An undeciphered writing system is a written form of language that is not currently understood. Many undeciphered writing systems date from several thousand years BC, though some more modern examples do exist. The term "

writing system A writing system is a method of visually representing verbal communication, based on a script and a set of rules regulating its use. While both writing and speech are useful in conveying messages, writing differs in also being a reliable for ...

s" 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 Writing is a medium of human communication which involves the representation of a language through a system of physically Epigraphy, inscribed, Printing press, mechanically transferred, or Word processor, digitally represented Symbols (semiot ...

. The difficulty in

deciphering In philology, decipherment is the discovery of the meaning of texts written in ancient or obscure languages or scripts. Decipherment in cryptography refers to decryption. The term is used sardonically in everyday language to describe attempts to ...

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).

Proto-writing

Certain forms of

proto-writing Proto-writing consists of visible marks communicating limited information. Such systems emerged from earlier traditions of symbol systems in the early Neolithic, as early as the 7th millennium BC in Eastern Europe and China. They used ideogra ...

remain undeciphered and, because of a lack of evidence and linguistic descendants, it is quite likely that they will never be deciphered.

Neolithic signs in China

Yellow River civilization * Jiahu symbols – Peiligang culture, from China, c. 6600 - 6200 BC. * Damaidi symbols - Damaidi, from China, earliest estimated dates range from

Paleolithic The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic (), also called the Old Stone Age (from Greek: παλαιός '' palaios'', "old" and λίθος ''lithos'', "stone"), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone to ...

to c. 3000 years ago * Dadiwan symbols - Dadiwan, from China, c. 5800 - 5400 BC. * Banpo symbols –

Yangshao culture The Yangshao culture (仰韶文化, pinyin: Yǎngsháo wénhuà) was a Neolithic culture that existed extensively along the middle reaches of the Yellow River in China from around 5000 BC to 3000 BC. The culture is named after the Yangs ...

, from China, 5th millennium BC. * Jiangzhai symbols -

, from China, 4th millennium BC. * Dawenkou symbols - Dawenkou culture, c. 2800 - 2500 BC. * Longshan symbols -

Longshan culture The Longshan (or Lung-shan) culture, also sometimes referred to as the Black Pottery Culture, was a late Neolithic culture in the middle and lower Yellow River valley areas of northern China from about 3000 to 1900 BC. The first archaeological fi ...

, from China, c. 2500 - 1900 BC. Yangtze civilization * Wucheng symbols - Wucheng culture, from China, c. 1600 BC Other areas * Sawveh - Guangxi, from China; possible proto-writing or writing File:Jiahu writing.svg, Jiahu symbols File:Banpo pottery symbols.svg, Banpo symbols File:Eleven characters found at Dinggong in Shandong.svg, Longshan symbols File:出土刻画文示例.png, Sawveh

Neolithic signs in Europe

* Dispilio Tablet –

Neolithic Europe The European Neolithic is the period when Neolithic (New Stone Age) technology was present in Europe, roughly between 7000 BCE (the approximate time of the first farming societies in Greece) and c.2000–1700 BCE (the beginning of the Bronze Age ...

, from Greece, c. 5202 BC. *

Vinča symbols The Vinča symbols, sometimes known as the Danube script, Vinča signs, Vinča script, Vinča–Turdaș script, Old European script, etc., are a set of untranslated symbols found on Neolithic era (6th to 5th millennium BC) artifacts from the Vin ...

–

, from Central Europe and Southeastern Europe, c. 4500 BC - 4000 BC. File:Dispilio tablet text.png, Dispilio tablet File:Vinca vessel.png, Vinca symbols

Afro-Eurasian scripts

South Asia

* Indus script, c. 3300 BC to 1900 BC. * Vikramkhol inscription, c. 1500 BC * Megalithic graffiti symbols, c. 1000 BC - 300 AD, possible writing system and possible descendant of Indus script * Pushkarasari script –

Gandhara Gandhāra is the name of an ancient region located in the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent, more precisely in present-day north-west Pakistan and parts of south-east Afghanistan. The region centered around the Peshawar Val ...

, 3rd century BC to 8th century AD. *

Shankhalipi Shankhalipi () or "shell-script" is a term used by scholars to describe presently undeciphered ornate spiral characters assumed to be Brahmi derivative that resemble conch shells (or shankhas) which can tentatively be assigned a new script family ...

, c. 4th to 8th century File:Indus script.jpg, Indus script File:Bikramkhol .jpg, Vikramkhol inscription File:Kohi or Pushkarasari M Nasim Khan.jpg, Pushkarasari script File:Inscr detail.jpg, Shankhalipi

West Asia

Proto-Elamite The Proto-Elamite period, also known as Susa III, is a chronological era in the ancient history of the area of Elam, dating from . In archaeological terms this corresponds to the late Banesh period. Proto-Elamite sites are recognized as the o ...

, c. 3200 BC * Byblos syllabary – the city of Byblos, c. 1700 BC * Cypro-Minoan syllabary, c. 1550 BC * Para-Lydian script, known from a single inscription found in Sardis Synagogue, c. 400–350 BC. * Sidetic script –

Asia Minor Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The ...

, c. 5th to 3rd centuries BC. File:Proto-Elamite tablet.jpg, Proto-Elamite script File:Byblos syll spat e.png, Byblos syllabry File:Tablet cypro-minoan 2 Louvre AM2336.jpg, Cypro-Minoan syllabry File:Sidetic language inscriptions.jpg, Sidetic script

East Asia

Ba–Shu scripts The Ba–Shu scripts are three undeciphered scripts found on bronzeware from the ancient kingdoms of Ba and Shu in the Sichuan Basin of southwestern China in the 5th and 4th centuries BC. Numerous signature seals have been found in Ba–Shu gra ...

, 5th to 4th century BC. *

Khitan large script The Khitan large script () was one of two writing systems used for the now-extinct Khitan language (the other was the Khitan small script). It was used during the 10th–12th centuries by the Khitan people, who had created the Liao Empire in no ...

and Khitan small script – Khitan, 10th century, not fully deciphered. * Tujia script File:Mao spearhead with Ba symbols.jpg, Ba script File:Zuling Khitan Large Script Fragment A.jpg, Khitan large script File:Khitan Small Script Bronze Mirror.JPG, Khitan small script File:Possible Tujia script cropped.jpg, Tujia script

Southeast Asia

* Singapore Stone, a fragment of a

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates ...

slab inscribed with an ancient

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...

n script, perhaps Old Javanese or

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominalization, nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cul ...

. At least 13th century, and possibly as early as 10th to 11th century File:SingaporeStone-bwphoto.jpg, Singapore Stone

Central Asia

* Issyk inscription, Kazakhstan, c. 4th century BC File:Issyk inscription.png, Issyk inscription

Europe

Cretan hieroglyphs Cretan hieroglyphs are a hieroglyphic writing system used in early Bronze Age Crete, during the Minoan era. They predate Linear A by about a century, but the two writing systems continued to be used in parallel for most of their history. , ...

, c. 2100 BC. **Linear A and Cretan hieroglyphs are both believed to be an example of the Minoan language. Several words have been decoded from the scripts, but no definite conclusions on the meanings of the words have been made. * Phaistos Disc, c. 2000 BC. * Linear A, c. 1800 BC, a syllabary * Grakliani Hill script - Grakliani Hill, c. 11th - 10th century BC * Paleohispanic scripts ** Southwest Paleohispanic script, from c. 700 BC *

Sitovo inscription The Sitovo inscription is an inscription in Bulgaria that has yet to be satisfactorily translated. Discovery The inscription was discovered in 1928, on the wall of a rock shelter near the village of Sitovo, close to Plovdiv, Bulgaria. It was fi ...

* Alekanovo inscription, c. 10th - 11th century * Rohonc Codex * Folio 7r-v of British Library manuscript MS 73525, pre-1550, possibly liturgical. *

Voynich manuscript The Voynich manuscript is an illustrated codex hand-written in an otherwise unknown writing system, referred to as 'Voynichese'. The vellum on which it is written has been carbon-dated to the early 15th century (1404–1438), and stylistic a ...

, carbon dated to the 15th century. * The Newton Stone, which is alleged by some scholars to be modern forgery * Some scholars consider the corpus of Pictish symbol stones to be an undeciphered writing system File:Pini-plombe-orig-II2 316d 3.2.jpg, Cretan hieroglyphs File:0726 La Canée musée linéaire A.JPG, Linear A File:Crete - Phaistos disk - side A.JPG, Phaistos disc File:Southwest Iberian script (Valerio 2008).png, Southwest Paleohispanic Script File:Sitovski nadpis.JPG, Sitovo inscription File:British Library Add MS 73525.png, Folio 7r of MS 73525 File:British Library Add MS 73525 f7v.png, Folio 7v of MS 73525

North Africa

The Starving of Saqqara The Starving of Saqqara is the name given to a statue of suspected Predynastic Egyptian origins. The statue of two seated nude beings (possibly a male and female) with large skulls and thin bodies has writing on the back of one of the figures th ...

- possibly dating to pre-dynastic Egypt *

Ancient inscriptions in Somalia Encyclopedias from ca. 1900 note that ancient tombs, pyramidal structures, ruined towns, and stone walls found in Somalia, such as the Wargaade Wall, are evidence of an old civilization in the Somali peninsula that predates Islam. In an 1878 rep ...

, According to the Ministry of Information and National Guidance of Somalia, inscriptions can be found on various old ''Taalo Tiiriyaad'' structures. These are enormous stone mounds found especially in northeastern Somalia. Among the main sites where these Taalo are located are Xabaalo Ambiyad in Alula District, Baar Madhere in Beledweyne District, and Harti Yimid in Las Anod District.Ministry of Information and National Guidance, Somalia,
The writing of the Somali language: A Great Landmark in Our Revolutionary History
', (Ministry of Information and National Guidance: 1974) * Numidian language (although the script,

Libyco-Berber The Libyco-Berber alphabet or the Libyc alphabet (modern Berber name: ''Agemmay Alibu-Maziɣ'') is an abjad writing system that was used during the first millennium BC by various Berber peoples of North Africa and the Canary Islands, to write an ...

, has been almost fully deciphered, the language has not) *

Meroitic language The Meroitic language () was spoken in Meroë (in present-day Sudan) during the Meroitic period (attested from 300 BCE) and became extinct about 400 CE. It was written in two forms of the Meroitic alphabet: Meroitic Cursive, which was written ...

, c. 300 BC to 400 AD, though the Meroitic script is largely deciphered, the underlying language is not. * Ṣǝḥuf ʾǝmni inscription (although written in the well-known South Arabian script, the language has not yet been identified) File:Prehistory-draa16.jpg, Libyco-Berber File:Meroitische Inschrift, Meroe 1. Jh. n. Chr., Aegyptisches Museum, Muenchen-1.jpg, Meroitic script

Sub-Saharan Africa

* Ikom monoliths – Cross River State, sometimes believed to be an ancient precursor to

Nsibidi Nsibidi (also known as nsibiri, nchibiddi or nchibiddy) is a system of symbols or proto-writing developed in what is now the far South of Nigeria. They are classified as pictograms, though there have been suggestions that some are logograms or sy ...

. *

Eghap script The Bagam or Eghap script is a partially deciphered Cameroonian script of several hundred characters. It was invented by King Pufong of the Bagam (Eghap) people, c. 1900, and used for letters and records, though it was never in wide use. It is r ...

–

Cameroon Cameroon (; french: Cameroun, ff, Kamerun), officially the Republic of Cameroon (french: République du Cameroun, links=no), is a country in west- central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west and north; Chad to the northeast; th ...

, c. 1900, partially deciphered File:Ikom monolith, Calabar Museum.jpg, Ikom monoliths

American scripts

Andean South America

* Khipu – Inka Empire and predecessor states, like the Wari Empire or the

Caral-Supe Civilization Caral-Supe (also known as Caral and Norte Chico) was a complex pre-Columbian-era society that included as many as thirty major population centers in what is now the Caral region of north-central coastal Peru. The civilization flourished betwee ...

, c. 2600 BC - 17th century, with some variants still in use today; it could possibly be a writing system or a set of writing systems. File:Inca Quipu.jpg, Khipu

Mesoamerica

Olmec The Olmecs () were the earliest known major Mesoamerican civilization. Following a progressive development in Soconusco, they occupied the tropical lowlands of the modern-day Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco. It has been speculated that ...

( Cascajal Block) – Olmec civilization, c. 900 BC, possibly the oldest Mesoamerican script, if proven authentic. * Isthmian, c. 500 BC–500 AD, apparently logosyllabic. Possible ancestor of the

Maya script Maya script, also known as Maya glyphs, is historically the native writing system of the Maya civilization of Mesoamerica and is the only Mesoamerican writing system that has been substantially deciphered. The earliest inscriptions found which ...

. * Zapotec – Zapotec. Possibly logosyllabic, c. 500 BC–700 AD. *

Teotihuacan Teotihuacan (Spanish: ''Teotihuacán'') (; ) is an ancient Mesoamerican city located in a sub-valley of the Valley of Mexico, which is located in the State of Mexico, northeast of modern-day Mexico City. Teotihuacan is known today as the ...

. Possibly descended from the Zapotec script, and itself being the probable ancestor of the Post-classic Mixtec and Aztec scripts, c. 100 BC - 700 AD. *

Mixtec The Mixtecs (), or Mixtecos, are indigenous Mesoamerican peoples of Mexico inhabiting the region known as La Mixteca of Oaxaca and Puebla as well as La Montaña Region and Costa Chica Regions of the state of Guerrero. The Mixtec Cultur ...

–

, 14th century, pictographic, with phonetic elements related specifically to the Mixtec languages which work in a similar way as the Aztec script. It also includes tonal determiners, since the Mixtec languages are tonal. Many of the pictographic elements of the script are well-understood, but semantic and linguistic components are less well known. File:Cascajal-text.svg, Cascajal block File:La Mojarra Inscription and Long Count date.jpg, Isthmian script File:Oaxaca de Juárez, Monte Albán 05.jpg, Zapotec script File:Glifo Puh.svg, Teotihuacan glyph File:Mixtecwriting.gif, Mixtec Script

Pacific scripts

* Rongorongo – Rapa Nui (aka Easter Island), before 1860. File:Rongorongo_B-v_Aruku-Kurenga_(color)_edit1.jpg, Rongorongo

Related concepts: texts that are not writing systems

One very similar concept is that of

false writing system False or falsehood may refer to: *False (logic), the negation of truth in classical logic *Lie or falsehood, a type of deception in the form of an untruthful statement * false (Unix), a Unix command * ''False'' (album), a 1992 album by Gorefest * ...

s, which appear to be writing but are not. False writing cannot be deciphered because it has no

semantic Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and comput ...

meaning. These particularly include asemic writing created for artistic purposes. One prominent example is the ''

Codex Seraphinianus The ''Codex Seraphinianus'', originally published in 1981, is an illustrated encyclopedia of an imaginary world, created by Italian artist, architect and industrial designer Luigi Serafini between 1976 and 1978. It is approximately 360 pages (dep ...

''. Another similar concept is that of undeciphered cryptograms, or

cipher In cryptography, a cipher (or cypher) is an algorithm for performing encryption or decryption—a series of well-defined steps that can be followed as a procedure. An alternative, less common term is ''encipherment''. To encipher or encode i ...

messages. These are not writing systems ''per se'', but a disguised form of another text. Of course any cryptogram is intended to be undecipherable by anyone except the intended recipient so vast numbers of these exist, but a few examples have become famous and are listed in list of ciphertexts.

References

External links

Proto-Elamite (CDLI link)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Undeciphered Writing Systems