History
Still-Undeciphered Scripts
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Script↕ | Origin↕ | Period↕ | Known Symbols↕ | Modern Discovery↕ | Why Undeciphered↕ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Linear A | Minoan Crete | 1800-1450 BCE | Around 90 signs plus ideograms | Evans at Knossos 1900 | Underlying Minoan language is unknown and unrelated to any decipherable tongue, no bilingual text exists |
Indus Script | Indus Valley Civilization | 2600-1900 BCE | Around 400-600 distinct signs | Harappa and Mohenjo-daro 1920s | Texts are extremely short (average 5 signs), no bilingual, debate over whether it even encodes a language |
Rongorongo | Easter Island (Rapa Nui) | Pre-1860s CE | Around 120 basic glyphs | Missionary Eyraud 1864 | Last literate Rapa Nui died in 19th century Peruvian slave raids, only 26 tablets survive worldwide |
Voynich Manuscript | Europe (likely Italy) | 15th century CE (carbon dated) | Around 25-30 unique characters | Wilfrid Voynich 1912 | Unknown script or cipher, illustrations of unknown plants and naked women, resists all statistical attacks |
Proto-Elamite | Iran (Susa and Persia) | 3100-2900 BCE | Around 1,000 signs | French excavations Susa 1890s | Over 1,600 tablets known but scribes made errors, signs rarely repeat in same context, no bilingual |
Cypro-Minoan | Bronze Age Cyprus | 1550-1050 BCE | Around 100 signs | Enkomi excavations early 1900s | Too few inscriptions, underlying Eteocypriot language poorly understood, evolved from Linear A |
Meroitic | Kingdom of Kush (Sudan) | 300 BCE-400 CE | 23 alphabetic signs | Long known, partially read by Griffith 1909 | Alphabet decoded but Meroitic language family and meaning of most words still unclear |
Isthmian (Epi-Olmec) | Veracruz, Mexico | 500 BCE-500 CE | Around 150 signs | La Mojarra Stela 1986 | Very few texts known, proposed decipherment as early Zoquean is disputed by most Mayanists |
Byblos Syllabary | Phoenicia (Byblos) | 2000-1800 BCE | Around 90-100 signs | Dunand excavations 1929-1932 | Only 10 inscriptions exist, may be a pseudo-hieroglyphic precursor to the Phoenician alphabet |
Olmec Cascajal Block | Veracruz, Mexico | Around 900 BCE | 62 signs, 28 distinct | Cascajal village 1999 | Earliest writing in the Americas, single stone tablet only, no context or comparable texts |
Sitovo Inscription | Bulgaria | Disputed (Bronze Age?) | Around 30 signs | Sitovo cave 1928 | Authenticity disputed, possibly natural cracks, no comparable inscriptions, may not be writing at all |
Vinca Symbols | Neolithic Balkans | 6000-3000 BCE | Hundreds of marks | Tordos Transylvania 1875 | Older than Sumerian cuneiform, but debated whether true writing or proto-writing symbols |
Zapotec Script | Oaxaca, Mexico | 600 BCE-800 CE | Hundreds of glyphs | Monte Alban excavations | Calendar signs partially read, but much of monumental inscriptions remains opaque |
Khipu (Inca) | Andean South America | 1400-1532 CE (earlier examples exist) | Knotted cords | Long known, study intensified 20th century | Numerical khipus decoded, but whether narrative khipus encode a phonetic language still debated |
Singapore Stone | Singapore | 10th-13th century CE | Around 50 lines of unknown script | Mouth of Singapore River 1819 | British blew up the stone in 1843 to widen the river, only fragments survive, language unknown |
Rohonc Codex | Hungary (probable origin) | Unknown, surfaced 19th century | Around 200 unique characters | Donated to Hungarian Academy 1838 | 448 pages of unknown script, religious illustrations suggest Christian content, possibly a hoax |
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