History
Famous Decoded Scripts
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Updated:4/9/2026
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Script↕ | Decoded↕ | Decipherer↕ | Underlying Language↕ | Key Find↕ | Known For↕ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Egyptian Hieroglyphs | 1822 | Jean-Francois Champollion | Ancient Egyptian | Rosetta Stone (1799) | Trilingual decree in Greek, Demotic, and hieroglyphs unlocked 3,000 years of Egyptian history |
Linear B | 1952 | Michael Ventris | Mycenaean Greek | Knossos and Pylos tablets | Amateur architect proved Linear B was early Greek, 500 years before classical Greek |
Maya Glyphs | 1950s-1990s | Yuri Knorozov, Linda Schele, David Stuart | Classic Mayan | Dresden Codex and stelae | Revealed Mayan kings, wars, and dates after Thompson's wrong iconographic theory collapsed |
Cuneiform (Akkadian) | 1857 | Rawlinson, Hincks, Oppert, Talbot | Akkadian, Sumerian | Behistun Inscription | Royal Asiatic Society test confirmed decipherment, unlocked Mesopotamian civilization |
Old Persian Cuneiform | 1836 | Henry Rawlinson | Old Persian | Behistun rock inscription | Rawlinson scaled cliff to copy trilingual text of Darius the Great |
Ugaritic | 1930 | Hans Bauer, Edouard Dhorme, Charles Virolleaud | Ugaritic (Semitic) | Ras Shamra tablets | 30-character alphabetic cuneiform decoded in months, shed light on Canaanite religion |
Hittite | 1915 | Bedrich Hrozny | Hittite (Indo-European) | Hattusa archives | First known Indo-European language, revealed forgotten Hittite Empire rival to Egypt |
Luwian Hieroglyphs | 1930s-1970s | Piero Meriggi, Emmanuel Laroche, J.D. Hawkins | Luwian (Indo-European) | Karatepe bilingual | Anatolian script, bilingual Phoenician-Luwian text at Karatepe unlocked final readings |
Elamite Cuneiform | 1850 | Edwin Norris | Elamite (isolate) | Behistun Inscription (column 3) | Third column of Behistun, still a language isolate with unknown relatives |
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