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A review by susannadkm
The Writing of the Gods: The Race to Decode the Rosetta Stone by Edward Dolnick
adventurous
informative
medium-paced
4.0
Absolutely fascinating. Dolnick takes the reader through the systematic deciphering of hieroglyphic writing--how a name was discovered here, a word there--until most of its secrets were revealed.
He does this while maintaining the mystery until the final chapters of the book--who wins the race, and are hieroglyphs an alphabet or words or ideas or what? Why are there too many different characters to be an alphabet and far too few to represent all words? For someone who knew next to nothing before about hieroglyphs, it was so fun to discover them step by step with the early code breakers.
I loved how Young and Champollion had to use a range of clues--from knowledge of other dead languages like Coptic to ancient lists of rulers, the Chinese writing system, and as many hieroglyphic texts as they could get their hands on. I hadn't realized how the Rosetta stone was only an initial key and so much more was needed.
While all the rabbit-trail detours were interesting, I think they detracted from the Rosetta stone story. I think a tighter focus on hieroglyphs and Egyptology would have made an even better book.
I heard about this book from Emily Oster's newsletter. I read the ebook.
He does this while maintaining the mystery until the final chapters of the book--who wins the race, and are hieroglyphs an alphabet or words or ideas or what? Why are there too many different characters to be an alphabet and far too few to represent all words? For someone who knew next to nothing before about hieroglyphs, it was so fun to discover them step by step with the early code breakers.
I loved how Young and Champollion had to use a range of clues--from knowledge of other dead languages like Coptic to ancient lists of rulers, the Chinese writing system, and as many hieroglyphic texts as they could get their hands on. I hadn't realized how the Rosetta stone was only an initial key and so much more was needed.
While all the rabbit-trail detours were interesting, I think they detracted from the Rosetta stone story. I think a tighter focus on hieroglyphs and Egyptology would have made an even better book.
I heard about this book from Emily Oster's newsletter. I read the ebook.