200 B.C. On it, ...

When people living in southern Mesopotamia (now southern Iraq) toward the end of the 4th millennium BC created documents by inscribing cuneiform characters on clay tablets, they took the first step in ...

The world’s oldest known writing system may have had its origins in the imagery on decorated cylinders used to denote ownership or record transactions. Some of the symbols on these cylinder seals ...

Tablets from some of the world’s oldest civilisations hold rich details about life thousands of years ago, but few people today can read them. New technology is helping to unlock them. Broken and ...