Oldest sentence in history discovered – warning of beard lice almost 4,000 years ago - New York Post

The oldest condemnation written successful the earliest known alphabet has been discovered – carved into an ivory comb which warned astir caput lice.

The comb – estimated to beryllium 3,700 years aged – was unearthed successful an archaeological excavation successful Israel, according to a caller survey published Wednesday.

“May this tusk basal retired the lice of the hairsbreadth and the beard,” reads the inscription written successful Canaanite script, experts said in the Jerusalem Journal of Archaeology.

Microscopic grounds of lice were adjacent recovered successful what remains of the comb’s bristles.

The comb was excavated successful 2016 successful Tel Lachish site, astir 25 miles extracurricular of Jerusalem — but a researcher astatine Israel’s Hebrew University lone discovered the etching precocious past year, according to the report.

“May this tusk basal retired the lice of the hairsbreadth and the beard,” an inscription connected the comb says.AP

Previous discoveries of Canaanite penning were of a fewer letters oregon a connection – but this is the archetypal clip researchers person recovered a implicit sentence.

“It is simply a precise quality text,” said Yosef Garfinkel of Hebrew University, the pb researcher of the study.

“It shows america that radical didn’t truly change, and lice didn’t truly change,” Garfinkel told the Associated Press.

The find besides showed that “even successful the astir past signifier determination were afloat sentences” utilizing the Canaanite alphabet, helium said.

An aerial photograph shows the Tel Lachish archeological tract wherever the past head-lice comb was uncovered.AFP via Getty Images

Carbon dating couldn’t verify the property of the past comb which scientists presume was imported, arsenic elephant with ivory tusks were not autochthonal to the region.

The tiny comb – measuring astir 1.5 inches wide – had astir of its teeth worn down implicit the millennia but six teeth connected 1 broadside were apt utilized to untangle hairsbreadth and 14 finer teeth utilized for targeting unrecorded and their eggs, according to the study.

Writing systems predated Canaanite successful Mesopotamia and Egypt but relied connected symbols alternatively than an alphabet, an adept connected Semitic languages told the Guardian.

Canaanite was the ground for past Greek and Latin – and successful crook galore modern European languages, said Christopher Rollston of George Washington University.

“Throughout quality past lice person been a perennial problem,” helium told the Guardian. “And this inscription nicely reveals that adjacent the affluent and celebrated successful past times were not exempt from specified problems.”

With Post wires