Lost languages : the enigma of the world's great undeciphered scripts / Andrew Robinson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Robinson, Andrew, 1957-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Writing--History.

Writing.

History.

Extinct languages.

Physical Description:

352 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : McGraw-Hill, [2002]

Summary:

Maybe It's the Possibility of "speaking with the dead," of hearing the voices of long-silent peoples and civilizations. Perhaps it's the puzzle solver's relish for the challenges posed by breaking codes. Whatever the reasons, undeciphered ancient scripts have long tantalized the public. Lost Languages investigates the most famous examples, leading us back to a far-distant past obscured by the ravages of time and haunted by code breakers hungry for glory.

The book begins with an incisive description of decipherment techniques and tells the stories of three great decipherements: Egyptian hieroglyphs in the 19th century, the Mayan glyphs of Central America, and the Linear B clay tablets of the Minoan civilization of Crete in the 20th century. Then it tackles the important scripts still awaiting their decipherers.

Perhaps the greatest challenge today is the Indus script. Found on exquisitely beautiful seal stones, pottery, and copper tablets excavated in Pakistan and India, it is the only writing of the four "first" civilizations that cannot be read. Unraveled, it would not only break the millennia-long silence of the impressive Indus Valley civilization, it would also shed new light on the origins of the Indo-European ancestors of the modern West.

Then there are the Etruscans, who have spellbound the imagination ever since Renaissance times. Builders of sensational tombs and drinkers of wine, they were the cultural conduit through which the Greek alphabet reached Rome and hence the rest of Europe. And yet the language spoken by the Etruscans remains wrapped in mystery; if penetrated, it could reveal the history of a pre-Roman society almost as great as ancient Greece.

And on isolated Easter Island, the exotic Rongorongo script has long been an irresistible magnet for ambitious decipherers. Inscribed on wood with sharks' teeth and as enigmatic as the island's arresting stone faces, these texts are the only writing in pre-colonial Oceania. They definitely contain a lunar calendar and may tell the story of the origins of humankind in the Pacific Ocean. How old is Rongorongo? No one knows for sure.

The struggle to decipher these three scripts and six others -- including the notorious Phaistos disc of Crete (the world's first typewritten document, dated c. 1700 BC) and the Zapotec script of Mexico (the first writing system in the Americas) -- is recounted with extraordinary depth and erudition in this lavishly illustrated book. In Lost Languages, Robinson reports from the front lines of scholarship, where obsession, genius, occasional delusion, and sometimes bitter rivalry are de rigueur among the intriguing cast of modern characters who are currently competing for the rare honor of cracking these ancient codes -- and giving voice to forgotten worlds.

Contents:

Voices of the Pharaohs: Egyptian hieroglyphs (Egypt)

The Labyrinth of Minos: linear B (Greece)

Bishop de Landa's inquisition: Mayan glyphs (Central America)

Voices of the Black Pharaohs: the Meroitic script (Sudan)

Greek but not Greek: the Etruscan alphabet (Italy)

A Mediterranean mystery: linear A (the Aegean)

Secrets of the ancient ledgers: the proto-elamite script (Iran)

Birdmen of Rapanui: Rongorongo (Easter Island)

The new world begins to write: the Zapotec and Isthmian scripts (Mexico)

At the sign of the unicorn: the Indus script (Pakistan/India)

Sir Arthur's 'Chaunt of victory': the Phaistos disc (Crete)

The urge to decipher.

Notes:

"A Peter N. Nevraumont book."

Includes bibliographical references (pages 335-340) and index.

ISBN:

0071357432

OCLC:

48032556