“The first written alphabet, the Ugaritic alphabet, was invented around 1400 BC.”
I detect a bit of chauvinism here. More likely derived than invented, from what I read, and more likely preceded by the Proto-Sinaitic alphabet, perhaps by several centuries (used by “Semitic slaves in northern Egypt”).
also try the bottommost link I put here (meant that post for the GGG ping msg, oops):
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2549691/posts?page=2#2