Unlocking the Universe of Languages
Long before paper became affordable, the ancient world ran on ostraca—broken pottery shards used for everything from grocery lists and political votes to laundry receipts. Discover how these "ancient Post-It…
Long before the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, the Kingdom of Aksum produced the Ezana Stone, a trilingual monument inscribed in Ancient Greek, Sabaean, and Ge'ez. This article explores how…
While modern English relies on the Latin alphabet, our language was originally written in the angular, 33-character runic system known as the Futhorc. This article explores the linguistic ingenuity of…
While Etruscan has long been considered a mysterious "language isolate", the discovery of the Lemnos Stele in the Aegean Sea revealed it actually had a close relative. This post explores…
While most assume the Latin alphabet evolved directly from Greek, the true story features a vital middleman: the Etruscans. This post explores the linguistic detective story of how an ancient…
Discover the bizarre linguistic journey of the Liber Linteus, the longest surviving Etruscan text, which was cut into strips and used to wrap an Egyptian mummy. This post explores how…
Discover the "stoichedon" style of Ancient Greece, where inscriptions were carved in perfect, checkerboard-like grids without spaces or punctuation. This article explores how this severe aesthetic reflected Athenian democratic ideals…
Contemporary with the famous Sumerian cuneiform, Proto-Elamite is a 5,000-year-old script from ancient Iran that remains almost entirely undeciphered. This blog explores the linguistic challenges of cracking a code that…
Before the Greek alphabet conquered the Mediterranean, the island of Cyprus used a unique, puzzle-like script derived from the Bronze Age to write Greek. Discover the story of the Cypriot…
The Indus Valley Civilization left behind magnificent ruins and thousands of mysterious seals featuring a "unicorn" and short strings of symbols. Despite modern AI and linguistic analysis, this ancient script…
Tradition holds that King Ramkhamhaeng the Great single-handedly created the Thai writing system in 1283, but does this legend hold up to linguistic scrutiny? We explore the evolution of the…
Explore the fascinating intersection of linguistics and material science by discovering how the fragile nature of palm leaves dictated the shape of the Odia alphabet. We examine why ancient scribes…
Forget stuffy royal decrees. Ancient graffiti offers an unfiltered glimpse into the lives of everyday people, from lovelorn Romans to gossiping soldiers. These candid messages, scrawled on the walls of…
Forget sterile museum displays of emperors and epic battles. The true, unfiltered history of humanity is scrawled on the walls of Roman latrines and Pompeiian taverns. These ancient graffiti—from bitter…
Venture into the ancient Kingdom of Kush to uncover the secrets of the Meroitic script, a unique writing system that we can read but cannot fully understand. This alphasyllabic script,…
Have you ever wondered why the letter 'o' is round and 'l' is straight? The answer lies not in abstract design, but in ergonomics. This post explores how the physical…
Long before the British arrived, a massive inscribed stone stood guard at the Singapore River's mouth, holding the secrets of a lost kingdom. In 1843, it was unceremoniously blown to…