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Older than the ABCs: Ancient alphabet discovered in Syria

Credit: Glenn Schwartz, Johns Hopkins University
Credit: Glenn Schwartz, Johns Hopkins University

The Latin-script alphabet used for English isn’t the only alphabet in use today. Think, for example, of Greek or Arabic scripts.

There are also older alphabets. Until recently, we’d thought the first one was created in ancient Egypt, more than 3800 years ago.

But now, it appears that an older alphabet has been discovered, in use 500 years before the Egyptian one. We speak to Glenn Schwartz, a professor of archaeology at Johns Hopkins University who led the team that made the discovery.

WYPR's Morning Edition news anchor Ashley Sterner serves up the latest Maryland news and weather every weekday morning, delightfully interspersed with the occasional snarky comment.
Melissa Gerr is a Senior Producer for On the Record. She started in public media at Twin Cities Public Television in St. Paul, Minn., where she is from, and then worked as a field producer for Oregon Public Broadcasting in Portland. She made the jump to audio-lover in Baltimore as a digital media editor at Mid-Atlantic Media and Laureate Education, Inc. and as a field producer for "Out of the Blocks." Her beat is typically the off-beat with an emphasis on science, culture and things that make you say, 'Wait, what?'