Cylinder symbols hint to origins of writing

Symbols engraved on cylinders that were used by traders to print motifs on clay tablets might have influenced the earliest-known form of writing. Researchers examined some of these cylinders from Mesopotamia, now southern Iraq, dating back to 4400 BC, around 1,000 years before the known invention of writing. They identified several symbols they think later developed into signs in ‘proto-cuneiform’, the precursor to the earliest version of written script. The findings support a theory first suggested in the 1990s by archaeologist Holly Pittman, but other experts caution that although some symbols on the cylinders might resemble those in proto-cuneiform, there is no obvious causal relationship linking them.