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rogerb's review
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
5.0
I think I found this on a reference list when researching the use of Bayes in dating writing.
Loved it end-to-end, but this is the sort of thing I really enjoy. Learned a lot too - fancy teaching Mayan kids the written form of their long extinct ancestors.
It's kind-of accessible scholarly, with plenty of references to follow up, and also very informative on both how these things are done, and how they shouldn't be done.
Robinson has various outputs, and I'd overlooked that I knew of his authorship of "Linear B". I might well check out some of his others.
Loved it end-to-end, but this is the sort of thing I really enjoy. Learned a lot too - fancy teaching Mayan kids the written form of their long extinct ancestors.
It's kind-of accessible scholarly, with plenty of references to follow up, and also very informative on both how these things are done, and how they shouldn't be done.
Robinson has various outputs, and I'd overlooked that I knew of his authorship of "Linear B". I might well check out some of his others.
thesassybookworm's review
4.0
I really liked this one, it is really very interesting, but be warned it reads a lot like a text book!
aplanetarymind's review
informative
medium-paced
3.5
Overall very interesting. As usual with this kind of non-fiction, some chapters were far more interesting to me personally (Maya glyphs, Egyptian Hieroglyphics, Meriotic, Zapotec/Isthmian. I would recommend it for anyone interested in ancient scripts and/or decipherment. The author clearly has a preference (admiration) for some deciphements, decipherers (*cough* Ventris *cough*)
messbauer's review
5.0
This is a really great book. Concise, engaging overviews of many undeciphered scripts are accompanied by clear graphics. Some of the scripts covered are pretty obscure, so you really get your money's worth.
the_sassy_bookworm's review
4.0
I really liked this one, it is really very interesting, but be warned it reads a lot like a text book!
graculus's review
I guess my first clue that I was going to have problems finishing this book should have been when I went to collect it from the library and discovered it was not, as I had expected, a 352-page trade paperback but instead a 352-page hardback printed in a tiny font with loads of whitespace on every page.
I very much enjoyed the introduction to the book and also the first few chapters, which were about ancient written languages which have been translated successfully - Egyptian hieroglyphics, Linear B and (most recently) Mayan glyphs. The introduction talks about the things you need in order to make it more likely that a language can be deciphered if no longer used and that was interesting in itself.
Then we got into chapters about those scripts which have yet to be deciphered, either because nobody can figure out what language they represent or because there is just so little of them currently in existence that they can't be studied effectively. This was where I got lost, as the book goes into much more detail on those than I was able to get my head around. I guess I was looking for something a little more accessible than this proved to be?
I very much enjoyed the introduction to the book and also the first few chapters, which were about ancient written languages which have been translated successfully - Egyptian hieroglyphics, Linear B and (most recently) Mayan glyphs. The introduction talks about the things you need in order to make it more likely that a language can be deciphered if no longer used and that was interesting in itself.
Then we got into chapters about those scripts which have yet to be deciphered, either because nobody can figure out what language they represent or because there is just so little of them currently in existence that they can't be studied effectively. This was where I got lost, as the book goes into much more detail on those than I was able to get my head around. I guess I was looking for something a little more accessible than this proved to be?
panxa's review
4.0
Lots of great graphics depicting the glyphs, decoding charts, etc. Laid out a more like a magazine (in 2 columns) than a book, so the text could feel a little small when trying to read before bed.
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