A 26 pound stone slab found in a gravel pit by a road building
crew in Veracruz, Mexico is the oldest piece of writing ever
found in the Americas, dating back almost 3,000 years to the
Olmec civilization (who came before the Mayans and the
Aztecs). And a 700-year-old Hindu manuscript that has been
hidden away in a wooden box is finally being read.
The Olmec symbols have not yet been decoded, but
archeologists who are studying the slab have discovered 62
symbols that distinct symbols on it, some of which are
repeated. Mayan glyphs were only decoded within the last
decade, by archeologists in Texas, who realized that the
writing contained symbols that stood for both numbers, as
well as letters, probably because the Mayans were such
precise
http://www.nexternal.com/ukcountry/Product352,calendar}-
keepers.
Most ancient Mexican writing systems are read from top to
bottom, like Asian writing, but according to archeologist
Richard Diehl, the Olmec writing "seems to be in rows from
left to right."
In LiveScience.com, Jeanna Bryner writes about an ancient
Hindu manuscript that has been hidden for almost a thousand
years in a wooden box in a monastery.
NASA
technology is helping archeologists read this and
other
ancient books. It consists of commentaries on holy writings
that were written by a scholar on palm leaves, which are
rapidly deteriorating.
Art credit: freeimages.co.uk
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