Ancient Scripts · real letters, not invented ones
Image generators make up fake writing. Here is the real thing: every letter and sign of 35 ancient scripts, each one a clean image you can download and use in your designs or in the Reference Studio. Open a script to type your own inscription in it. Fonts: Noto (SIL Open Font License). Phrygian and Proto-Sinaitic/Proto-Canaanite are not in Unicode yet; they are being drawn from published sign tables.
Semitic & Canaanite
Phoenician (also Paleo-Hebrew)
29 signs · The Phoenician alphabet; the same letters were used to write early (Paleo-)Hebrew, Moabite and Aramaic.
Ugaritic
31 signs · Cuneiform alphabet of Ugarit.
Imperial Aramaic
31 signs
Samaritan
55 signs · Descends from Paleo-Hebrew.
Nabataean
40 signs
Palmyrene
32 signs
Old South Arabian (Sabaean)
32 signs
Old North Arabian
32 signs
Proto-Sinaitic (Early Alphabetic)
32 signs · Serabit el-Khadim and Wadi el-Hol, c.1900-1500 BC. Pictographic acrophonic signs; stance varies with writing direction. Values follow Albright/Colless as tabulated by Pandey 2019; several are disputed.
Proto-Canaanite (Old Canaanite)
22 signs · Later, more linear Early Alphabetic forms from Canaan (c.13th-11th c. BC) before the Phoenician standard.
Mesopotamia & Anatolia
Cuneiform (Sumerian, Akkadian, Hittite)
1234 signs · Unicode cuneiform signs as used for Sumerian, Akkadian and Hittite.
Anatolian (Luwian) hieroglyphs
583 signs
Carian
49 signs
Lycian
29 signs
Lydian
27 signs
Egypt, Kush & North Africa
Egyptian hieroglyphs
1072 signs
Meroitic (Kush) — hieroglyphic and cursive
122 signs
Tifinagh (Amazigh)
58 signs · Unicode Tifinagh, largely Neo-Tifinagh forms; related to the ancient Libyco-Berber script.
Amazigh tattoo motifs (documented)
39 signs · Real traditional Amazigh/Libyan tattoo motifs, redrawn by hand from documented sources (Bates 1914; Rivière & Faublée 1942; Westermarck 1926; Gobert 1924; dated photographs) — not invented by a model. Hover for region, placement, meaning and source.
Indo-European carved scripts
Runes (Elder & Younger Futhark, Anglo-Saxon Futhorc)
89 signs
Ogham (Old Irish)
28 signs
Gothic
27 signs
Old Italic (Etruscan, Oscan, Umbrian…)
39 signs
Linear B (Mycenaean Greek)
211 signs
Cypriot syllabary
55 signs
Old Persian cuneiform
50 signs
Avestan
61 signs
Inscriptional Pahlavi
27 signs
Inscriptional Parthian
30 signs
Brahmi (Ashoka's edicts)
113 signs
Kharosthi
66 signs
Phrygian (Old Phrygian alphabet)
27 signs · Old Phrygian, 8th-4th c. BC; 19 standard letters (Obrador-Cursach) plus variants and the rare letters nos.19/20/23. Drawn dextroverse; sinistroverse texts mirror the letters.
Archaic Greek epichoric letter forms (not in Unicode)
32 signs · Local archaic Greek letter shapes that Unicode Greek does not encode as distinct characters (digamma, qoppa, san, sampi, heta and Pamphylian digamma are already in Unicode).