Desde los jeroglíficos de Egipto hasta las pictografías de la Isla de Pascua, P.E. Cleator estudia las lenguas de las civilizaciones antiguas. Paso a paso, rastrea los descubrimientos arqueológicos y cuenta cómo los criptólogos descifran cuidadosamente sus mensajes del pasado enterrado.

3/12/22

Published in 1959, the "Introduction" holds well. Speaking as a mere reader of an Egyptologistʻs long studied love, I found Lost Languages fascinating. The only portion that I know has changed concerns the Maya glyphs, deciphered by Emory and Vanderbilt University linguistic archaeology teams sometime in the 1980ʻs perhaps. Other readers, reviewers (I am not among them: I write responses, not reviews), have good news: the account holds for the most part. Considering that it involves Ugaritic, Hittite, etc., that is good. Now I am curious about other languages, once unknown and in that sense "unknownʻ in certain aspects --like W.T. Jones on Sanskrit, as connected to Persian, hence Indo-European in classification (now well known). . .over and against, .e.g. what the languages of the Indus Valley, of Mohenjo Daro, e.g., was or was like. Just curious and writing-out-quietly. ( )

It's been a long time since I read this, but I remember that I learned a lot about how ancient languages were decoded - a fascinating book if a bit on the academic side. ( )

outdated by subsequent advances in decipherment ( )