Researchers Discover 3,700-Year-Old Small Ivory Comb Engraved With Oldest Sentence Written in First Alphabet

Researchers have unearthed a unique spell from the past that humans allegedly used to keep lice away. The terror of lice remains as prevalent as it was back in the Bronze Age, but the script in which this spell was written has gotten lost to the tides of time, Popular Science reported.

According to researchers, the spell written on the found ivory comb was formulated with an early form of the alphabet used by the Canaanites. Findings regarding the comb have been published in the Jerusalem Journal of Archaeology.

The ivory comb was discovered in Lachish, a Canaanite city-state in the second millennium B.C.E., Popular Science reported. The team found 17 letters on the comb, which they believe comprised seven words. According to researchers, the inscription on the comb translated to "May this tusk root out the lice of the hair and the beard."

The comb was 3.5cm by 2.5cm in size and was detected in south-central Israel in 2017, The Guardian reported. In 2022, experts located the engraving on the comb. Analysts confirmed that the inscription on the comb was written in Canaanite script, the first alphabet series developed by humans around 3,800 years ago. 

Only 10 inscriptions from that alphabet series have been uncovered to this date, but none have contained a full phrase until this comb, Popular Science reported.

"This is the first sentence ever found in the Canaanite language in Israel. There are Canaanites in Ugarit in Syria, but they write in a different script, not the alphabet that is used till today," Yosef Garfinkel, an archaeologist at the Institute of Archaeology at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a co-author of the study said.

The comb was spotted in a worn-out state, having lost all its teeth, The Guardian reported. The stumps on the item show that originally it bore six widely spaced teeth, and 14 narrowly spaced teeth.

Experts think that the widely spaced teeth removed hair tangles, while the narrow ones got rid of lice and eggs, The Guardian reported. Microscopic examination of the specimen found tough outer membranes of half-millimeter-long nymph stages of head lice on the comb.

Looking at the translation researchers pointed out the distinct approaches undertaken by humans against lice in ancient and present times, The Guardian reported. "The inscription is very human," Garfinkel said. “You have a comb and on the comb, you have a wish to destroy lice on the hair and beard. Nowadays we have all these sprays and modern medicines and poisons. In the past, they didn’t have those."

The comb was made to go through carbon dating to find its age, but no conclusive results came out, Popular Science reported. Researchers believe that the comb was made around 1700 B.C.E., based on other observations regarding the item.

They also think that the item belonged to the elites of the Canaanite society. Elephants did not live in Israel back then, which implies that the comb needed to be imported. Ivory was a very expensive material in the Bronze Age and hence was used by the cream of the society.