Source: Wikipedia
Writing is rarer than it looks.
Almost every script in use today descends from a small number of original inventions, spreading and adapting rather than being independently devised. Real…
Source: Wikipedia
Decipherment is a statistical exercise before it is anything else.
Every script that has been successfully read was cracked because there was enough of it. Enough text for repeated…
Source: Wikipedia
Some archaeological claims are interesting because they are true. Others are interesting because of what happens to a suggestion once it escapes into general circulation.
The object usually called…
Source: Wikipedia
Most ancient monuments survive because they are made of something durable. Stone lasts. Metal lasts. Fired clay lasts. Their survival requires nothing from anybody.
There is a category of…
Source: Wikipedia
Archaeology depends on context. An object in the ground is surrounded by information — what layer it sat in, what was beside it, how it was arranged, what the…
Source: Wikipedia
There is a category of problem that looks impossible from the outside and turns out to be merely extremely difficult, and decipherment sits squarely in it.
When Egyptian hieroglyphs…