Easy as Alep, Bet, Gimel? Cambridge Research Explores Social Context of Ancient Writing

A new University of Cambridge research project is set to shed light on the history of writing in the ancient world, and explore the long-lasting relationship between society and writing that persists today.

“The links from the ancient past to our alphabet today are no coincidence…It matters who was doing the writing and what they were using writing for.” – Philippa Steele

A new research project at the University of Cambridge is set to shed light on the history of writing, revealing connections to our modern alphabet that cross cultures and go back thousands of years.

The project, called Contexts of and Relations between Early Writing Systems (CREWS for short), is to focus on exploring how writing developed during the 2nd and 1st millennia BCE in the ancient Mediterranean and Near East, and will investigate how different writing systems and the cultures that used them were related to each other.

The project is led by Dr Philippa Steele of the University’s Faculty of Classics. Described as an “innovative and interdisciplinary approach to the history of writing” the CREWS project aims to enrich our understanding of linguistic, cultural and social aspects of the use, borrowing and development of writing in the ancient world – which can uncover some often surprising links to our modern-day written culture.