Undeciphered script in the context of "Prehistory of Southeastern Europe"

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⭐ Core Definition: Undeciphered script

Many undeciphered writing systems exist today; most date back several thousand years, although some more modern examples do exist. The term "writing systems" is used here loosely to refer to groups of glyphs which appear to have representational symbolic meaning, but which may include "systems" that are largely artistic in nature and are thus not examples of actual writing.

The difficulty in deciphering these systems can arise from a lack of known language descendants or from the languages being entirely isolated, from insufficient examples of text having been found and even (such as in the case of Vinča) from the question of whether the symbols actually constitute a writing system at all. Some researchers have claimed to be able to decipher certain writing systems, such as those of Epi-Olmec, Phaistos and Indus texts; but to date, these claims have not been widely accepted within the scientific community, or confirmed by independent researchers, for the writing systems listed here (unless otherwise specified).

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πŸ‘‰ Undeciphered script in the context of Prehistory of Southeastern Europe

The prehistory of Southeast Europe, defined roughly as the territory of the wider Southeast Europe (including the territories of the modern countries of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, and European Turkey) covers the period from the Upper Paleolithic, beginning with the presence of Homo sapiens in the area some 44,000 years ago, until the appearance of the first written records in Classical Antiquity, in Greece.

The first written script of Greece was Linear A, an undeciphered script used for writing the Minoan language of Crete, as is the later Cypriot syllabary, which also recorded Greek. After Linear A came Linear B, a syllabic script used for writing Mycenaean Greek, the earliest attested form of the Greek language. The script predates the Greek alphabet by several centuries. The oldest Mycenaean writing dates to about 1400 BC. Linear B, found mainly in the palace archives at Knossos, Kydonia, Pylos, Thebes and Mycenae, but disappeared with the fall of the Mycenaean civilisation in the Late Bronze Age collapse.

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In this Dossier
LINKED FROM (PARENTS)
← Prehistory of Southeastern Europe ← Bronze Age Balkans
LINKS TO (CHILDREN)
Indus script → Ancient history → Voynich manuscript → Middle Ages → Writing system → Asemic writing → Writing → Decipherment → Language isolate → Old European script → Isthmian script →