Fascinating! As a Hebrew speaker I actually understood most of the sentence before he translated it! Specifically I understood the words "lice", "tusk", "hair", and "beard". There was also a word that sounded like "wither" so maybe that's related to "root out"? Also, most of the letters resemble Hebrew letters and make the same sound as he made when he spoke. Apparently ancient Canaanite is (at least partly) mutually intelligible with modern Hebrew!!
To those who thought the modern Hebrew is unrelated to ancient Hebrew. I have been studying biblical Hebrew and it is clear that modern Hebrew is almost the same as the 2,100-year-old words in the Dead Sea Scrolls. To me, modern Hebrew sounds like biblical Hebrew spoken with a Yiddish accent.
From their research paper: "The combination of the lack of the letter’s shape among the known letters in inscriptions found in Canaan and its consistent presence in the South Arabian alphabet leads us to conclude, albeit cautiously, that the letter in our inscription is a prototype of the Canaanite ḥet from which descend the South Arabian similar types." The inscriptions are in ARABIC. Call it cannantite phjoenician bla bla bla theyre all just Arabic.
@@rhetoric5173 No, it says the South Arabian letter descends from this prototype. (And that the corresponding Ugaritic letter descends from this one too.)
It's so humbling to think how many cultures and languages have woven the collective tapestry of our species' story and to think that ours might be lost to time one day.
Honestly I think the largest languages like English or Spanish have enough power be remembered for tens of millenia at this point. But of course, in billions of years everything disappears…
Especially when you consider that most of our writing is recorded either on paper or digitally, neither of which will last nearly as long as writing on stone tablets. Consider that the Dead Sea Scrolls are around 2,000 years old and reasonably well preserved, but that's only because they were stored in the middle of a desert. If they'd been stored in a humid environment they would've been long gone.
@@OptimusWombatMost of our writing is on paper and the internet, but not all of it. Future humans may decipher our language the same way we’ve deciphered some ancient languages. We have carved writing onto stones in monuments.
Imagine the person making that comb, writing that sentence, all that time ago. Now imagine people from thousands of years from now doing the same to the little things we take for granted we have today. What a queer thing time is.
yeah, but the thing is, most things are so abundant, that they are everywhere. We have lots of huge landfills with hundreds of thousands of tons of trash, and a lot of the things will not decompose in the next few thousands of years... While most of the ancient stuff was re-used and recycled, which is why it's often hard to come by anything... It's even rare to find writings on paper/papyrus/parchment that are over 500+ years old, except for few finds, as most of them have been reused since the materials were so valuable...
For anyone who is interested I can recommend the documentary „The secret history of writing“. It’s a very inspiring documentary since they also explain the history and development of paper, printing and of course the alphabet.
Really interesting to see how that early writing was used, like an inscription, or as someone suggested, an advertisement. It's fun as it isn't necessarily religious, or a weapon, but a comb, identified as tusk by the writer.
@@janemorrow6672 how cool! I would love to see some of those! If you have a place to see those or ever come across something similar, please let me know!!
Maybe we need to expand the meaning of that Canaanite word to include scraping as well as biting, so that it encompasses toothed combs as well as tusks. Or just say "these teeth" rather than "this tusk."
@@faithlesshound5621 Aren't you leaping to conclusions by linking "teeth" with "tusk" ? Is it not an ivory comb ? I'm guessing that this is Elephant ivory, therefore, quite literally, a small piece of "tusk"."teeth" when used with a comb, I haven't checked this, may be metaphorical. This metaphor is cultural and maybe not shared with Bronze age Canaan.
What's stunning is that the jews had it then. What's not is altering headlines to make them sound overly more sensational. The authors of the paper have ditched all phrases like "first alphabet" eventually. As a matter of fact, studies show that Ancient Egyptian had basically only two vowels, a and o, with just a few rules that everyone there knew since childhood. As I recall it, [a] was there after the first consonant most of the time, and only verbs had more than one vowel, [o] before the last consonant in most cases - and there was only maybe a rule or two more. This makes it look like Ancient Egyptian letters correspond to certain vowels & consonants clearer than modern English! They simply didn't have to add vowels to their stacks of letters called alphabets by many only in case of both consonants and vowels there. In no way I undervalue this introduction of many vowels and letters for them which was made by the jews. But, here's another thing. Maybe - just maybe - that was something not that far away from - and maybe even ordered (from "the Northern church of the Moon", which was Ethiopia, and, well, the jews - Galit Dayan) by - *Egyptian* carriers of science? And that's millenias of "not the first" alphabet!
@@GEMSofGOD_com Ohhh, that's great info for me. I suppose modern language is more complex than ancient Egypt. It is the complete opposite of what I had thought.
@@Oblivious_uncertainties Because the strong form of "jews had the first alphabet" implies that Chinese or Japanese letters (I won't recall now) aren't alphabetic and don't even produce developed languages, which obviously ain't the case. And Ancient Egyptian was super close to nature! You know, Shu the air, Tefnut the spit, Ae = come, etc, A Vocalized Dictionary of Ancient Egypt is a great dictionary! Pharaohs have been orators, first and foremost. They together with writers (the highest job there) created cool words that got repeated in rituals such as festivals for the people to know and share for higher understanding of each other and nature. Eventually their language and cosmogony created both Genesis and Exodus (and other books of the Bible later on) that were the ONLY piece of literature 99% knew in the next 2000 years
@@Oblivious_uncertainties Dont listen to this weird anti-semetic nonsense. The Egyptains had a version of an alphabet which they really only used "alphabetically" for names. Meanwhile, in order to actually read Egyptian texts you need to be able to recognize thousands of logographic symbols (like if the word for "car" was just a drawing of a car) as well as a host of "identifier" symbols that arnt spoken but clarify what the word is referring to (presumably to avoid the confusion of homophones). Chinese has a similar combination of logographs and "sound symbols" which are used for names. But the Caananite invention of an alphabet used to write out words phonetically without extra identifier symbols seems to have been a unique and singular invention which spread around the world. Although there is much contention and dispute as to whether early Indian alphabetic scripts were inspired by Phoneician or was a seperate invention. But the amount of trade happening through the region makes it unlikely IMO that it was a wholly seperate invention.
@@GetItRightUpYees 75 years ago Europe was fighting Europe. It's all the same. America is in the early stages of a civil war. Most African countries are at or near peace without European interference, and you are still a dick.
@@ltipst2962 So kind of you to comment on my comment, and is it not absolutely stunning that the first sentence was to help others keep their hair straight! Only blessings for those of us are true and have kept our hair straight since the beginning!
This is truly a landmark discovery. But, it still makes me chuckle that this writing is essentially labeling for a lice comb, a humble bit of writing. I think we often expect these types of finds will be noble inscriptions on tombs or official documents. Interesting segment about one of my favorite archeological finds. 💚
That’s the thing about ancient inscriptions. We think they’ll reveal ancient secrets and dark mysteries, but when we translate them, they’re mostly shipping receipts, court cases, school exercises, and some guy with lice in his beard.
The vast majority of known Sumerian writing is just receipts and seals. Similarly, the Harrappan language is known almost entirely from seals so even if we could translate it, all we would gain from the knowledge is the names of a bunch of merchants. 🤣
@@patreekotime4578 "The first words from the Harappan civilization have been revealed: They are: Bob... Gary... Sharon... Mike. This extra-long inscription is believed to be Phyllis's Animal Feed and Soda Stop. We look forward to discovering what kinds of sodas the ancient Harappans preferred."
And so many waiting for further inspection. Like this comb, objects often get a quick once over and then back in a box/drawer. Discoveries made years later :)
My wife is doing her masters in Ancient Orient now. With archaeology being an old discipline, there's unfortunately quite a lot of gender prejudices in some fields. Say, for some reason, Roman glass was considered somewhat of 'unmanly', and so only women make publications on this subject. So, for some reason, it's both inspiring and sad to see the woman doing research on combs, and men to read Canaanite.
I'm just shocked that if this woman didn't feel like doing a bit of extra work to take another photo of the comb, that this would be entirely unknown. What else are we missing from finds because one lady somewhere didn't take an extra photo?
It is a fact that museum collections are some of the largest untapped resources for discovery. There often just isnt enough money or interest to sift through them. And this was a piece that was being described. A great amount of materials is collected and never described. This makes it all the more terrible when I think about the looting of museums like what happened in Iraq.
@@GlennRA3 Agreed, the monkey "inference" works for me. No question archaeologists love to fantasize about the minds of ancient people, Example are fertility figures of large females, perhaps its just ancient porn, knowing how visual men are.
If you love history you know you just don't read about it you feel it with all the senses, intensely. This notion is apparent in all these wonderful archeologist and lovers of philology. ❤️
Simply wonderful. I especially appreciated the comb being called a "tusk", since as an instrumentmaker, I work with tusks (mammoth, not elephant) all the time Thanks for the great work. Cheers from sunny Vienna, Scott
How about that? Really important. There was a special n PBS that talked about this evolution from the Egyptian glyph types into an alphabet. The assumptions by the PBS narrators was that the Canaanites found the Egyptian to be clumsy and used their own language to foreshorten the Egyptian. Pretty clever, if you think about it. Easily one of the more important tools made by people.
I believe that although every known alphabet traces its roots back to the Egyptian hieroglyphs, the point made in that documentary was that early modern alphabets emerged during a long series of attempted simplifications of the Egyptian ideograms. Gradually, signs came to represent syllables or individual sounds (consonants and later vowels). It's still way to early, if at all possible, to say which was first. But that it must have been created in modern Middle East seems likely.
@@1Bohemica There was actually an interplay between attempts to use random Egyptain hieroglyphs as "letters" and Ugaritic, which was a Cunieform abjad and possibly the oldest true "alphabet". Ugaritic preserves the original letter order as well. However Cunieform is really only good for writing in clay or carving in stone. But the need for a flexible, simple script that could be scrawled onto any surface gave rise to the Caananite script. Some Ugaritic letters bare resemblance to Caananite, but mostly the inventers of Caananite took the sounds and the letter order (and potentially the names of the letters, but I think that is debatable).
Oldest "known" sentence, they'll find an older one somewhere eventually. This is the beauty of exploration, the more u search the more u will discover.
Oldest known sentence written in an alphabet. Gilgamesh, written in cuneiform, is nearly 5000 years old and it's entire stories. There is Chinese writing that is also 5000 years old.
Its weird that "Zakat" is beard. In Hebrew its "Zakan" and its used in context as "old" as well , but its hard to play with the verb when the "n" is replaced.
I'm glad that the clarification of 1st *alphabetic* writing system was applied. as for it being Canaanite? if by "Canaanite", one means a person who lived in the area of the eastern shore of the Med, then I can accept that. if this comb is from 3,000 BP, the name Canaan, was applied almost a millennium and a half later, in the old testament. I fear that most of the archeology being done in the State of Israel is being tinged by modern politics though.
@@filippo2806 I agree to a certain extent. Archeology in Iraq is in shambles, and in Iran might as well be forbidden if it doesn't serve the Islamic Republic. There is some very good work being done in Pakistan, but it is severely underfunded and neglected by the needs of that country to shore up its status as regional power. Turkey? Again there is still some valuable work being done on the very oldest sites, while the newer ones are being inundated by hydro-electric projects meant to spite the Kurds. So that leaves the reporting from Israel. It's a sad state of affairs.
Ah, that's already famous! The comb's inscription says something like "may this comb kill all tour lice" or similar. Pretty amazing glimpse into the life of the common people of hte period. And we are talking Middle Bronze Age
@@MelioraCogito Indeed. Fascinating. As it shows the complexity and sophistication of this Bronze Age culture. It would be interesting to know if this was meant just as a sort of "funny" inscription, like what we see on mugs nowadays, or if this was in fact some sort of magical incantation that they believed would enhance the properties of the comb.
If man really evolved as slowly as scientists believe, the first evidence of a written language should date back 10-20,000 years ago or longer. Not 3,700................Discuss:
According to this, Photo-Sinaitic did originate in Egypt, but was developed by either Canaanites or Hyksos: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Sinaitic_script.
I couldn’t understand quite a bit - including the first sentence - and I can’t be alone in this. RUclips subtitles didn’t either. This could have used BBC generated subtitles.
It’s amazing how so many different scripts such as Latin, Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, Runic, Cyrillic, Devanagari, Tibetan, Bengali, Mongolian, and so many more can all trace their ancestry back to Proto-Sinaitic, itself derived from Egyptian hieroglyphics. There should be a recurring pilgrimage to the Great Pyramids (tower of babble) to celebrate our shared linguistic origin.
The Aramaic & Brahmi connection hypothesis, is still uncertain due to the lack of direct evidence and unexplained differences between Aramaic & Brahmi.
Well it’s funny that the first sentence written with canaanite letters is about headlice. If these people knew that thousands of years later people get so excited about that. But this everyday problem doesn’t make the discovery less amazing.
@@StacieC_"Did you pass second grade? This is not the first sentence written with Canaanite letters. This is being credited as the oldest found."_ LOL... Even with my own OCD for pedantry, I would have let the OP's comment slide by as just an inattentive misinterpretation, not worthy of correction.
For Jews its especially exciting to find this discovery, as the Jewish nation's language - Hebrew - is the last surviving Canaanite language. Israelite ancestry was in its roots, Canaanite.
My grandmother used to chide me for asking too many questions. It’s the old way of being, especially for women and girls. I’m glad you continued in your truth!
It’s so amazing to know that the ancient people that we sometimes see as savages did the same things that we did , like taking care of their appearance.
@@Laocoon283 how do you know this either the video lies or it would push back alphabetical writing discovering the oldest means that it has to push back the time at least by something
@@rebelcommander7starwarsjur922 they knew they had alphabetic writing at this time period they just never found a complete sentence. So the timeframe hasn't changed any.
It would have helped to put up a caption of what the sentence on the comb said, because the professor’s accent was so thick it was nearly incomprehensible.
Abraham, the so-called first Patriarch of the Jewish people never had any right to Palestine. The bible (what many like to use as a property deed) and even their own Jewish sources says that "god" told Abraham to leave his own family and country (Genesis 12:1). - The Zionists conspired to steal land in Palestine going back to 1897 so much so that they quietly started paying poor Jewish people to move to Palestine in the early 1900's to flood the region with Jewish people (First Zionist Congress, 1897). - For over 1,000 years, White Europeans expelled or murdered Jews. No one really wanted Jewish people in their own country so when the Zionists decided to steal land in Palestine in the 1890's, mostly White Americans and White Europeans conspired to help them. - Read Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Joshua. Moses and the “Israelites” were nothing but a raging and violent army that killed people and stole land. - That 40 years "wandering in the wilderness" nonsense ... yeah, that time was used to murder boys and kidnap girls to build an army (Numbers 31:1-18). --- Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves. (Numbers 31:1-18).
There are no 'rightful people,' that's just ethnonationalism. However, definitely the descendants of the Judeans and Israelites; the Jews. But everyone should be allowed to live there, no discrimination.
When i was a child i was taught to glue clay pieces back together by using Carnation Milk. It dries transparent or clear and if the piece is dropped afterwards, it will break elsewhere but never at the glue site. FYI
Amazing where language can turn up...especially on a comb fragment!. It's even more amazing that it can be translated...there's so many ancient languages that can't be understood let alone translated. I wonder if this is the Canaanite version of the "Rosetta Stone?".
![Seungmin "그렇게, 천천히, 우리(As we are)" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kAzmhLHePqU/mqdefault.jpg)
"The cure for boredom is curiosity, there is no cure for curiosity". -Albert Einstein
i smoke weed whenever im bored and i never get bored.
Hard-core drugs will kill your curiosity
@@satanspy That's how you kill curiosity. Your brain is probably gigafried by now
"May this tusk root out the lice of the hair and the beard."
Jews have always had lice. This comb was first in a line of inventions leading to zyklon b
i was hoping someone would decipher what he was saying : ) ty 💖
Is a gift inscription?
@@elainemunro4621 Some artisan crafts a comb and inscribed it. Sells for big money in 1700bc.
Fascinating! As a Hebrew speaker I actually understood most of the sentence before he translated it! Specifically I understood the words "lice", "tusk", "hair", and "beard". There was also a word that sounded like "wither" so maybe that's related to "root out"? Also, most of the letters resemble Hebrew letters and make the same sound as he made when he spoke.
Apparently ancient Canaanite is (at least partly) mutually intelligible with modern Hebrew!!
That's amazing. I had no idea the two languages would still have that much in common
Many characters resemble runes as well.
@@andrewfoster883 ya i thought modern 'hebrew' was just a bunch of guess work done by russians
@@markstuckless5039 Modern Hebrew was re-assembled with quite a lot of ancient elements I think
To those who thought the modern Hebrew is unrelated to ancient Hebrew. I have been studying biblical Hebrew and it is clear that modern Hebrew is almost the same as the 2,100-year-old words in the Dead Sea Scrolls. To me, modern Hebrew sounds like biblical Hebrew spoken with a Yiddish accent.
The earliest known recorded sentence, like the video suggests by 3:35 is “May this tusk root out the lice of the hair and the beard.” Incredible!
Caananite Manscaping.
From their research paper: "The combination of the lack of the letter’s shape among the known letters in inscriptions found in Canaan and its consistent presence in the South Arabian alphabet leads us to conclude, albeit cautiously, that the letter in our inscription is a prototype of the Canaanite ḥet from which descend the South Arabian similar types." The inscriptions are in ARABIC. Call it cannantite phjoenician bla bla bla theyre all just Arabic.
Thank you so much, so many vids, painfully slow and repetitive.
@@rhetoric5173 Are you an Arab stan
@@rhetoric5173 No, it says the South Arabian letter descends from this prototype. (And that the corresponding Ugaritic letter descends from this one too.)
It's so humbling to think how many cultures and languages have woven the collective tapestry of our species' story and to think that ours might be lost to time one day.
Honestly I think the largest languages like English or Spanish have enough power be remembered for tens of millenia at this point. But of course, in billions of years everything disappears…
All species come and go. 99.9% of all species that ever existed are now extinct. We're doomed!
Especially when you consider that most of our writing is recorded either on paper or digitally, neither of which will last nearly as long as writing on stone tablets. Consider that the Dead Sea Scrolls are around 2,000 years old and reasonably well preserved, but that's only because they were stored in the middle of a desert. If they'd been stored in a humid environment they would've been long gone.
Like tears in the rain
@@OptimusWombatMost of our writing is on paper and the internet, but not all of it. Future humans may decipher our language the same way we’ve deciphered some ancient languages. We have carved writing onto stones in monuments.
Imagine the person making that comb, writing that sentence, all that time ago.
Now imagine people from thousands of years from now doing the same to the little things we take for granted we have today.
What a queer thing time is.
yeah, but the thing is, most things are so abundant, that they are everywhere. We have lots of huge landfills with hundreds of thousands of tons of trash, and a lot of the things will not decompose in the next few thousands of years...
While most of the ancient stuff was re-used and recycled, which is why it's often hard to come by anything... It's even rare to find writings on paper/papyrus/parchment that are over 500+ years old, except for few finds, as most of them have been reused since the materials were so valuable...
We are just a fleck on the timeline of humanity at the very beginning our existence.
But keeping sacred music alive is important
Time is gay ur right
Extremely interesting. Thank you for reporting on this discovery. To think it was directions for use of a tool is fascinating.
I agree it is a stunning completely readable discovery. And functional not decorative. Just wonderful.
For anyone who is interested I can recommend the documentary „The secret history of writing“. It’s a very inspiring documentary since they also explain the history and development of paper, printing and of course the alphabet.
I missed the sentence can anyone tell me what it was please
I’ll check it out, thanks!
@@asmith9140 It says: "May this tusk root out the lice of the hair and the beard."
@@johannesschubert7491 ohh ,than k you . Thanks mr schubert
What did it inspire you to do?
Really interesting to see how that early writing was used, like an inscription, or as someone suggested, an advertisement. It's fun as it isn't necessarily religious, or a weapon, but a comb, identified as tusk by the writer.
I’m a spinner and weaver and some early spindle whorls have similar incantations inscribed on them.
@@janemorrow6672 how cool! I would love to see some of those! If you have a place to see those or ever come across something similar, please let me know!!
@@craftycriminalistwithms.z3053 here’s one example. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckquoy_spindle-whorl
Maybe we need to expand the meaning of that Canaanite word to include scraping as well as biting, so that it encompasses toothed combs as well as tusks. Or just say "these teeth" rather than "this tusk."
@@faithlesshound5621 Aren't you leaping to conclusions by linking "teeth" with "tusk" ? Is it not an ivory comb ? I'm guessing that this is Elephant ivory, therefore, quite literally, a small piece of "tusk"."teeth" when used with a comb, I haven't checked this, may be metaphorical. This metaphor is cultural and maybe not shared with Bronze age Canaan.
Stunning, absolutely stunning. History always surprises me.
What's stunning is that the jews had it then. What's not is altering headlines to make them sound overly more sensational. The authors of the paper have ditched all phrases like "first alphabet" eventually. As a matter of fact, studies show that Ancient Egyptian had basically only two vowels, a and o, with just a few rules that everyone there knew since childhood. As I recall it, [a] was there after the first consonant most of the time, and only verbs had more than one vowel, [o] before the last consonant in most cases - and there was only maybe a rule or two more. This makes it look like Ancient Egyptian letters correspond to certain vowels & consonants clearer than modern English! They simply didn't have to add vowels to their stacks of letters called alphabets by many only in case of both consonants and vowels there. In no way I undervalue this introduction of many vowels and letters for them which was made by the jews. But, here's another thing. Maybe - just maybe - that was something not that far away from - and maybe even ordered (from "the Northern church of the Moon", which was Ethiopia, and, well, the jews - Galit Dayan) by - *Egyptian* carriers of science? And that's millenias of "not the first" alphabet!
@@GEMSofGOD_com Ohhh, that's great info for me. I suppose modern language is more complex than ancient Egypt. It is the complete opposite of what I had thought.
@@Oblivious_uncertainties Because the strong form of "jews had the first alphabet" implies that Chinese or Japanese letters (I won't recall now) aren't alphabetic and don't even produce developed languages, which obviously ain't the case. And Ancient Egyptian was super close to nature! You know, Shu the air, Tefnut the spit, Ae = come, etc, A Vocalized Dictionary of Ancient Egypt is a great dictionary! Pharaohs have been orators, first and foremost. They together with writers (the highest job there) created cool words that got repeated in rituals such as festivals for the people to know and share for higher understanding of each other and nature. Eventually their language and cosmogony created both Genesis and Exodus (and other books of the Bible later on) that were the ONLY piece of literature 99% knew in the next 2000 years
@@Oblivious_uncertainties Dont listen to this weird anti-semetic nonsense. The Egyptains had a version of an alphabet which they really only used "alphabetically" for names. Meanwhile, in order to actually read Egyptian texts you need to be able to recognize thousands of logographic symbols (like if the word for "car" was just a drawing of a car) as well as a host of "identifier" symbols that arnt spoken but clarify what the word is referring to (presumably to avoid the confusion of homophones). Chinese has a similar combination of logographs and "sound symbols" which are used for names. But the Caananite invention of an alphabet used to write out words phonetically without extra identifier symbols seems to have been a unique and singular invention which spread around the world. Although there is much contention and dispute as to whether early Indian alphabetic scripts were inspired by Phoneician or was a seperate invention. But the amount of trade happening through the region makes it unlikely IMO that it was a wholly seperate invention.
History's such a beautiful lesson.
Yep 75 years ago Europe was under attack,lesson learned
@@GetItRightUpYees 75 years ago Europe was fighting Europe. It's all the same. America is in the early stages of a civil war. Most African countries are at or near peace without European interference, and you are still a dick.
@Rob Berlin Blockade maybe?
@Rob _"75 years ago was 1948"_ [sic]
Maths wasn't his strong suit.
Historical. History was my favourite subject in learning.
Thx for the piece
Absolutely amazing thanks to the archaeologists for the excavation and to the BBC for another of many great videos!
Hey man nice comment need more of this
@@ltipst2962 So kind of you to comment on my comment, and is it not absolutely stunning that the first sentence was to help others keep their hair straight! Only blessings for those of us are true and have kept our hair straight since the beginning!
@@workingtoseethelight8244 Wise words indeed they would hate my curls! Hahaha :) good blessings to you always
@L TipsT Yeah like OMG how did she come up with this totally original and unique comment right??
Fanastic!
It was translated to "Please contact us to renew your extended warranty coverage".
This is truly a landmark discovery. But, it still makes me chuckle that this writing is essentially labeling for a lice comb, a humble bit of writing. I think we often expect these types of finds will be noble inscriptions on tombs or official documents.
Interesting segment about one of my favorite archeological finds. 💚
That’s the thing about ancient inscriptions. We think they’ll reveal ancient secrets and dark mysteries, but when we translate them, they’re mostly shipping receipts, court cases, school exercises, and some guy with lice in his beard.
The vast majority of known Sumerian writing is just receipts and seals. Similarly, the Harrappan language is known almost entirely from seals so even if we could translate it, all we would gain from the knowledge is the names of a bunch of merchants. 🤣
@@patreekotime4578 "The first words from the Harappan civilization have been revealed: They are: Bob... Gary... Sharon... Mike. This extra-long inscription is believed to be Phyllis's Animal Feed and Soda Stop. We look forward to discovering what kinds of sodas the ancient Harappans preferred."
These discoveries are fantastic. There must be so many objects yet to be found which will shine a light on ancient history.
And so many waiting for further inspection. Like this comb, objects often get a quick once over and then back in a box/drawer. Discoveries made years later :)
A utilitarian object with proto-advertising was my first thought. Really amazing find and yanks your mind back in time.
Hey how are you doing?
Could have been a gift with a message from the giver? guess we will never know
Great find from a woman who does ancient puzzles, so cool.
My wife is doing her masters in Ancient Orient now. With archaeology being an old discipline, there's unfortunately quite a lot of gender prejudices in some fields. Say, for some reason, Roman glass was considered somewhat of 'unmanly', and so only women make publications on this subject. So, for some reason, it's both inspiring and sad to see the woman doing research on combs, and men to read Canaanite.
@Nikolay Ivankov it is still her discovery. And it was surprisingly readable.
1:21 Funny how she treats these 3000 year old shards like mahjong tiles. (Hoping these are replicas)
I'm just shocked that if this woman didn't feel like doing a bit of extra work to take another photo of the comb, that this would be entirely unknown. What else are we missing from finds because one lady somewhere didn't take an extra photo?
It is a fact that museum collections are some of the largest untapped resources for discovery. There often just isnt enough money or interest to sift through them. And this was a piece that was being described. A great amount of materials is collected and never described. This makes it all the more terrible when I think about the looting of museums like what happened in Iraq.
The letter "Q" is an ideograph for "Monkey", WOW, I can see it. We are still the people of the middle-Bronze age and before.
ق
@@GlennRA3 Agreed, the monkey "inference" works for me. No question archaeologists love to fantasize about the minds of ancient people, Example are fertility figures of large females, perhaps its just ancient porn, knowing how visual men are.
Thank you for your time, effort and love ❤️. Philadelphia USA 🇺🇲
Education is everything.
The first sentence, ever, reads: "must pick up milk. and bread."
Nah, earlier still is, “you owe me for the milk and bread!”
@@sjl197 _"You owe me for the use of my cow and the wheat you collected off my land..."_
These are little nuggets that shine golden light on our past. Thanks bbc.
Keep in mind this is only the oldest known Alphabetical writing, the Sumerian scripts go back to at least 3400bc. Thats over five thousand years.
And those are sentences too.
Even more incredible is that the maker of the comb expected the user of the comb to be literate.
If you love history you know you just don't read about it you feel it with all the senses, intensely. This notion is apparent in all these wonderful archeologist and lovers of philology. ❤️
Thank you for finding this and being so curious
That Vainstub guy's smile just made me happy inside
Amongst the lies and deception of the BBC is gold like this.
Simply wonderful. I especially appreciated the comb being called a "tusk", since as an instrumentmaker, I work with tusks (mammoth, not elephant) all the time
Thanks for the great work. Cheers from sunny Vienna, Scott
How about that? Really important. There was a special n PBS that talked about this evolution from the Egyptian glyph types into an alphabet. The assumptions by the PBS narrators was that the Canaanites found the Egyptian to be clumsy and used their own language to foreshorten the Egyptian. Pretty clever, if you think about it. Easily one of the more important tools made by people.
I believe that although every known alphabet traces its roots back to the Egyptian hieroglyphs, the point made in that documentary was that early modern alphabets emerged during a long series of attempted simplifications of the Egyptian ideograms. Gradually, signs came to represent syllables or individual sounds (consonants and later vowels). It's still way to early, if at all possible, to say which was first. But that it must have been created in modern Middle East seems likely.
You both should see Doug petrovich work. He has shown how it was ephraim and Mannasseh who invented the script
@@1Bohemica There was actually an interplay between attempts to use random Egyptain hieroglyphs as "letters" and Ugaritic, which was a Cunieform abjad and possibly the oldest true "alphabet". Ugaritic preserves the original letter order as well. However Cunieform is really only good for writing in clay or carving in stone. But the need for a flexible, simple script that could be scrawled onto any surface gave rise to the Caananite script. Some Ugaritic letters bare resemblance to Caananite, but mostly the inventers of Caananite took the sounds and the letter order (and potentially the names of the letters, but I think that is debatable).
It was wonderful to see the excitement of these amazing scientists, it made me so happy for all of them, wow.
she is a hero, people like this who do good work
I agree. This woman is a bloody Legend. What an Amazing and well deserved discovery.
Awesome. The first sentence found is an advertisement worthy of Sweeney Todd.
It's the first attestation of a sentence written in an ALPHABET, not the first sentence ever written
Very touching discovery. And the lice must be so proud.
And it was about your car's extended service warranty. 🤦♀
Oldest "known" sentence, they'll find an older one somewhere eventually. This is the beauty of exploration, the more u search the more u will discover.
Oldest known sentence written in an alphabet. Gilgamesh, written in cuneiform, is nearly 5000 years old and it's entire stories. There is Chinese writing that is also 5000 years old.
What an amazing discovery! I love that we're uncovering more of these things every day
"May this task root out the lice of the hair and the beard". So practical! I love it.
Tusk! Its an ivory comb.
Very moving!
Its weird that "Zakat" is beard. In Hebrew its "Zakan" and its used in context as "old" as well , but its hard to play with the verb when the "n" is replaced.
"beard" is a noun, not a verb, and the -t suffix probably means the writer thought it to be of feminine gender or sth...
@@adrianblake8876 Yes , beards are very feminine... NOT. Probably its best if you have experience in Hebrew before we engage in further...sth....
Did they forget about the Sumerians?
"What's for dinner?"
I like how the bald guy is describing the ancient comb.
Did it say never trust the tories?
Probably said beware of people that scapegoat others.
@@sebastianguerre6868yes as I stated the tories
Translated to English, it reads “We’ve been trying to reach you regarding your car’s warranty.”
BBC - "..and that sentence was, diversity is our strength.."
Next you'll be telling us Dinosaurs are real and man actually landed on the moon 🤣🤣🤣
Centuries later, so interesting to learn of past life.🙏
Sentence revealed at 3:34: ""May this tusk root out the lice of the hair and the beard."
I'm glad that the clarification of 1st *alphabetic* writing system was applied.
as for it being Canaanite?
if by "Canaanite", one means a person who lived in the area of
the eastern shore of the Med, then I can accept that.
if this comb is from 3,000 BP, the name Canaan,
was applied almost a millennium and a half later, in the old testament.
I fear that most of the archeology being done in the State of Israel is being tinged by modern politics though.
Right, and what about cuneiform or maybe even protocuneiform? I think this is bs... sadly
That risk Is in all the middle East not only in israel
@@rcethervaac539 *alphabetic*, not pictographic.
which is what cuneiform is.
that is why the clarification is important,
if not exactly highlighted.
@@filippo2806 git yat oğlum boş boş konuşuyorsun
@@filippo2806 I agree to a certain extent.
Archeology in Iraq is in shambles, and in Iran might as well be forbidden if it doesn't serve the Islamic Republic. There is some
very good work being done in Pakistan, but it is severely underfunded and neglected by the needs of that country to shore up its status as regional power. Turkey? Again there is still some valuable work being done on the very oldest sites, while the newer ones are being inundated by hydro-electric projects meant to spite the Kurds.
So that leaves the reporting from Israel.
It's a sad state of affairs.
It says, have you been injured in an accident that wasn't your fault.
Ah, that's already famous! The comb's inscription says something like "may this comb kill all tour lice" or similar. Pretty amazing glimpse into the life of the common people of hte period. And we are talking Middle Bronze Age
Lol I was thinking the same 🤣
It may have just said: This comb is for the extraction of lice from head-hair and beard. People today like to complicate things.
_"May this tusk root out the lice of the hair and the beard."_
@@MelioraCogito Indeed. Fascinating. As it shows the complexity and sophistication of this Bronze Age culture.
It would be interesting to know if this was meant just as a sort of "funny" inscription, like what we see on mugs nowadays, or if this was in fact some sort of magical incantation that they believed would enhance the properties of the comb.
truly fascinating!
how many times do we keep discovering things by accident?
If man really evolved as slowly as scientists believe, the first evidence of a written language should date back 10-20,000 years ago or longer. Not 3,700................Discuss:
The translation: ‘Not suitable for children under 3 years old’ 😂🤣🤣
Translation--"for external use only"
Thanks Beeb. Good work all around.
It appears that we are reverting back to Hieroglyphs with the use of Emojis. History repeating itself.
It shows that writing must have been well established prior to the time the comb was made.
Just how long prior remains a mystery.
Imagine the full translation come out as : Truly a suspiciously among us moment throughout the history
I shagged Mary ,anybody sen my son Jesus it says
there's lice among us
Your sentence doesn’t make sense.
@@bolasblancas420 it does
@@thedoruk6324 truly a suspicious moment among us throughout history.
Can never trust these people.
Looking at head lice of your ancestors. Strangely interesting.
Interesting, but this is already old news. I heard about it maybe 3-4 months ago?
I would expect the oldest note in the world to be a I O U.
Never stop being curious and never stop learning.
Canaanite is not the earliest alphabetic script ; it is derived from Proto-Sinaitic script, which originated earlier in Egypt.
Exactly and Sanskrit how old is that. The Sri Lankan language is oldest apparently
@@ghostrider369 How old is Sanskrit writing? In Brahmi script it goes back no further than the 3rd century BC, as does Sinhalese.
According to this, Photo-Sinaitic did originate in Egypt, but was developed by either Canaanites or Hyksos: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Sinaitic_script.
these archaelogoists pushing a narrative for their own funding , what u gotta do
but definetly for sure there older alphabets than 3700 bc
@@BatsAndBadgers Well, don't keep us waiting, if you know of an alphabet earlier than 3700 BC tell us what it is!
Thank you for this evidence of universal paradox in today's modern old language between finding sentences,,and forming them.
I couldn’t understand quite a bit - including the first sentence - and I can’t be alone in this.
RUclips subtitles didn’t either.
This could have used BBC generated subtitles.
The transcript located in the description area below the video may have the information you’re looking for.
It's there in the description
There's also an article in NY Times (Nov. 9, 2022) and plenty in French.
That it's a pun is just precious.
It’s amazing how so many different scripts such as Latin, Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, Runic, Cyrillic, Devanagari, Tibetan, Bengali, Mongolian, and so many more can all trace their ancestry back to Proto-Sinaitic, itself derived from Egyptian hieroglyphics. There should be a recurring pilgrimage to the Great Pyramids (tower of babble) to celebrate our shared linguistic origin.
The Aramaic & Brahmi connection hypothesis, is still uncertain due to the lack of direct evidence and unexplained differences between Aramaic & Brahmi.
Even the scripts in Southeast Asia such as (Thai, Khmer, Kawi, Baybayin, etc).
What about Mayan, Astecz, Incas? . Religion is a lie
Brahmi script is still not clear whether it belongs to the same family or not. Some argue it derived from indus script.
@@roh-mj6em
Is it the same family you meant Indo-European languages family ?
Does it say "the end is near" ?
Well it’s funny that the first sentence written with canaanite letters is about headlice. If these people knew that thousands of years later people get so excited about that. But this everyday problem doesn’t make the discovery less amazing.
Did you pass second grade? This is not the first sentence written with Canaanite letters. This is being credited as the oldest found.
@@StacieC_"Did you pass second grade? This is not the first sentence written with Canaanite letters. This is being credited as the oldest found."_
LOL... Even with my own OCD for pedantry, I would have let the OP's comment slide by as just an inattentive misinterpretation, not worthy of correction.
It reads “hello sweetie”
Came here looking for that; was not disappointed.
For Jews its especially exciting to find this discovery, as the Jewish nation's language - Hebrew - is the last surviving Canaanite language. Israelite ancestry was in its roots, Canaanite.
Fantastic. Congrats.
World’s first language character alphabets discovered in ancient Jerusalem ❤
Alphabet doesn’t mean first writing, just checking that’s clear
@@sjl197 Indeed - and Canaanite is derived from Proto-Sinaitic, which originated in Egypt.
That's not true
And Egyptians borrowed their alphabet from the Sumerians.
the first language recorded was egytian and sumerian, not in jerusalem.
Great job! Stay curious.
may this task root out the lies of the hair and the beard was the first human sentence ever to form.
...but it's lice, no lie!✌
The comb of truth!
Oldest to be found, you mean.
It is like a comb isnt it!
My grandmother used to chide me for asking too many questions. It’s the old way of being, especially for women and girls. I’m glad you continued in your truth!
I knew it! First sentence ever.
"It was a dark and stormy night ..."
In the bininging
@@hk-ub1pveen de benenging
It says "Please give me more money - Zelensky"
Amazing. Thank you.
.....3,700 years later some people barely know and use the alphabet
Do you mean "barely know HOW to use the alphabet"? I see evidence of that WAAAAYY too often. It's sad, really....
Archeologists: quick, check all those ancient combs 😉🤣
Careful, I heard Nicholas Cage was trying to find this.
It’s so amazing to know that the ancient people that we sometimes see as savages did the same things that we did , like taking care of their appearance.
How far back dose this push alphabetically writing?
0 years
@@Laocoon283 how do you know this either the video lies or it would push back alphabetical writing discovering the oldest means that it has to push back the time at least by something
@@rebelcommander7starwarsjur922 they knew they had alphabetic writing at this time period they just never found a complete sentence. So the timeframe hasn't changed any.
@@Laocoon283 ah makes sense
It would have helped to put up a caption of what the sentence on the comb said, because the professor’s accent was so thick it was nearly incomprehensible.
It's perfectly readable in the description.
There is a transcript of the video located in the description below the video that might be helpful.
Press “CC”
“May this tusk root out the life of the hair and the beard”
@@osiris654 *lice* 😊
First rate work by all involved. Thanks to the BBC for highlighting this find.
The initial look at the comb must have been comprehensive.
Good practice to keep finds in your personal draw
So who is the rightful people of Israel?
Abraham, the so-called first Patriarch of the Jewish people never had any right to Palestine. The bible (what many like to use as a property deed) and even their own Jewish sources says that "god" told Abraham to leave his own family and country (Genesis 12:1).
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The Zionists conspired to steal land in Palestine going back to 1897 so much so that they quietly started paying poor Jewish people to move to Palestine in the early 1900's to flood the region with Jewish people (First Zionist Congress, 1897).
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For over 1,000 years, White Europeans expelled or murdered Jews. No one really wanted Jewish people in their own country so when the Zionists decided to steal land in Palestine in the 1890's, mostly White Americans and White Europeans conspired to help them.
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Read Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Joshua. Moses and the “Israelites” were nothing but a raging and violent army that killed people and stole land.
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That 40 years "wandering in the wilderness" nonsense ... yeah, that time was used to murder boys and kidnap girls to build an army (Numbers 31:1-18).
---
Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves. (Numbers 31:1-18).
But the Canaanites were African
@@kf9926 nah , they were semitic
@@saikrishnak8631 read the bible and the Talmud Canaan is descended from ham. Black Africans ?
There are no 'rightful people,' that's just ethnonationalism. However, definitely the descendants of the Judeans and Israelites; the Jews. But everyone should be allowed to live there, no discrimination.
Wonderful discovery!
The Q is the body of the monkey with a tail.
AMAZING! 🐒
TY
Amazing I say.
Thanks so much for the video and info.
I won’t listen because of the music.
Hey how are you doing…?
The letter Q is a monkey body with a tail? AMAZING. I love tidbits like this.
When i was a child i was taught to glue clay pieces back together by using Carnation Milk. It dries transparent or clear and if the piece is dropped afterwards, it will break elsewhere but never at the glue site. FYI
Amazing where language can turn up...especially on a comb fragment!. It's even more amazing that it can be translated...there's so many ancient languages that can't be understood let alone translated. I wonder if this is the Canaanite version of the "Rosetta Stone?".
The pizzle pieces our knowledge is built on
Incredible!