New Delhi: According to Wikipedia, the first emoji was created in 1998 or 1999 in Japan by Shigetaka Kurita, was part of the team working on NTT DoCoMo's i-mode mobile Internet platform.


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However, this fact just may change since, archaeologists have discovered a 3,700-year-old piece of pottery that could possibly have the world's oldest emoji – a smiley face – painted on it.


During an excavation at an ancient city whose remains are in modern-day Turkey near the Syrian border, archaeologists found the ancient pitcher with three visible paint strokes on it – two dots for eyes and a curve for a smile.


The pitcher, which dates to about 1700 BC, was found in a burial site beneath a house in Karkemish, said Nikolo Marchetti, associate professor at the University of Bologna in Italy.


The pitcher was likely used to drink sherbet, a sweet beverage, Marchetti was quoted as saying by 'Live Science'.


Other vases and pots, as well as metal goods were also discovered in the ancient city. The name Karkemish translates to "Quay of (the god) Kamis," a deity popular at that time in northern Syria.


The city was inhabited from the sixth millennium BC, until the late Middle Ages when it was abandoned, and populated by a string of different cultures, including the Hittites, Neo Assyrians and Romans, researchers said.


It was used once more in 1920 as a Turkish military outpost, they said.


(With PTI inputs)