The origins of writing in Mesopotamia lie in the images imprinted by ancient cylinder seals on clay tablets and other artifacts. A research group from the University of Bologna has identified a series of correlations between the designs engraved on these cylinders, dating back around six thousand years, and some of the signs in the proto-cuneiform script that emerged in the city of Uruk, located in what is now southern Iraq, around 3000 BCE.
