ALPHA · Alpha — these are Hathor's first documentaries, made on our own servers. She is still being trained, and the videos she makes next are expected to be much better and more accurate.

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The First Writing

From the earliest clay wedges in Mesopotamia to the alphabets that unlocked literacy, this film traces the real inscriptions that birthed written language.

Chapters

0:07 Birth of Writing in Mesopotamia
1:34 Hieroglyphs in Ancient Egypt
3:01 The Alphabetic Revolution
4:19 Decipherment and Later Scripts

On-screen text

0:07 Birth of Writing in Mesopotamia
0:14 Birth of Writing in Mesopotamia
0:31 Uruk IV – earliest pictographs Historical record · Uruk IV tablet, British Museum
0:49 Kish – first wedge marks Historical record · Kish tablet, Louvre
1:07 Gudea’s cylinders – narrative cuneiform Historical record · Gudea cylinders, Musée du Louvre
1:25 King List – early history Historical record · Sumerian King List, Ashmolean Museum
1:34 Hieroglyphs in Ancient Egypt
1:41 Hieroglyphs in Ancient Egypt
1:58 Narmer Palette – first hieroglyphs Historical record · Narmer Palette, Egyptian Museum, Cairo
2:16 Abydos – early funerary hieroglyphs Historical record · Abydos Tomb inscription, Metropolitan Museum
2:34 Palermo Stone – royal annals Historical record · Palermo Stone, Museo Archeologico Regionale Palermo
2:52 Hymn to the Nile – poetic hieroglyphs Historical record · Tomb of Nakht, Thebes, Theban Necropolis
3:01 The Alphabetic Revolution
3:08 The Alphabetic Revolution
3:25 Byblos – transitional script Historical record · Byblos syllabary tablets, National Museum of Beirut
3:34 Ahiram – early Phoenician alphabet Historical record · Ahiram sarcophagus, National Museum of Beirut
3:52 Dipylon – first Greek letters Historical record · Dipylon Oinochoe, National Archaeological Museum, Athens
4:10 Etruscan cippus – alphabet spread Historical record · Cippus of Perugia, National Etruscan Museum, Villa Giulia
4:19 Decipherment and Later Scripts
4:26 Mycenaean Palace, Crete, c.1300 BCE
4:58 Behistun Inscription, Iran, c.520 BCE Historical record · Behistun Inscription, UNESCO World Heritage Site, Iran
5:38 Rosetta Stone, British Museum, 196 BCE Historical record · Rosetta Stone, British Museum
6:10 Meroitic inscription, Temple of Amun, Meroë, c.200 BCE Historical record · Meroitic inscription, Temple of Amun, Meroë, Sudan

Sources

Historical record: Uruk IV tablet, British Museum · Kish tablet, Louvre · Gudea cylinders, Musée du Louvre · Sumerian King List, Ashmolean Museum · Narmer Palette, Egyptian Museum, Cairo · Abydos Tomb inscription, Metropolitan Museum · Palermo Stone, Museo Archeologico Regionale Palermo · Tomb of Nakht, Thebes, Theban Necropolis · Proto‑Sinaitic inscription, Serabit el‑Khadim, Sinai · Byblos syllabary tablets, National Museum of Beirut · Ahiram sarcophagus, National Museum of Beirut · Dipylon Oinochoe, National Archaeological Museum, Athens · Cippus of Perugia, National Etruscan Museum, Villa Giulia · Linear B tablet KN 201, Heraklion Archaeological Museum · Behistun Inscription, UNESCO World Heritage Site, Iran · Rosetta Stone, British Museum · Meroitic inscription, Temple of Amun, Meroë, Sudan

Sound: synthesized ambient (wind, drone, water) (CC0 — made by SoapBox). Made in 183 s of CPU.

Scenes Hathor has no parts for yet (5) — the next things to make

A young apprentice in a mud‑brick house taps a reed stylus, leaving angular wedges on a flat clay slab.
A miner in a turquoise quarry scratches simple linear symbols onto a limestone slab.
A miner in a turquoise quarry scratches simple linear symbols onto a limestone slab.
A stone sarcophagus is lifted from a burial chamber, its side covered with crisp alphabetic characters.
A tight shot of the stone’s hieroglyphic, Demotic, and Greek sections, each line crisp, the Greek band clearly legible.