The origins of writing in ancient Mesopotamia and beyond may rest on a group of cylindrical seals. A team of archeologists from the University of Bologna in Italy has identified a series of ...

Co-authors Kathryn Kelley and Mattia Cartolano from the University of Bologna's Department of Classical Philology and Italian Studies studied seal imagery from before the invention of writing. A ...

During the millennia in which cuneiform script was used, Mesopotamia saw city-states jockey for resources, empires grow and dissipate, and seemingly countless kings made and unmade on the battlefield.

For centuries, scholars have puzzled over the origins of the world’s first writing system. Now, a study by Italian researchers reveals that some of these earliest proto-cuneiform signs may have ...