> If this really is an alphabet: what did it develop from? Where are the cultures who used it? And why did no one in the region ever use anything like it again?

> If this really is an alphabet: what did it develop from? Where are the cultures who used it? And why did no one in the region ever use anything like it again? All good points, and my sense of it also is that it's pre-writing, but it might be that additional material just hasn't yet been discovered. Linear A and PS are known from a very, very few inscriptions.