Breakthrough in world's oldest undeciphered writing

[L. Coyote]

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-19964786

Breakthrough in world's oldest undeciphered writing
Sean Coughlan BBC News education correspondent
25 October 2012

The world's oldest undeciphered writing system, which has so far defied attempts to uncover its 5,000-year-old secrets, could be about to be decoded by Oxford University academics.

This international research project is already casting light on a lost bronze age middle eastern society where enslaved workers lived on rations close to the starvation level.

"I think we are finally on the point of making a breakthrough," says Jacob Dahl, fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford and director of the Ancient World Research Cluster.

Dr Dahl's secret weapon is being able to see this writing more clearly than ever before. .............

[PoliticAverse]

1. Anyone deciphered doctors' writing yet?... n/t

[Ichingcarpenter]

2. I thought the Indus Valley Script was the oldest undeciphered writing?

From the article proto-Elamite, used between around 3200BC and 2900BC

Indus valley script ..............................................3500–1900 BC


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_script

[Yo_Mama]

3. I don't think Indus script is properly considered a writing system, but sort of a labeling system.

There don't seem to be long writings in the symbols:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_script

The first publication of a seal with Harappan symbols dates to 1875, in a drawing by Alexander Cunningham.[5] Since then, over 4,000 inscribed objects have been discovered, some as far afield as Mesopotamia. In the early 1970s, Iravatham Mahadevan published a corpus and concordance of Indus inscriptions listing 3,700 seals and 417 distinct signs in specific patterns. The average inscription contains five signs, and the longest inscription is only 17 signs long. He also established the direction of writing as right to left.[6]

[Judi Lynn]

4. Thank you! Great information. n/t