The shape of a letter is usually treated as a matter of convention, and to a large extent it is. But writing systems designed for a specific material carry that…
Source: Wikipedia
There is a particular category of historical event that is easier to document than to explain, and this is the largest example available.
For several centuries before 1200 BC,…
Source: Wikipedia
Decipherment requires a bilingual text — the same content in a script you can read and one you cannot — and the number of such texts is very small,…
Source: Wikipedia
Most archaeological finds are objects. Something survives, it is recovered, and it can be examined, measured and displayed.
Occasionally the significant find is not an object at all but…
Source: Wikipedia
There is a grim regularity to the history of libraries. They accumulate for generations, they hold material that exists nowhere else, and then something happens to them — and…
Source: Wikipedia
Archaeology usually has the opposite problem to this one. Objects survive and their purpose is unclear because nothing organic remains around them.
Here the object survives in extraordinary condition,…