Deciphering ancient texts seems like an almost hopeless pursuit, and yet many men and women have devoted themselves to this arduous enterprise. Their obsession is driven by the desire to understand the writings of our ancestors, thus allowing us to speak their words and catch
a glimpse of their thoughts. Perhaps this appetite for
cracking ancient scripts is best summarised by Maurice
Pope, the author of The Story of Decipherment:
"Decipherments are by far the most glamorous achievements of scholarship. There is a touch of magic about unknown writing, especially when it comes from the remote past, and a corresponding glory is bound to attach itself to the person who first solves its mystery."

Strictly speaking, the decipherment of ancient scripts is not part of the ongoing evolutionary battle between codemakers and codebreakers, because, although there are codebreakers in the shape of archaeologists, there are no codemakers. That is to say, in most cases of archaeological decipherment there was no attempt by the original scribe to deliberately hide the meaning of the text.

However, the principles of archaeological decipherment are essentially the same as those of conventional military cryptanalysis. Indeed, many military codebreakers have been attracted by the challenge of unravelling an ancient script. This is probably because archaeological decipherments are a refreshing change from military codebreaking, offering a purely intellectual puzzle rather than a military challenge. In other words, the motivation is curiosity rather than animosity.

In this section of the site, you will find a section about Egyptian hieroglyphs and the Rosetta Stone. There is also a section that will point you towards books about the decipherment of other scripts. Finally, I have included a excerpt from The Code Book about the Navajo code. Navajo is a living language, but it was used as a code during the Second World War, and the Japanese cryptanalysts were in a similar position to the archaeologists. They, too, attempted to unravel the meaning of an unknown language, but they failed.