BALTIMORE -- In a groundbreaking discovery that's turning the world of linguistics and archaeology upside down, researchers from Johns Hopkins University have unearthed what may be the oldest known alphabetic writing in human history -- and it's dramatically older than anyone previously thought.

Hidden within a tomb in western Syria, four delicate clay cylinders are challenging everything scholars believed about the origins of alphabetic communication. These finger-length artifacts, carefully extracted from Tell Umm-el Marra, date back to approximately 2400 BCE -- a stunning 500 years earlier than previous historical records suggested. The work was presented at the American Society of Overseas Research's Annual Meeting.

"Alphabets revolutionized writing by making it accessible to people beyond royalty and the socially elite," says Glenn Schwartz, the lead archaeologist who made the discovery, in a media release. "Alphabetic writing changed the way people lived, how they thought, how they communicated."