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Undeciphered Scripts

As the debate over the Indus script – on if it is a language or not and if so, is it Dravidian or Indo-European – continues, New Scientist has an article listing seven other scripts that cannot be read.

Proto-Elamite is the world’s oldest undeciphered script – assuming that it really is a fully developed writing system, which is by no means certain. It was used for perhaps 150 years from around 3050 BC in Elam, the biblical name for an area that corresponds roughly to today’s oilfields of western Iran. It is almost as old as the oldest writing of all, the earliest cuneiform from Mesopotamia. Little is known about the people who wrote the script.[Decoding antiquity: Eight scripts that still can't be read - life - 27 May 2009 - New Scientist]

Related posts:

  1. A Talk on Indus People and their Script In April 2009, “a team of Indian scientists reports in Friday’s issue of Science journal that the Indus script has a structured sign system showing features of a formal language.”...
  2. Indus Script: A Formal Language This picture shows a Harappan seal with five inscriptions or characters, which have been undeciphered. In fact there are many decipherments, but no scholarly consensus. One of the disputes...
  3. Smithsonian on Indus Script Ever since Rao et al. published that the Indus script showed the structure of a formal language, a new debate on the topic was initiated. There were some hostile reactions...


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