The origins of writing in Mesopotamia lie in the images imprinted by ancient cylinder seals on clay tablets and other artifacts. A research group from the University of Bologna has identified a series of correlations between the designs engraved on these cylinders,

Designs on stone cylinders dating back six thousand years correspond to some signs of the proto-cuneiform script that emerged in the city of Uruk, in southern Iraq, around 3350–3000 BCE. This discovery,

New research traces Mesopotamian origins of writing back to trade symbols, shedding light on the evolution of written languages.