As of 2026-10-12, Proto-Sinaitic tops the list with 1,801 BC.
- #1 Proto-Sinaitic — 1,801 BC
Middle Bronze Age script
The Proto-Sinaitic script is a Middle Bronze Age writing system known from a small corpus of about 30–40 inscriptions and fragments from Serabit el-Khadim in the Sinai Peninsula, as well as two inscriptions from Wadi el-Hol in Middle Egypt. Together with about 20 known Proto-Canaanite inscriptions, it is also known as Early Alphabetic, i.e. the earliest trace of alphabetic writing and the common ancestor of the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet, the Ancient South Arabian script and the Phoenician... Read more on Wikipedia.
Wikidata - #2 Ugaritic alphabet — 1,400 BC
Cuneiform consonantal alphabet of 30 letters
The Ugaritic alphabet is a consonantal alphabet (abjad) that was written using the same tools as those used to write cuneiform. It was mostly written from left to right, but not exclusively. It emerged c. 1400 or 1300 BCE to write Ugaritic, an extinct Northwest Semitic language, and fell out of use amid the Late Bronze Age collapse c. 1190 BCE. The inscriptions found provide the earliest evidence in history of systematic and large-scale administrative use of an alphabetical writing system. Read more on Wikipedia.
Wikidata - #3 Old South Arabian script — 1,301 BC
abjad used for writing Old South Arabian languages
The Ancient South Arabian script branched from the Proto-Sinaitic script in about the late 2nd millennium BCE, and remained in use through the late sixth century CE. It is an abjad, a writing system where only consonants are obligatorily written, a trait shared with its predecessor, Proto-Sinaitic, as well as some of its sibling writing systems, including Arabic and Hebrew. It is a predecessor of the Ge'ez script, and a sibling script of the Phoenician alphabet and, through that, the modern... Read more on Wikipedia.
Wikidata - #4 Phoenician script — 1,050 BC
abjad found in Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions across the Mediterranean from the 11th–2nd centuries BCE
The Phoenician alphabet is an abjad that was used across the Mediterranean civilization of Phoenicia for most of the 1st millennium BC. It was one of the first alphabets, attested in Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions found across the Mediterranean basin. In the history of writing systems, the Phoenician script was also the first to have a fixed writing direction—while previous systems were multi-directional, Phoenician was written horizontally, from right to left. It developed directly from... Read more on Wikipedia.
Wikidata - #5 Paleo-Hebrew alphabet — 1,001 BC
abjad found in Canaanite inscriptions from the region of biblical Israel and Judah used to write Hebrew, later replaced by the modern Hebrew square script
The Paleo-Hebrew script, , also Palaeo-Hebrew, Proto-Hebrew or Old Hebrew, is the writing system found in Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions, including pre-Biblical and Biblical Hebrew, from southern Canaan, also known as the biblical kingdoms of Israel (Samaria) and Judah. It is considered to be the script used to record the original texts of the Bible. Due to its similarity to the Samaritan script, the Talmud states that the Samaritans still used this script. The Talmud described it as the... Read more on Wikipedia.
Wikidata - #6 Old North Arabian — 801 BC
script
Ancient North Arabian (ANA) is a collection of scripts and a language or family of languages under the North Arabian languages branch along with Old Arabic that were used in north and central Arabia and south Syria from the 8th century BCE to the 4th century CE. The term "Ancient North Arabian" is defined negatively. It refers to all of the South Semitic scripts except Ancient South Arabian (ASA) regardless of their genetic relationships. Read more on Wikipedia.
Wikidata - #7 Imperial Aramaic alphabet — 601 BC
Semitic abjad
The ancient Aramaic alphabet was used to write the Aramaic languages spoken by ancient Aramean pre-Christian peoples throughout the Fertile Crescent. It was also adopted by other peoples as their own alphabet when empires and their subjects underwent linguistic Aramaization during a language shift for governing purposes — a precursor to Arabization centuries later — including among the Assyrians and Babylonians who permanently replaced their Akkadian language and its cuneiform script with... Read more on Wikipedia.
Wikidata - #8 Samaritan script — 600 BC
writing system
The Samaritan Hebrew script, or simply Samaritan script, is the alphabet used by the Samaritans for their religious and liturgical writings. It serves as the script of the Samaritan Pentateuch, of texts in Samaritan Hebrew, and of commentaries and translations in Samaritan Aramaic and occasionally Arabic. Read more on Wikipedia.
Wikidata - #9 Libyc script — 301 BC
abjad writing system
The Libyco-Berber alphabet is an abjad writing system that was used during the first millennium BC by various Berber peoples of North Africa and the Canary Islands, to write ancient varieties of the Berber language. Read more on Wikipedia.
Wikidata - #10 Inscriptional Pahlavi — 201 BC
earliest attested form of Pahlavi scripts
Inscriptional Pahlavi is the earliest attested form of Pahlavi scripts, and is evident in clay fragments that have been dated to the reign of Mithridates I. Other early evidence includes the Pahlavi inscriptions of Parthian coins and the rock inscriptions of Sasanian emperors and other notables, such as Kartir the High Priest. Read more on Wikipedia.
Wikidata