Byblos syllabary

Okay kiddo, imagine you have a secret code just for you and your friends to understand. That's kind of like what the people in ancient Byblos, which is now modern-day Lebanon, did with their writing.

They created something called a syllabary, which is a fancy word for a bunch of symbols that represent different sounds. Each symbol stands for a different combination of sounds, like "ba" or "kuh."

And instead of writing from left to right like we do in English, they wrote from right to left. They also wrote on clay tablets instead of paper, which is pretty cool.

But why did they use a syllabary instead of just normal writing? Well, it's believed that they used it because they spoke a language that had a lot of different sounds and it was hard to represent them all with just regular writing. Plus, it made their writing more secretive and special.

So, while it may seem a bit confusing, the Byblos syllabary was just another way for people to communicate and express their language. Pretty neat, right?