Phoenician Alphabet Develops

Building on earlier Proto-Sinaitic and Proto-Canaanite scripts, the Phoenicians developed a 22-letter consonantal alphabet around 1050 BCE. No more memorizing hundreds of cuneiform symbols or hieroglyphs — just 22 characters that anyone could learn. The Greeks later added vowels and passed it to the Romans, who passed it to basically everyone. The inscription on the Ahiram sarcophagus from Byblos is one of the earliest examples. This was literally the most important tech innovation of the ancient world.