OUGARIT, THE ALPHABET CITY (HD)

On the trail of History

An episode from the series THE SECRET OF THE STONES

Synopsis

In the years 4000 B.C., people in Mesopotamia invented writing. It was a very complex script with hundreds of cuneiform symbols, henceforth reserved to an elite.

1500 years later, a brand new writing system came to light in the north of Syria: the Alphabet. With only about 30 signs, writing was about to become child's play.

This most ancient alphabet was only unearthed in 1928 with the discovery of the Ugarit site, the capital of a mythical and still unknown kingdom. This major archaeological breakthrough has still many secrets to reveal.