by Tucker Lieberman

Created on: August 27, 2010

Among the greatest puzzles in the world are the undeciphered scripts-ancient systems of writing that no one has yet been able to learn to read.  In many cases, it is not even known what language is represented by such strange symbols.  They are like secret codes that no human or computer has yet been able to crack.  We can only wonder what mysteries of ancient life are locked behind them.

Here is a brief overview of a few randomly selected undeciphered scripts, organized from oldest to newest.

VINCA:  This was a pictogram system used in southeastern Europe from 6000-4500 BCE.  Short inscriptions have been found on burial sites.

INDUS:  Used in the region of present-day Pakistan between 2600-1900 BCE.  Although there are thousands of examples of this script, and no one has cracked it.  It may have represented a Dravidian or Indo-Iranian language.  Although about 500 distinct symbols are known, the longest surviving example strings only seventeen of them together.

LINEAR A:  Used in Greece around 1800 BCE, it is related to hieroglyphics and uses relatively few symbols.  (Linear B was once also a mystery but it proved to be a Cretan form of Greek.)

TUJIA:  Today the Tujia are a Chinese ethnic minority who trace their heritage back to the Ba kingdom (600-316 BCE).  Their spoken language is in the Tibeto-Burman family.  They were long believed never to have had a written language, but several ancient books discovered in Youyang County in 2008 use a script that resembles Chinese characters and may be Tujia.

ETRUSCAN:  The Etruscans lived in Italy around 600 BCE.  Scholars are able to pronounce Etruscan words and the "bi-texts" combining Etruscan with Latin or Greek have enabled guesses about its meaning.  According to one writer, "Etruscan, as scholars know it, cannot simply be classified as belonging to the Caucasian, the Anatolian, or Indo-European languages such as Greek and Latin, from which it seems to differ markedly in structure."  It has no surviving descendant languages.  While Etruscan texts can be read for general meaning, the precise connotations of their words and grammar remains a mystery.

ZAPOTEC:   This system was used in southern Mexico from 500 BCE-1000 CE.  Most inscriptions are less than 10 symbols and, although modern forms of Zapotec are still spoken today, the ancient language has been lost.

MEROITIC:  Dating to 300 BCE in the

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