The earliest known full sentence to use an alphabetic script is inscribed on a small 3,700-year-old elephant-ivory comb that was unearthedof Lachish, it was not until five years later that archaeologist Madeleine Mumcuoglu of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem noticed the 17 tiny characters, each measuring just 1/25 to 3/25 of an inch wide, faintly engraved on the comb’s surface. After translating the Canaanite script, epigraphist Daniel Vainstub of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev found that they spelled out a relatable appeal: “May this tusk root out the lice of the hair and the beard.”
