An English architect by profession and self-trained in the discipline and studies of linguistics and ancient history, Michael Ventris would be the first to identify the Mycenaean written Linear B...
Scientists have found languages not used since the “Dark Ages” among ancient manuscripts revealed at the St. Catherine’s monastery in Egypt. It is the latest findings to be released from the 1,500-...
The origins of the first Canary Islanders is a mystery. When the Roman author and military officer Pliny the Elder wrote of an expedition to the islands he mentioned ruins of grand buildings, but...
By the 14th century, the foundations of Korea’s Goryeo Dynasty (918 -1392 CE) started to collapse from years of war and de facto occupation from the Mongol Empire. The royal court in Goryeo was at...
The National Museum of Chinese Writing in Anyang is offering a huge reward to anyone able to crack an ancient code found cut into bones and shells dating back more than 3,000 years to the Shang...
The library at St. Catherine's Monastery is considered one of the most important for ancient texts. New research examining a manuscript from the 6th century shows that it is not just the visible...
Archaeologists have spotted a stockpile of Roman letters at Vindolanda, the fort below Hadrian’s Wall in the north of England. Experts can’t hide their excitement about the newly found 25 tablets and...
Linear A and Linear B are the names given to two sets of scripts from ancient Greece. A third known writing form of the time is Cretan Hieroglyphic. The Linear A script was used by the Minoan...
The Maya were a powerful pre-Columbian civilization who thrived between AD 600 – AD 800. They were literate, had a complex language including pictograms, glyphs, and phonetic representations. They...
For 157 years, archaeologists, religious scholars, anthropologist, politicians, scientists, and historians—everyone except Native Americans—have tried to prove that the two stones and one small cup...
Pick up a book in a language you have never learned. Read the first couple pages. See if you can understand any aspect of the culture between its covers. It is difficult, isn't it? It remains so...
Bryan Hilliard’s “Does the Cascajal Block provide evidence of a written language of the Olmecs?” published by Ancient Origins, discussed the finding by many Mexican researchers that the symbols on...
There is a very intriguing inscription on the back of the Pokotia Monolith. What makes it stand out is that it was written in linear Sumerian. Even more exciting is that it provides further evidence...
The Fool’s Cap Map of the World is an engraving of a map of the world, and is thought to have been made towards the end of the 16th century. This map is peculiar as it is framed within the hood /...
The tomb of the last ruler of the Amarna bloodline, the boy-pharaoh Tutankhamun, yielded a wealth of anomalies: beginning with the tiny size of his burial place, the appropriation of funerary goods...
Archaeologists in Bulgaria have found writing that dates back 5000 years. This writing, found inscribed in clay, is called the Tărtăria Tablets by M.R. Reese. Reese makes it clear for Ancient Origins...
The oldest named person that we know belongs to an individual from Sumer, one of the earliest urban civilisations in southern Mesopotamia, in present day Iraq. A person’s name is an integral part of...
Writing is traditionally regarded as one of the requirements for a society to be considered as a civilization. Various writing systems have been invented by the great civilizations of the world, one...
This year has provided an array of exciting, and sometimes puzzling, discoveries for archaeologists and ancient history enthusiasts. Looking back to our most ancient ancestors, a few of the...
In my book, Olmec Language and Literature , I explain how I deciphered the Olmec language. One of the most important documents used in my research was a Bi-lingual Mayan-Olmec text inscribed on a...
The monumental Musaeum of Alexandria was famous for its legendary library. The tragic story of the building’s destruction continues to be a painful one for people who love ancient history and...
The Sogdians were a people of Iranian origin who lived in the fertile valleys of Central Asia between the sixth century BC and tenth century AD. The secret to the Sogdians’ success was their knack...
The ancient Egyptian language is not just one set of symbols which people find on papyri bookmarks at museums. It's a complicated system of symbols which changed over time. Moreover, the words found...
Unlike ancient Latin and Greek texts, Egyptian hieroglyphs have been mostly inaccessible for the average ancient history enthusiast. But this is beginning to change with a collection of texts that...