The book investigates the most famous examples, leading us back to a far-distant past obscured by the ravages of time and haunted by code breakers hungry for glory. The book begins with an incisive description of decipherment techniques and tells the stories of three great decipherments: Egyptian Hieroglyphs in the 19th century, the Mayan glyphs of Central America, and the Linear B clay tables of the Minoan civilization of Crete in the 20th century.
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