[SunkenCiv]

Experts working on proto-Elamite hope they are on the point of a 'breakthrough'

[Jane Long]

It says...0bummer is toast!

[DManA]

could be about to be decoded

Could be, maybe not. While it's nice to hear about what people are working on it would be nice once in a while to read a story about an actual discovery.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Cretan Linear A?

Woops. no.

[UCANSEE2]

" making it possible to see that much of this information is about accounts of the ownership and yields from land and people. They are about property and status, not poetry."

So... it's a cash register receipt for foodstamp purchaes?

[dfwgator]

[GeronL]

do they know if its right side up or not and which way its read from left to right, top to bottom?

Maybe its like Korean and symbols are actually syllables, not letters and the sounds tell us nothing about what the words mean.

[BwanaNdege]

"But this is painstaking work. So far Dr Dahl has deciphered 1,200 separate signs, but he says that after more than 10 years study much remains unknown, even such basic words as "cow" or "cattle"..."

This has now been Translated

[One Name]

Pretty slow way to tell me the cows are out.

Hopefully, the message is of much more import..

[TigersEye]

...but he says that after more than 10 years study much remains unknown, even such basic words as "cow" or "cattle"...

Context is everything. Once you get the rest the little things fall into place.

Send lawyers guns and money the "cow" has hit the fan!

[Two Kids' Dad]

Civ, you come up with all sorts of interesting articles. Thanks for posting this one.

[a fool in paradise]

IBTIAGTM comments
(In Before The It’s All Greek To Me!)

[Rebelbase]

Maybe it’s just art?

[wildandcrazyrussian]

Maybe it’s Old Egyptish from that Joseph Smith fellow!

[trebb]

Oogum oogum boogum boogum
boogum now baby you’re castin’ your spell on me...

[Eye of Unk]

Kilroy was here?

I bet that draws a lot of blank looks from the current generation.

[techcor]

“Warning: Anyone who reads this will release Cthulhu”

[ApplegateRanch]

"But this is painstaking work. So far Dr Dahl has deciphered 1,200 separate signs, but he says that after more than 10 years study much remains unknown, even such basic words as "cow" or "cattle"..."

It is the long-lost To Serve Beef: The Complete Party Guide To Hosting A Beef Bash in Bashan cookbook.

[Bellflower]

How does seeing them from a 3 d view help decipher them, as they very most likely are meant to be read as 2 d anyway? Someone please enlighten me or at least as seen from the front by the naked eye. They didn’t run around with a special machine to view every possible their script from every possible angle. They just read it.