The elegant pictorial writing system of the ancient Egyptians—known as hieroglyphics—has fascinated generations of archeologists. Its precise origins are uncertain. One ancient Egyptian legend holds ...

Who invented the alphabet, and why? First, the hard facts: The earliest evidence of what’s thought to be the world’s first alphabet is a group of 3,500-year-old inscriptions found in Egypt’s Sinai ...

For centuries, the meaning of the mysterious and mystical Egyptian hieroglyphs baffled the greatest minds in the world. Then, in 1799, the discovery of the most famous piece of rock in archaeology ...

Discovered in Egypt by Napoleon’s conquering forces, this plain-looking slab was the key to cracking the code of Egyptian hieroglyphics. Although it's just a fragment of a larger rock slab, the ...

In 2010, archaeologist Glenn Schwartz quietly suggested that the history of writing needs, well, rewriting. More than a decade later, he still thinks he's on to something. If he's right, the world's ...