The Epic of Gilgamesh, known as the oldest story in history, is thought to have been written in the early 2nd millennium BC, with the original being even older, in the 4th millennium BC. Journalist ...

1. The Sumerian Account of the Invention of Writing -- 2. Time and Place of the Invention -- 3. Received Ideas: The Pictographic Origins of Cuneiform Writing -- 4. Received Ideas: The Origin of ...

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, ...

Berossus, a Babylonian priest writing during the Hellenistic period, preserved one of the most famous accounts of Mesopotamian history through his writings on ancient kings and dynasties. Among the ...

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 ...

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 ...

Carved in the limestone of a desert cliff in Egypt is a 5,250-year-old tableau of a victorious ruler, perhaps the so-called King Scorpion -- whose exploits, previously the stuff of myth and legend, ...

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, ...