Writing from Invention to Decipherment

Writing from Invention to Decipherment
Title Writing from Invention to Decipherment PDF eBook
Author Silvia Ferrara
Publisher Oxford University Press
Pages 349
Release 2024-08-27
Genre History
ISBN 0198908768

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This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read on the Oxford Academic platform and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Writing from Invention to Decipherment contains a wealth of global scholarship on ancient writing systems from China, Mesopotamia, Central America, and the Mediterranean, to more recent newly created scripts such as the Rongorongo from Easter Island, the Caroline Island scripts, as well as the alphabet. The aim is to dig into the foundations of writing, showcasing the complexities and varieties of scripts, from their invention to the potential decipherment of poorly understood scripts. The volume offers state-of-the-art research on undeciphered scripts from the Aegean (as for example, Cretan Hieroglyphic and Linear A) or not completely deciphered (as for example Maya) scripts. From a methodological perspective, these contributions lay out how and why writing was invented, who used it, and to what ends. Here writing is presented as a multi-modal cultural phenomenon, that intersects and transcends neat discipline boundaries, within an inclusive approach bridging archaeology, linguistics, epigraphy, and cognitive studies.

Writing from Invention to Decipherment

Writing from Invention to Decipherment
Title Writing from Invention to Decipherment PDF eBook
Author
Publisher
Pages 0
Release 2024-09-26
Genre History
ISBN 9780198908746

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Writing from Invention to Decipherment contains a wealth of global scholarship on ancient writing systems from across the world. The writers dig into the foundations of writing, showcasing the complexities and varieties of scripts, from their invention to the potential decipherment of poorly understood scripts.

The Greatest Invention

The Greatest Invention
Title The Greatest Invention PDF eBook
Author Silvia Ferrara
Publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Pages 227
Release 2022-03-01
Genre Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN 0374601631

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In this exhilarating celebration of human ingenuity and perseverance—published all around the world—a trailblazing Italian scholar sifts through our cultural and social behavior in search of the origins of our greatest invention: writing. The L where a tabletop meets the legs, the T between double doors, the D of an armchair’s oval backrest—all around us is an alphabet in things. But how did these shapes make it onto the page, never mind form complex structures such as this sentence? In The Greatest Invention, Silvia Ferrara takes a profound look at how—and how many times—human beings have managed to produce the miracle of written language, traveling back and forth in time and all across the globe to Mesopotamia, Crete, China, Egypt, Central America, Easter Island, and beyond. With Ferrara as our guide, we examine the enigmas of undeciphered scripts, including famous cases like the Phaistos Disk and the Voynich Manuscript; we touch the knotted, colored strings of the Inca quipu; we study the turtle shells and ox scapulae that bear the earliest Chinese inscriptions; we watch in awe as Sequoyah single-handedly invents a script for the Cherokee language; and we venture to the cutting edge of decipherment, in which high-powered laser scanners bring tears to an engineer’s eye. A code-cracking tour around the globe, The Greatest Invention chronicles a previously uncharted journey, one filled with past flashes of brilliance, present-day scientific research, and a faint, fleeting glimpse of writing’s future.

The First Writing

The First Writing
Title The First Writing PDF eBook
Author Stephen D. Houston
Publisher Cambridge University Press
Pages 444
Release 2004-12-09
Genre History
ISBN 9780521838610

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In this book, leading scholars in the field discuss and analyse the origins of ancient writing.

The Antiquity of Greek Alphabet and Early Phoenician Scripts

The Antiquity of Greek Alphabet and Early Phoenician Scripts
Title The Antiquity of Greek Alphabet and Early Phoenician Scripts PDF eBook
Author P. Kyle McCarter
Publisher BRILL
Pages 153
Release 2019-11-26
Genre Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN 9004385916

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The Cambridge Handbook of Historical Orthography

The Cambridge Handbook of Historical Orthography
Title The Cambridge Handbook of Historical Orthography PDF eBook
Author Marco Condorelli
Publisher
Pages 837
Release 2023-10-12
Genre Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN 1108487319

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Written by a team of global scholars, this is the first Handbook covering the rapidly growing field of historical orthography. Comprehensive yet accessible, it is essential reading for academic researchers and students in the field, and in related areas such as morphology, syntax, historical linguistics, linguistic typology and sociolinguistics.

Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia

Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia
Title Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia PDF eBook
Author Stephen Bertman
Publisher Oxford University Press, USA
Pages 410
Release 2005-07-14
Genre History
ISBN 0195183649

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Modern-day archaeological discoveries in the Near East continue to illuminate man's understanding of the ancient world. This illustrated handbook describes the culture, history, and people of Mesopotamia, as well as their struggle for survival and happiness.