Do Undeciphered SCRIPTS Hold The Key To The ANCIENT Past?

It's an unfortunate fact of prehistory that some of the most incredible and mysterious cultures of the ancient past left us no written records to help understand them by. Written languages first appeared during the Bronze Age but these were confined to sophisticated urban cultures.

Even then, many remain undeciphered. These days the hieroglyphs of Ancient Egypt and the cuneiform of Mesopotamia are well understood. But there are still several Bronze Age scripts developed by the sophisticated Minoan civilization that are proving very difficult to translate.

It's not even known which language they were used to write. Also dating to the Bronze Age is the Indus or Harappa script which, although it is engraved onto thousands of objects has yet to be deciphered. This script was created by the Indus Valley Civilization, a complex urban society that left behind a lot of material culture but its inscriptions are a mystery.

There's also an intriguing possibility that inscriptions dating to as far back as the Neolithic may also have been a type of proto-writing. In this video I explore some exciting but undeciphered Neolithic and Bronze Age inscriptions. Can you crack the code?

#ancienthistory #harappa #indusvalleycivilization #minoancivilization #minoans

✨ IN THIS EPISODE

00:00 Introduction
00:15 Lost History
03:05 Deciphering Scripts
05:21 Minoan Scripts
12:01 Dispilio Tablet
13:49 Vinča symbols
15:26 Indus script

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✨ REFERENCES

Bonanno, A,. (2005). Malta. Phoenician, Punic and Roman. Santa Venera: Midsea Books Ltd.

Facorellis, Y., Sofronidou, M., & Hourmouziadis, G. (2014). Radiocarbon Dating of the Neolithic Lakeside Settlement of Dispilio, Kastoria, Northern Greece. Radiocarbon, 56(2), 511-528. doi:10.2458/56.17456

Price, S., and Thonemann, P. (2011). The birth of classical Europe. A history from Troy to Augustine. London: Penguin Books.

Shinde, V. and Willis, R., 2014. A New Type of Inscribed Copper Plate from Indus Valley (Harappan) Civilisation. Ancient Asia, 5.

Wu, K., Solman, J., Linehan, R. and Sproat, R., 2012, April. Corpora of non-linguistic symbol systems. In LSA Annual Meeting Extended Abstracts (Vol. 3, pp. 4-1).

✨ MUSIC CREDIT

License code: YD3SKFJMVNDTLWEX

✨ PHOTOGRAPH CREDITS

Thumbnail: Phaistos disk, credit: C messier
Abu Simbel temple hieroglyphic script, credit: Mmelouk
Rosetta Stone, credit: Awikimate
Linear A tablet fragments, credit: Zde
Phaistos Disc, credit: D. Herdemerten derived from Perhelion
Reconstruction of the Neolithic lakeshore village, credit: Tryfon Manolis

Knossos palace, credit: Silar
Minoan Crete, credit: Bibi Saint-Pol
Cypro-Minoan, credit: Mikhail Ryazanov
Undeciphered scripts, credit: Yorgos Facorellis
Vinča figurine, credit: Michel Va
Vinča symbol, credit: Nikola Smolensk

Indus script, credit: ALFGRN

Cippus, credit: R Muscat
Linear B, credit: Sharon Mollerus

Public domain
Clay tablet with cuneiform script
Cretan hieroglyphs
Linear A
Minoan fresco

[barrywalser]

Great work Laura! Looking forward to more on ancient scripts. Thank You!

[ancientalternativeview]

I shall watch later all the best to all and keep up the great work Phil aav

[barrywalser]

Great work Laura! Looking forward to more ancient scripts. Thank You!

[garyworokevich]

Thanks for the upload.
I will have to watch this a couple of times.
Lots of info to digest.
Just got off work.
All the best Laura.

[MrJento]

Very thought provoking. I recently tossed out some 1980’s vintage floppy discs at the dump. Some young-er people asked what they were. I explained. They asked why we did not use USB drives or the It’s been only 50 years. Imagine what it would be in 500, or a thousand or ten.

If a Paleolithic culture wrote with pigments on hides, or tied patterns of knots in string, all would now be lost. Or if such did survive would we recognize it for what it is? Food for thought.

And in making us think, you have succeeded.

Fox out.

[floydriebe]

hi, Laura! very interesting. the deciphering of Egyptian heiroglyphs gave us insights into not only royal figures, but average, everyday life of the people. to be able to read Minoan or Indus scripts, or any others, should do the same. understanding the cultures of ancient peoples could give us insights into some of the puzzles of ancient history. hopefully, something will be found that will unlock these scripts.

enjoyable, as always, my friend! please, miss! s'more?

[Mozkonauta]

Great video, I love the subject. Good explanation. There are also a few mysterious inscriptions made by the Olmec. We can only understand the numbering system, which was adopted by the Maya, but the “words” are few, not enough to make sense of them. There are also cave signs, previous to the Neolithic, in European caves. Also mysterious, and undecipherable 😢

[ZiggyDan]

Great research, Laura. Have you seen any Harappan and Rongo Rongo scripts? They are very similar.

[yeoldfart]

Frustrating things they-ast gives us. The loss of library info lost to wars and religious zealots is so sad. Always enjoy your shows.

[billmiller]

Way OT and I know I sound like a grand-dad now, but please take care to protect yourself against too much sun.

[johnirby]

Imagine what unknown things we could learn!

[KerriEverlasting]

I fully expect your deciphererments presently. 😂💖

[MaryAnnNytowl]

Great video! Here's a like and comment for the Almighty Algorithm. 🙂