Older than we thought

Painted 'Comics' with 'Speech Bubbles' Found in Ancient Roman Tomb

Hundreds of illustrated figures — humans, animals and gods — appear in the paintings. Their poses demonstrate routine activities, such as harvesting crops and building a defensive wall, in a city that was a thriving center of commerce and culture during the second century A.D.

But the mural doesn't just contain pictures. Dozens of inscriptions appear alongside the figures; they describe the action in the local language of Aramaic (though written in Greek letters), and they seem to serve the same purpose as speech bubbles do in comics, the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) recently reported.