Origins of the @ Sign @ Alice Hill’s Real Tech News - Independent Tech

"Let’s go back to the 6th or 7th century. Latin scribes tried to save a little effort by shortening the Latin word ad (at, to, or toward) by stretching the upstroke of “d” and curving it over the “a”.

Italian researchers unearthed 14th-century documents, where the @ sign represented a measure of quantity. The symbol also appeared in a 15th-century Latin-Spanish dictionary, defined as a gauge of weight, and soon after—according to ancient letters—was referenced as an amphora, a standard-sized clay vessel used to carry wine and grain." (full story) Origins of the @ Sign @ Alice Hill’s Real Tech News - Independent Tech