The authors present clues locked within artifacts, woven into oral tradition, encrypted in ancient writing, and embedded in the land itself which help to decipher some of ancient history's most intriguing cases.
Recounts the work of leading nineteenth- and twentieth-century literary archaeologists in searching out, studying, and deciphering ancient writings and thereby retrieving the histories and literatures of ancient cultures.
The surprising and compelling story of two rival geniuses in an all-out race to decode one of the world's most famous documents--the Rosetta Stone--and their twenty-year-long battle to solve the mystery of ancient Egypt's hieroglyphs. The Rosetta Stone is one of the most famous objects in the world, attracting millions of visitors to the British museum ever year, and yet most people don't really know what it is. Discovered in a pile of rubble in 1799, this slab of stone proved to be the key to unlocking a lost language that baffled scholars for centuries. Carved in ancient Egypt, the Rosetta Stone carried the same message in different languages--in Greek using Greek letters, and in Egyptian using picture-writing called hieroglyphs. Until its discovery, no one in the world knew how to read the hieroglyphs that covered every temple and text and statue in Egypt. Dominating the world for thirty centuries, ancient Egypt was the mightiest empire the world had ever known, yet everything about it--the pyramids, mummies, the Sphinx--was shrouded in mystery. Whoever was able to decipher the Rosetta Stone, and learn how to read hieroglyphs, would solve that mystery and fling open a door that had been locked for two thousand years. Two brilliant rivals set out to win that prize. One was English, the other French, at a time when England and France were enemies and the world's two great superpowers. The Writing of the Gods chronicles this high-stakes intellectual race in which the winner would win glory for both himself and his nation. A riveting portrait of empires both ancient and modern, this is an unparalleled look at the culture and history of ancient Egypt and a fascinating, fast-paced story of human folly and discovery unlike any other.
Decoding Egyptian Hieroglyphs interweaves a clear guide to deciphering this elegant, largely picture language with vivid depictions of its origins and the people themselves.
In 1900 a group of sponge divers blown off course in the Mediterranean discovered an Ancient Greek shipwreck near the island of Antikythera dating from around 70 BC. Lying unnoticed for months amongst their hard-won haul was what appeared to be a formless lump of corroded rock, which turned out to be the most stunning scientific artefact we have from antiquity. For more than a century this 'Antikythera mechanism' - an ancient computer - puzzled academics, but now, more than 2000 years after the device was lost at sea, scientists have pieced together its intricate workings. In Decoding the Heavens, Jo Marchant tells for the first time the story of the 100-year quest to understand the Antikythera mechanism. Along the way she unearths a diverse cast of remarkable characters - ranging from Archimedes to Jacques Cousteau - and explores the deep roots of modern technology not only in Ancient Greece, the Islamic world and medieval Europe.
The languages of the ancient world and the mysterious scripts, long undeciphered, in which they were encoded have represented one of the most intriguing problems of classical archaeology in modern times. This celebrated account of the decipherment of Linear B in the 1950s by Michael Ventris was written by his close collaborator in the momentous discovery. In revealing the secrets of Linear B it offers a valuable survey of late Minoan and Myceanean archaeology, uncovering fascinating details of the religion and economic history of an ancient civilisation.
Get ready to witness and unlock the first messages left from the ancient civilizations who vanished without even being known to exist until now! These messages detail maps and sagas of a once worldly empire who traded in goods of unimaginable quantities from all over the American continent too far off lands. Detailed is symbology to understand the vast network of hidden caves, of ancient goods storage and transport routes. Of treasure and artifacts of great importance left in hidden locations throughout time awaiting rediscovery so the world may once again know of this magnificent empire 13,000 years ago. Our early explorers quickly discovered they were not the first to conquer the farthest shores of earth. Modern man gazed upon ancient images and monuments of long ago pioneers already decaying from great age. We have all contemplated what secrets they kept locked in a maze of limitless configurations of beauty and synchronicity. Such industrious and indelible creations were certainly made to convey meaning. What connection does a global network of rock carvings and mega structures mean to our history? Well the answer will surprise you! Chris Hegg has dedicated his life to finding out these answers. At age 45, Chris has moved beyond the stumbling decades of logging and failures of comprehension, to gain ever increasingly small victories in their understanding. Now at a fever pitch in symbol decipherment Chris has uncovered the most startling facts of individual symbol meanings that reveal amazing stories of courage, inhospitable lands, and global travel unimaginable when he first started this quest. A much deeper innate secret lay rooted in the symbols however; they were the first Universal Language of Man! Thought as just "rock art" by archeologists; petroglyphs, megaliths, and geoglyphs are all related comprising a single ancient language. This language is known in biblical stories and now confirmed by scientific methodology. This book is dedicated to that first Universal Language. To be reborn so the secrets lost to us can be discovered once more. Finally a tool capable of peeling away the layers of our forgotten past to read firsthand accounts of the struggles of man on a global scale over 13,000 years ago! The stories are a tribute to our perseverance and domination in a harsh world conquered thousands of years before Columbus. "
An exploration of New Zealand’s Maori cosmology and how it relates to classic ancient symbolic traditions around the world • Shows how Maori myths, symbols, cosmological concepts, and words reflect symbolic elements found at Göbekli Tepe in Turkey • Demonstrates parallels between the Maori cosmological tradition and those of ancient Egypt, China, India, Scotland, and the Dogon of Mali in Africa • Explores the pygmy tradition associated with Maori cosmology, which shares elements of the Little People mythology of Ireland, including matching mound structures and common folk traditions It is generally accepted that the Maori people arrived in New Zealand quite recently, sometime after 1200 AD. However, new evidence suggests that their culture is most likely centuries older with roots that can be traced back to the archaic Göbekli Tepe site in Turkey, built around 10,000 BC. Extending his global cosmology comparisons to New Zealand, Laird Scranton shows how the same cosmological concepts and linguistic roots that began at Göbekli Tepe are also evident in Maori culture and language. These are the same elements that underlie Dogon, ancient Egyptian, and ancient Chinese cosmologies as well as the Sakti Cult of India (a precursor to Vedic, Buddhist, and Hindu traditions) and the Neolithic culture of Orkney Island in northern Scotland. While the cultural and linguistic roots of the Maori are distinctly Polynesian, the author shows how the cosmology in New Zealand was sheltered from outside influences and likely reflects ancient sources better than other Polynesian cultures. In addition to shared creation concepts, he details a multitude of strikingly similar word pronunciations and meanings, shared by Maori language and the Dogon and Egyptian languages, as well as likely connections to various Biblical terms and traditions. He discusses the Maori use of standing stones to denote spiritual spaces and sanctuaries and how their esoteric mystery schools are housed in structures architecturally similar to those commonly found in Ireland. He discusses the symbolism of the Seven Mythic Canoes of the Maori and uncovers symbolic aspects of the elephant-headed Hindu god Ganesha in Maori cosmology. The author also explores the outwardly similar pygmy traditions of Ireland and New Zealand, characterized by matching fairy mound constructions and mythic references in both regions. He reveals how the trail of a group of Little People who vanished from Orkney Island in ancient times might be traced first to Scotland, Ireland, and England and then on to New Zealand, accompanied by signature elements of the global cosmology first seen at Gobekli Tepe.
For centuries not a person alive could decipher the famed ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. Then a few experts began to understand how a single figure could be a picture, a symbol, and a sound all at once. You can join the ranks of those who can read hieroglyphs, and even create sentences of your own, with this ingeniously simple guide. It's the most complete introduction available, yet it's amazingly easy to understand. With best-selling author Christian Jacq as your guide, uncover the mystery that baffled the greatest minds of the ages--how the Egyptians first invented hieroglyphics, why it became a forgotten language, and how linguists and other detectives stumbled onto a remarkable code-breaking carving. Best of all you'll learn to read secret messages and inscriptions taken from royal tombs that reveal the profound ideas of these highly evolved cultures. If you can follow a book or tape on a foreign language, you can master the principles of reading hieroglyphics--and reward yourself with valuable insights into a totally different way to communicate with other human beings. 224 pages, 39 b/w illus., 6 x 9. NEW IN PAPERBACK