Stone to Silicon

Communication · c. 1,050 BCE

Phoenician alphabet

Mediterranean traders standardise 22 consonant letters and carry them to every port.

The Phoenician alphabet, written right to left with 22 letters, was the working script of Levantine merchant cities like Byblos and Tyre. Its trade network spread it widely, and it is the parent of the Greek, Aramaic, Hebrew and ultimately Latin and Arabic scripts.

See it in the living treeWikipedia

Arcs above join it to what it stood on, arcs below to what it led to. The bar places this stretch on the tree's whole timeline.

What it built on 1

What it led to 2