Cuneiform writing: Did you mean...?

From Egyptian hieroglyphs to your alphabet, watch these miners turn fancy symbols into simple scratches that were all about the sounds. First marvel at hieroglyphic inscriptions in the shadow of the great pyramids. Once you grasp how those...

Semitic languages like Hebrew and Arabic evolved a unique way to write vowels... with consonants! See how in this episode of Thoth's Pill: an Animated History of Writing. You're back in the ancient Middle East, where seemingly everyone's...

Your vowels were invented in Greece, giving birth to the first "true" alphabet. Watch as your new toga-clad friend turns your consonant abjad into a consonant-vowel alphabet. It's such a useful mapping of letters to sounds that neighbor...

Not a syllabary. Not quite an alphabet. Totally Indian. Watch Ashoka discuss his land's exotic script and tell you his plans for this unique alphasyllabary. This episode traces the invention of the Indic alphasyllabary, the parent of so...

Calligraphy established itself as the most important ancient Chinese art form alongside painting, first coming to the fore during the Han dynasty (206 BCE - 220 CE). All educated men and some court women were expected to be proficient at...

The Brahmi script is the earliest writing system developed in India after the Indus script. It is one of the most influential writing systems; all modern Indian scripts and several hundred scripts found in Southeast and East Asia are derived...

Papyrus is a plant (cyperus papyrus) which once grew in abundance, primarily in the wilds of the Egyptian Delta but also elsewhere in the Nile River Valley, but is now quite rare. Papyrus buds opened from a horizontal root growing in shallow...

The Library of Ashurbanipal (7th century BCE) is the oldest known systematically organized library in the world, established in Nineveh by the Neo-Assyrian king Ashurbanipal (r. 668-627 BCE) to preserve the history and culture of Mesopotamia...

Letters and their delivery via a state communication system was a feature of many ancient cultures. The writing medium may have differed but the Mesopotamians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and Incas all had the means to send messengers and...

Ancient Egyptian literature comprises a wide array of narrative and poetic forms including inscriptions on tombs, stele, obelisks, and temples; myths, stories, and legends; religious writings; philosophical works; wisdom literature; autobiographies...