By Youssef Kanjou
Four incised clay tablets, each about four centimetres in size, could be the oldest alphabetic writing in the world to date. They are about 4400 years old and were discovered at Tell Um al-Marra, east of Aleppo, Syria. This makes them 500 years older than the oldest known evidence of an alphabet. Dr Glenn Schwartz of Johns Hopkins University, USA, presented these results at the American Archaeological Society (AAS) conference in November 2024.
Linguistic signs were found on four small forms made of dried clay that contained a small hole that may have been used to attach them to something. They appear to have been placed on clay vessels to indicate the origin of the vessel or the owner of the vessel. The finds were discovered in 2004 in the enclosures of Tomb No. 4 at Tell Um al-Marra, east of Aleppo in Syria. The tomb contains six skeletons, most likely members of a wealthy family or the rulers of the city. The tomb was then carbon dated to 2400 BC. Glenn Schwartz told tuenews INTERNATIONAL: ‘Umm el-Marra is the largest Bronze Age site in the Jabbul plain between Aleppo and the Euphrates valley. The tombs clearly belonged to wealthy and probably powerful people, possibly the local rulers. It is likely that Umm el-Marra was the capital of a small kingdom.’ Tell Umm al-Marra is the largest archaeological site in eastern Aleppo, covering an area of about 20 hectares. It dates from the Bronze Age and is characterised by its walls and gates, traces of which are still visible today.
According to Schwartz, at least one word was recognised when the characters were deciphered: the word ‘Silanu’, which he believes could be a name: Silanu could have been the sender or recipient of the grave goods, and the clay cylinder could have been attached to a vessel like a gift card.
Archaeologists and palaeolinguists have been studying the signs since 2021 and now agree that the Syrian find is 500 years older than the previously known alphabetic writings: namely the Sinai alphabet, which developed from the Egyptian hieroglyphic script and originated on the Sinai Peninsula in the nineteenth century BC, and the Ugaritic alphabet, which developed from cuneiform writing and was discovered in the city of Ugarit on the Syrian coast. ‘All of this suggests that the alphabet may have a very different origin than we previously thought,’ explains Glenn Schwartz.
Further information:
Ältestes Alphabet der Welt entdeckt? – Tonscherbe aus Syrien trägt 4.400 Jahre alte potenziell alphabetische Schriftzeichen – scinexx.de
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Clay cylinder with writing found in a tomb at the archaeological site of Tell Umm-el Marra in Syria. These artefacts may represent the oldest known alphabetic writing system in the world. They are now in the Aleppo Museum. Photos: Glenn Schwartz, Johns Hopkins University.
