We thought we had written on this topic before on this website, but it seems that despite our search efforts, we have not. We may have used the wrong search term or included the topic under another title.
In the world of archaeology, archaeologists come face to face with languages or what they think are languages, and try to decipher what the ancient civilization is saying. We know of many archaeologists who know more than 20 ancient tongues, and they do a good job translating the discovered written works.
However, as this video points out, these archaeologists do not have a 100% success rate. There are still many languages, or thought to be languages, still undeciphered.
What is interesting about the Voynich Manuscript, someone said it was probably a doodle book by some mentally ill person, and the symbols are only coherent to him. Whether that is true or not remains to be seen.
Some people say that it is a biological text about women, and still more say that it is a practical joke by the author on someone he knows (source). We may never find out for sure what the book’s content is, and we may just have to be satisfied with a mystery.
That same source lists as many undeciphered languages as the video- 9. However, in a cursory search on this topic, the results show that different websites talk about different numbers of undeciphered languages. This one talks about 10. Another only lists 7.
The greatest number of undeciphered languages on one list that we have seen is 20. One comes close to that with 15. What these lists tell us is that there is still a lot of language work to be done if we want a clearer picture of what took place in the past.
Museums have store rooms filled with ancient scripts on a variety of excavated artifacts that have yet to be translated or studied:
The Cuneiform Translation Project aims to address the significant gap in translating cuneiform tablets from ancient Mesopotamian civilizations. With over half a million untranslated tablets in museums worldwide, we’re working to unlock vital information about the development of early Western civilizations. (source)
We should add that the project is for just cuneiform writing and not all the writings of the ancient world. There is still plenty of work for those people who enjoy working with languages, translating them or solving the mystery of what it is saying.
As you can see from that quote, archaeologists have done their work in uncovering these writing samples. They just do not have the time to sit down, translate, and study them. Even though they know a variety of ancient languages, archaeologists have other duties that demand their time before and after a dig season.
Dedicated language experts are needed to pick up the slack. What the quote is also stating is that the ancient world was not as illiterate as some archaeologists claim. One example is Dr. William Dever, who makes a very pointed statement to that effect in his 8-part lecture series for BAS, How Archaeology Illuminates the Bible.
By the presenceof these ancient undeciphered languages, the ancient world was far from illiterate. Literacy was not the monopoly or realm of the elites. There is also the possibility that some of the claimed languages using only symbols may not be actual languages.
They may just be a good decorative use of symbols. Like today, where symbols have a set meaning behind them, they are not a language but convey a message. For example, a modern thumbs up means good, everything is great, I agree, and other uses, while a modern thumbs down can mean disagree, bad, wrong, and so on.
In other words, the symbols are not a language but still communicate with those who understand the meanings attached to the symbols. We are not privy to those ancient definitions because no ancient dictionary of symbols and their meanings has been discovered.
It may be that the 9 to 20 ancient undeciphered languages may never be deciphered. Many researchers are hoping to find a Rosetta Stone-type multi-language artifact that provides the key to unlocking those unknown tongues. Just like it did for Egyptian Hieroglyphics.
Two of the ancient languages we would be intereste din seeing deciphered are:
#1. Minoan- Linear A
The island of Crete is the largest of the Greek islands and in antiquity was home to the Minoans, possibly the only true thalassocracy (a civilization led by seafarers) in history. Magnificent ruins dot the island, not least the great palace at Knossos, likely the original for the Greek myth of the Minotaur.
Happily, the Minoans left examples of their early language, most famously in the form of the Phaistos Disc, a pottery circle with a spiral of the pictographic script. Other less decorative examples of the Minoan script, known as Linear A, also survive. This language, despite all the examples which we have and despite occasional claims of a solution, has never been deciphered.
and
#2. Harappan
The Harrapans of the Indus Valley on the Pakistan/India border are probably the greatest ancient civilization you have never heard of. From 3,300 BC these builders, administrators and lovers of lapis lazuli built their sophisticated cities, mined in the mountains and traded what they found, and communicated with each other in a language which seemingly differs from every other.
Much of what survives of the Harappan language speaks to their practical nature. The pictographs are generally found on seals and were likely used to label goods or other items, and were therefore a solution to an existing problem rather than a creative medium.
This also makes deciphering the text very problematic, as almost all Harappan writing survives as very brief snatches of text, without context. (source)
There are a few more, but we won’t list them here at this time. We have often talked about archaeologists needing ancient contemporary manuscripts to verify their claims about the discoveries they make.
We wonder if those manuscripts are locked away in a Museum’s store room waiting to be translated. It would be nice to get more translators involved so we can find an answer to that question. We may get more extra-biblical evidence for the Bible.
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