The Mysterious Ancient scripts

Ancient scripts abound in the world. And they present challenge that excites human imagination over ancient civilizations and the mysteries they incorporate.

I have compiled Some of the most fascinating and discussed scripts among the Historians of 19th to 21st century 

 

The Mysterious Scripts of ancient Crete
Linear A

Phaestos Disk (Linear A)

This script appears on the Phaestos Disk discovered by the Italian School of Archaeology in 1908. The script on this disk has been scrutinized extensively for clues as to the kind of language it represents. The symbols seem to have been impressed on the disk and are arranged in a spiral form. Linguists describe the Phaestus Disk as unique

The Minoan Linear A script inscribed on the renowned Phaestos (Festos) Disk. This script Hasn't been deciphered yet. These “milkstones” are Minoan sealstones with engraved hieroglyphic signs. According to legend these sealstones were worn by Minoan women who had just given birth as amulets in expectation of ample milk production.
Many believed that they were the secret to deciphering the language of ancient Minoans.
 Cretan  hieroglyphics appeared on Crete about 2000 B.C., approximately in the period the first Minoan palaces were erected. The term “hieroglyphics” is credited to Sir Arthur Evans who saw Egyptian influences in the wider Mediterranean region.Cretan hieroglyphics have been found all over Crete, inscribed on soft stones (steatite), tablets or clay vessels. Researchers and experts alike have been unable to decipher these hieroglyphics.
It is likely that the secrets of Linear A script shall remain locked for ever. However, this will only keep our interest unwavering and our search for truth a never ending task.

Linear B, another script for writting Greek, circa 1450BC

Linear BLinear B evolved from Linear A with a reduction of symbols. It represents a pure Greek form of writing of the Homeric period. Linear B appears on clay tablets which have survived the destruction of the Minoan palaces.
The first clay tablets in Linear B were discovered by Mr. Minos Kalokairinos, an ardent amateur Cretan archaeologist, and by Sir Arthur Evans who unearthed the Minoan palace at Knossos in 1900. Linear B consists of ideograms (e.g. representations of men and women), 87 syllabic letters, numerical symbols (decimal system) and symbols of weights and measures (decimal system). In many occasions we encounter a combination of ideograms and syllabic letters. The transcription is done in Latin.

Tranlation of Linear B

Linear B was deciphered not by an archaeologist but by an architect,
Michael Ventris, in 1952. Other experts had tried to do the same but were unsuccessful. To achieve his goal, Ventris relied on the frequency various symbols repeated in the texts.

The Butuan Silver Strip

The metal strip was found inside a wooden coffin by treasure hunters who were looking for ceramic and gold objects that could be sold for high prices to private collectors. According to Dr. Jesus Peralta, similar burials in wooden coffins in the vicinity of Butuan had previously been found to contain human remains with skulls that have been artificially deformed. This practice was apparently limited to Southern Philippines, the beauty standard for such head shapes never finding its way to Luzon.
Ceramics and ornaments were usually placed in the coffins, the ceramic pieces dating from the 14th and 15th centuries. If the metal strip was found within a typical coffin, it would have logically come from the same era.
While the metal piece could have come from foreign shores, the safest and most conservative position one can take is that an artifact belongs in the place where it was found unless it can be proven otherwise.
The letters were cut into the piece of metal with a knife. The difficulty of making curved lines on metal with a knife is apparent in the clumsy shapes of the letters. The strip measures 17.8 x 1.3 cm.

Till this time the writing has been deciphered or the letters have been identified. However it is said that a companion script was also found in the coffin which was kept by the owner bcz he believed that it might lead him to the treasure hoard . (How he hoped to use that piece to locate the treasure without translating the message is not known. Neither do we know why it is that piece and not the one he gave up that holds the secret) .

Voynich Manuscript

The Voynich Manuscript is named after Wilfrid M. Voynich, an antiquarian book dealer who acquired it in 1912. It is lavishly illustrated manuscript codex of 234 pages, written in an unknown script. One theory is that is was written sometime during the 13th century by a Franciscan friar, Roger Bacon (1214-1294). Many attempts have been made to decipher the text but none have succeeded. Some think the manuscript is gibberish, and was probably a practical joke played on Rudolph II.




Indus script

The Indus Valley Civilization was the first major urban culture of South Asia. It reached its peak from 2600 BC to 1900 BC roughly, a period called by some archaeologists "Mature Harappan" as distinguished from the earlier Neolithic "Early Harappan" regional cultures. Spatially, it is huge, comprising of about 1000 settlements of varying sizes, and geographically includes almost all of modern Pakistan, parts of India as far east as Delhi and as far south as Bombay, and parts of Afghanistan.
The main corpus of writing dated from the Indus Civilization is in the form of some two thousand inscribed seals in good, legible conditions. (In case you don't know what seals are, they are used to make impressions on malleable material like clay.)
Although these seals and samples of Indus writing have been floating around the scholastic world for close to 70 years, little progress has been made on deciphering this elegant script. However, we should not blamed for their lack of progress.








These were some scripts i came across lately except the first one (Phaestos) which i read like 3 years back on some website.

I hope you didn't get bored reading all the stuff i have compiled , However i know one can die of boredom if he don't have any interest in History (i Should have put a warning sign at the top but anyway)

Now I'm working on some texts or scripts which were believed to be extraterrestrial and believe may you don't wanna miss that.

And thnx for reading and please do post comments. :)