A heavily-illustrated history and state-of-the-art report on the practice of deciphering written languages. The lengthy introduction provides a background on theories of decipherment, while succeeding chapters discuss the major languages considered to be completely or mostly understood (Egyptian hieroglyphs, Linear B, and Mayan glyphs), and those in various states of being solved (or not): Meroitic Script, Etruscan alphabet, Linear A, proto-Elamite script, rongorongo (from Easter Island), Zapotec and Isthmian scripts, Indus script, and the Phaistos Disc.

The book is written for the educated generalist with little training in the field. It is challenging, with many photos, drawings and charts explaining the attempts made at teasing out meanings and the trials and errors along the way. The major players over the last few hundred years are also discussed. There is plenty of depth for those who wish to delve deeply, and it is possible to skim sections in which the theories become very detailed and still come away with an understanding of the difficulties in the work. I was enchanted by some of the languages, somewhat repelled or bored by others. That's just a visceral reaction, but it was interesting. Most surprising to me was the fact that lost languages are not just deciphered or not, but that there are all sorts of in between stages, including being able to read a language but having no idea what it means, and the probability for some that there will never be decipherment because of the paucity of examples, lack of bilingual samples, and vanished civilizations and their spoken languages. All-in-all, a fascinating introduction. ( )

TBR