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decipherment of ancient scripts 491

spear point in question is between 10,000 and 11,500 Michels, J. W. (1973). Dating methods in archaeology. New York: Semi-
years of age. This confidence results from the fact that nar Press.
Schweingruber, F. H. (1988). Tree rings: Basics and applications of den-
whenever points looking like that have been found pre- drochronology. Boston: D. Reidel Publishing.
viously, they have been associated with dates in that
range (for example, by being found embedded in an ani-
mal bone that produced a radiocarbon date that matches
that time period).
Decipherment of
Other Methods of Dating
There are other dating techniques used by archaeologists. Ancient Scripts
Archaeomagnetic dating is an absolute technique that has
been used especially in the American southwest for more or a script to be deciphered,it must first have gone out
than thirty years. Magnetic particles in, for example, the Fof use and been completely forgotten—along with the
bricks in an ancient kiln will point to what was magnetic entire culture it supported.The language it wrote may or
north at the time the kiln was in use. Noting where they may not have survived, and related scripts may still be in
point and knowing when that location corresponded to use, but the script itself is the focus.Thus Etruscan is not
magnetic north allows archaeologists to date the kiln. A a candidate for decipherment, since its alphabet, midway
master curve of the locations of magnetic north has been between the Greek and the Latin, is unproblematic. Nor,
worked out by University of Colorado scientist Jeff when an unknown Egyptian tomb is discovered, are its
Eighmy and his colleagues that extends from the present inscriptions deciphered, for they are written in a script
back to approximately 600 CE. Seriation, a relative tech- that yielded its secrets nearly 200 years ago. A decipher-
nique developed in the late nineteenth century, is based ment is a discrete event, though subsequent generations
on a typical pattern of change in the popularity of artifact of scholars may spend decades refining it.
styles from their introduction into a culture, through their
growth in popularity, to their decline and eventual The Semitic
replacement by new styles. Consonantal Scripts
Whatever the procedure used, accurate sequencing and The first successful decipherment was achieved literally
dating allows the archaeologist and historian to construct overnight in 1754 by Jean-Jacques Barthélemy, an abbé
a temporal framework from which the trajectory of and classical scholar who was numismatist to King Louis
human cultural development can be calculated. Indeed, XV of France. Explorers brought back from the ancient
being able to answer the question “when?” provides city of Palmyra accurate copies of brief inscriptions dis-
researchers with a context within which the others whys played in pairs, Greek and Palmyrene, and it was an easy
and wherefores of human history can be answered. assumption that they represented the same content. Com-
parison of proper names yielded the pronunciations of
Kenneth L. Feder
the unfamiliar letters, and with hindsight both script and
See also Archaeology; Periodization—Overview language could be seen to be similar to those of the
closely related ecclesiastical literary Aramaic language,
Syriac. Over the next few years Barthélemy was also able
Further Reading to interpret the more ancient but related numismatic and
Bowman, S. (1990). Radiocarbon dating. Berkeley and Los Angeles: Uni- inscriptional Aramaic and Phoenician scripts as well. (The
versity of California Press.
Harris, E. C. (Ed.). (1997). Principles of archaeological stratigraphy. San Phoenician language is closely related to Hebrew; along
Diego, CA: Academic Press. with Aramaic, they are Northwest Semitic languages.)