The Story of Decipherment
From Egyptian Hieroglyphs to Maya Script
Maurice Pope
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| ‘A fascinating book and an excellent introduction to this aspect of archaeology’ | | — New History |
| ‘Deserves a wide audience … a fascinating story’ | | — New Scientist |
The desire to solve such mysteries as unknown systems of writing is as old as humanity itself. Speculation about Egyptian hieroglyphs began in the Renaissance but the great age of decipherment dawned during the Enlightenment, with the Abbé Barthélemy’s solution of the Palmyra script.
Maurice Pope discusses the outstanding contributions to the science of decipherment made by theorists like Leibnitz and by brilliant practitioners from Champollion to Ventris, using quotations from their original publications and many examples of their drawings, tables and diagrams. For this revised edition the text has been brought up-to-date and a new section added on Maya hieroglyphs.
While paying tribute to the genius of the leading decipherers, Pope explains that their ideas were based on discoveries in many different fields. Among the scripts the author analyses are the Palmyra script, Sassanid Persian, Egyptian Hieroglyphic, Persian cuneiform, Akkadian cuneiform, the Cypriot syllabary, Hittite Hieroglyphic, the Ugaritic alphabet and Mycenaean Linear B.
Also of interest:
Discovering Egyptian Hieroglyphs |
|  |  | | | | Revised Edition | | ISBN 050028105X | | ISBN-13 978-0500281055 | | | | 24.1 x 15.9 cm | | Paperback | | 232pp | | 126 illustrations, plus map | | First published 1999 | | | | £12.95 | | | |  | | | | 
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