The earliest example of our alphabet — a possible mnemonic phrase that helped someone remember "ABCD" — has been discovered on a 3,400-year-old inscribed piece of limestone from ancient Egypt, a scholar believes.This is a different — and more credible — story than the one a couple of years ago about an Egyptian inscription containing Semitic words. Thomas Schneider also figured in that one, but as a skeptic.
Three of the words start with the ancient equivalent of B, C and D, creating what may be a mnemonic phrase.
Thomas Schneider, a professor of Egyptology and Near Eastern Studies at the University of British Columbia, reported the discovery in a paper published recently in the Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research. This discovery "would be the first historical attestation of 'our' alphabet sequence," he told Live Science in an email.
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