Whats up people hope youre having an awesome day, Im your host Ayman Hasan and welcome
back to another video here at most amazing top 10.
The fact there were people that existed way way before us that spoke and wrote in languages
we will never know or understand blows my mind.
What if they knew something really profound that we still dont know?
I mean its a gap in the system for sure.
We like to think we’ve cracked most of the pasts secrets but the truth is we havent at
all.
So lets get into talking about more things we dont know about, this is the top 10 Mysterious
Hieroglyphs That Still Can’t Be Translated.
Starting us off with number 10 is The First Egyptian Alphabet.
Now if we’re talking hieroglyphics then you bet your ass im gonna start off with hitting
you guys with some Ancient Egyptian facts.
So in the 1990s Yale archaeologists John and Deborah Darnell uncovered 2 inscriptions at
the Wadi el Hol which translates to Gulch of Terror.
The hieroglyphics were carved into a limestone wall alongside hundreds of other inscriptions
from 4000 years ago.
The duo were able to recognise some of the glyphs but there rest were a mystery.
The glyphs looked like they were one of the earliest transitions from hieroglyphs to an
alphabetic system in Egypt.
These specific ones were from 1800BC, and the Darnells were shocked these people were
trying to spread real ‘modern’ writing amongst people that had no writing system.
The hieroglyphics ive seen in movies and pictures are quite intricate and pictorial but these
ones were more loose and flowy and there was less literal representation of words if that
makes any sense at all.
Coming in at number 9 is The Sitovo inscription.
Back in 1928 the inscription was found by an archaeological expedition led by Alexander
Peev.
The inscription itself is 2 lines of carvings 3.4 meters long and the individual letters
are 40cm tall.
But before the expedition found it, a group of woodcutters actually discovered the markings
and thought it would lead to hidden treasure.
Spoiler alert it didnt.
The archaeologists had no idea what the inscription said and in a plot twist turn of events Alexander
Peev was actually executed shortly after on suspicion for being a secret Soviet agent.
The evidence held against him was the fact he had sent a weird coded message to the Soviet
Union which was actually just a copy of the inscription in hope they could decipher it.
Many have tried to translate it but all have failed.
Can you believe that?
Alexander died for this and we still havent figured it out.
Shocking.
At number 8 we have Proto-Elamite.
Now this glyph system was used in Iran almost 5000 years ago.
Its written and read from right to left very much like Arabic and thats about all we know
about it so lets move on.
No im kidding.
So its true we dont know much about it except that the system was used in a large geographical
area and that the proto-elamites did a bad job of keeping the symbols they invented in
any sort of organised order.
The symbols were carved in clay and theyre a lot less descriptive or telling than Egyptian
glyphs.
These ones are like shape and line centric where a numerical sign will usually follow
the object its counting.
Experts actually called on the public to help decipher the tablets and that project is still
ongoing till this day so good luck you guys.
Filling our number 7 slot is Linear A. So back in 1893 an archaeologist called Sir Arthur
Evans decided to buy some ancient stones from a flea market in Athens.
The stones had mysterious inscriptions on them which he couldnt make any sense of.
When he later went back to Crete to work on the excavations at Knossos (na-sas) he realised
the glyphs on his stones and the engraved tablets he was finding on the island were
very similar.
He split the writing systems into 2, Linear A and B. Linear A was used the primary script
used by Minoans in religious writings and in the palace.
Linear B was deciphered in the 1950s, turns out it was an early form of Greek and Linear
A still hasnt been deciphered.
Since the two have similarities experts tried using what symbols they knew from B for A
but it just translated into nonsensical words.
The glyphs themselves are kind of like Egyptian hieroglyphs except less developed and detailed
maybe.
Thats just an observation from someone completely not qualified to make observations about this.
Now at number 6 is the Cascajal Block (caca-hal).
Found in Mexico by road builders in the late 90s the Cascajal block is a iPad sized writing
slab which has been said to be as old as first millennium BCE.
The 11kg block was found among other ceramic pieces that were dated to the Olmec culture
that ended in 900BCE.
This made it overtake the Zapotec writing which was dated 900BCE and was the worlds
oldest writing before that.
Archaeologists from Brown describe the glyphs as the earliest writing system in the New
World.
The 62 glyphs themsleves honestly and i mean no disrespect look like a childrens drawing.
Like if you asked a kid to draw a bug or a knife or a fire i feel like this is the result
youll get.
But even then they still havent ever been translated properly so theres that.
Coming in at number 5 is The Indus Script.
4000 years ago The Indus Valley Civilisation was what Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan and India
are now.
Now the Indus Script is the earliest form of writing from the Indian subcontinent and
we still have no idea what it says.
Which is great.
We’re out here throwing cheese slices on animals for the gram but we dont have time
to decipher the Indus Script.
The script has been found on everything, pottery, bones, ivory, bronze, copper etc, and so far
theres been no agreement on what language the script even represents.
The writing is always accompanied by a picture and the writing obviously tells the pictures
story.
A lot of the scenes depicted are myths and stories and even religious reenactments.
The script has around 400 signs and only 31 of them are used semi regularly meaning the
rest are rarely found.
So experts guessed that they probably were used but just carved into perishable material
which obviously hasnt survived.
Either way all we really know about is that its written from right to left, even though
in some cases the direction changes when you go onto the next line.
Let me clarify all we do know about is is that a semi circle represents units of 10.
At number 4 are Cretan Hieroglyphs.
We’ve already covered Linear A but 100 years before Linear A was even a thing Cretan hieroglyphics
were already very developed and were the very first writing system in all of Europe.
Linear A had more rectangular glyphs whereas Cretan glyphs had actual figurative representations
of things like cats and weapons as well as other glyphs complimenting them.
Whilst Linear A was mostly found on clay tablets, Cretan texts were on smaller objects like
seal stones.
Even if we compared Cretan hieroglyphs to all we know and dont know about Linear A and
B it still tells us nothing.
From the analysis that has been done on them experts have found that the Cretan hieroglyphs
include 96 syllabograms which represent sound, but a bunch of them also represent other words
so thats fantastic, and they have two types of punctuation.
Filling our number 3 slot are the Vinča (veen-cha) symbols.
Sometimes referred to as the Danube script, these symbols were found on a bunch of artifacts
from the Neolithic era in Central to Southeastern Europe.
They were found in 1875 by a Hungarian archaeologist called Zsofia Torma.
Now experts have agreed the symbols arent a writing system themselves but some kind
of private language.
Some even think its the earliest known writing system that paved the way for all the others.
The symbols themselves kind of just look like numbers in latin, one was 3 lines, another
was a V and then a line.
So it was very latin esque yet they still have pictures and abstract symbols.
The inscriptions were mostly found on pottery and figurines and 85% of the inscriptions
were just one single symbol.
Because of that people initially thought the symbols were just marks of property saying
this belongs to X but that theorys been abandoned for a while now.
So i dont really know what to tell you.
Now at number 2 is The Singapore Stone.
Now this was a huge sandstone slab that was found at the mouth of the Singapore River
and which bore an undecipherable inscription.
It was there for about 700 years before workers found it while clearing away the jungle trees
to make room for a British fort.
Archaeologists have concluded it could be from the 13th century or even as early as
the 10th.
The stone is absolutely covered in writing and apparently the person who commissioned
the stone was Sumatran.
Theres even a legend associated with the stone which says a 14th century strongman called
Badang threw a stone in the Singapore River and this was said stone.
Modern theories point to the inscription being written in early forms of Sanskrit or Old
Javanese but no ones 100% sure.
Either way the slab got blown up to make way for the fort and the stone that remains is
at the National Museum of Singapore if youre interested in seeing it.
And finally at number 1 is Rongorongo.
Now rongorongo was actually a glyph system that was discovered when missionaries went
to Easter Island in the 1860s and found dozens of wooden tablets.
Most of the tablets were actually just irregular pieces of wood or driftwood and most were
really worn down, others were burnt and the rest were damaged beyond repair.
The glyphs themselves are mostly just outlines of people, plants, animals or other forms.
Upon seeing the glyphs the missionaries asked the Rapanui natives if they knew what they
meant and were told that no one knows anymore since all the wise men are dead.
Apparently only a very small group of elite were literate and knew how to read Rongorongo.
Youre probably wondering how hard could reading it really be for the natives but boy am I
about to drop a bomb on you.
Rongorongo is written in a way where every line is read in alternating directions, first
line is read left to right, second line is right to left, third line is read after you
turn the tablet 180 degrees etc. like its incredibly confusing its like a crossword
of sentences and youre just trying not to drown in it.
And thats all for todays video guys!
I really wanna know what all these glyphs meant like clearly people carved them for
a purpose for a reason, to communicate something and here we are not knowing what that is.
Its sad but its reality.
Deciphering codes and stuff is a lot of fun for me even though theyre hard as hell so
i cant even imagine how hard it would be to even approach the ones on this list.
Either way lemme know what you guys thought below and as always I’m your host Ayman
Hasan and ill see you next time.
Byee.