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or writing in some local traditions and secondary sources status as a historical writing system is uncertain 13 jiahu symbols banpo symbols longshan symbols sawveh neolithic signs in europe edit vinča symbols neolithic europe central and southeastern europe c 4500 c 4000 bce often treated as proto writing or symbolic marks rather than confirmed writing 14 15 vinča symbols asian scripts edit south asia edit indus script c 2800 c 1900 bce 16 17 5 vikramkhol inscription c 1500 bce citation needed megalithic graffiti symbols c 1000 bce c 300 ce proposed as possible writing and sometimes hypothesized as related to the indus tradition though this remains debated 18 pushkarasari script gandhara 3rd century bce to 8th century ce citation needed shankhalipi c 4th c 8th century ce citation needed indus script vikramkhol inscription pushkarasari script shankhalipi west asia edit proto elamite script c 3100 c 2900 bce 19 jiroft script c 2200 bce citation needed byblos syllabary byblos c 1700 bce 20 trojan script troy early bronze age status disputed and it is unclear whether the marks constitute a single writing system or writing at all 21 proto elamite script byblos syllabary east asia edit ba shu scripts 5th to 4th century bce citation needed khitan large script and khitan small script khitan 10th century partially understood but not fully deciphered citation needed ba script khitan large script khitan small script singapore stone fragment of a sandstone slab inscribed with an ancient southeast asian script possibly old javanese or sanskrit at least 13th century possibly as early as 10th 11th century citation needed singapore stone central asia edit oxus script c 2200 bce citation needed issyk inscription kazakhstan c 4th century bce 22 kushan script c 2nd century bce c 7th century ce partially deciphered with recent proposals identifying a substantial portion of the sign inventory and phonetic values in the scholarly literature 23 issyk inscription european scripts edit page 32 of the voynich manuscript a medieval manuscript written with an undeciphered writing system cretan hieroglyphs c 2100 bce 24 25 26 linear a c 1800 c 1450 bce the sign values are often transcribed using correspondences with linear b but the underlying language remains unknown and most texts are not understood 27 phaistos disc c 1850 c 1300 bce no consensus decipherment though numerous proposals exist 28 29 cypro minoan syllabary c 1550 bce 30 grakliani hill script grakliani hill c 11th c 10th century bce 31 paleohispanic scripts several scripts are partly deciphered sign values largely known but many inscriptions and underlying languages remain only partly understood inclusion and degree of decipherment vary by script citation needed southwest paleohispanic script from c 700 bce 32 sitovo inscription c 300 c 100 bce 33 alekanovo inscription c 10th c 11th century ce citation needed rohonc codex 17th 19th centuries citation needed voynich manuscript radiocarbon dated parchment to the early 15th century 34 an inscription in the pisa baptistery a short medieval religious inscription attested in tuscany the script language and interpretation remain debated in the literature 35 cretan hieroglyphs phaistos disc linear a cypro minoan syllabary southwest paleohispanic script sitovo inscription african scripts edit north africa edit the starving of saqqara a privately held sculpture claimed to be ancient and bearing an unidentified inscription provenance and authenticity have been questioned and the markings are not securely established as an ancient writing system 36 wadi el hol inscriptions egypt early alphabetic inscriptions often dated to the late middle kingdom roughly early 2nd millennium bce with proposed readings but no universally accepted full decipherment frequently discussed in relation to proto sinaitic script 37 38 sub saharan africa edit eghap script cameroon c 1900 partially deciphered citation needed ancient inscriptions in somalia inscriptions reported on taalo tiiriyaad structures independent archaeological verification and interpretation vary in the literature 39 american scripts edit andean region edit quipu knotted cord recording devices used in the inca empire and by several earlier andean societies such as the wari with possible precursors in paracas and caral supe quipus continued to be used in certain regions during the early european colonial period and in limited contexts into the modern era they are widely accepted as record keeping devices but whether they constitute writing and what kind remains debated some recent scholarship argues particular colonial period quipu assemblages display features consistent with logosyllabic encoding and proposes tentative readings of specific elements however these claims remain controversial and do not have broad support 40 in another case six early colonial quipus from the santa valley peru have been correlated with a contemporaneous spanish administrative document making the connection a possible test case for linking quipus to alphabetic texts 41 42 quipu mesoamerica edit olmec hieroglyphs c 1000 c 400 bce sometimes proposed as a mother script of other mesoamerican writing systems though the evidence and relationships remain debated 43 zapotec hieroglyphs c 500 bce c 800 ce often described as logosyllabic with varying degrees of interpretation 44 ñuiñe hieroglyphs c 400 c 800 ce similar to zapotec and possibly an offshoot in the mixteca baja often described as logosyllabic 45 isthmian epi olmec hieroglyphs c 400 bce c 500 ce partial readings have been proposed but the overall decipherment remains disputed 46 izapan hieroglyphs late preclassic often proposed as related to isthmian traditions and later lowland maya developments status remains uncertain 47 teotihuacan hieroglyphs c 100 bce c 700 ce sometimes described as partially logosyllabary and partially a pictography its relationship to earlier traditions is debated descendants include the mixteca puebla postclassic tradition 48 classic gulf coast hieroglyphs early classic to early postclassic often discussed as related to central mexican traditions 49 cotzumalhuapa hieroglyphs c 0 c 1000 ce sometimes discussed as influenced by teotihuacan and lowland maya traditions seemingly of autonomous local development though ultimately related to all other mesoamerican writing systems interpretation remains limited 50 epiclassic early postclassic hieroglyphs of xochicalco cacaxtla teotenango tula and chichén itzá generally treated as part of broader regional glyphic traditions many elements remain only partially understood intermediary between the teotihuacan classic period hieroglyphs and their mixteca puebla descendants of the middle and late postclassic 51 52 many mesoamerican glyphic traditions remain only partly understood with the classic lowland maya script being the best attested and most extensively deciphered other regional traditions including those often grouped under mixteca puebla or pictorial historical codex traditions ultimately descended from the teotihuacan tradition most notably represented by aztec hieroglyphs and mixtec hieroglyphs have been interpreted in the literature to varying extents but are not universally recognised as a writing system with some researchers considering it a mostly non linguistic form of expression 53 yet in recent years as of new research has appeared confirming the existence of logosyllabic elements glyphs intermixed with pictorial images 54 45 nevertheless new approaches have emerged integrating the pictorial images as key in the linguistic interpretation of all elements in the codices alongside the logograms and phonograms these pictorial images would represent greater units of meaning namely semantograms also called embedded meanings than a lexeme logograms or a sound phonogram which would become of paramount importance to achieve a coherent linguistic message in the codices 55 thus mixteca puebla writing would constitute a form of non linear writing la venta stele 19 olmec colossal head in la venta possible name glyph on forehead zapotec script isthmian epi olmec inscription izapan tradition tak alik ab aj cotzumalhuapa tradition oceanian scripts edit kōhau rongorongo rapa nui attested by the 19th century often hypothesized to encode language but remains undeciphered 56 kōhau rongorongo non writing systems edit false writing systems are glyphs that appear to be writing but are not false writing cannot be deciphered because it has no stable semantic meaning this includes many forms of asemic writing created for artistic purposes a prominent example is the codex seraphinianus another related concept is that of undeciphered cryptograms or cipher messages these are not writing systems per se but enciphered forms of texts written in known systems some have become famous and are listed in list of ciphertexts references edit 1 2 3 adiego ignasi xavier 2024 deciphering a writing system luck intuition or method in ferrara silvia montecchi barbara valério miguel eds writing from invention to decipherment oxford university press pp 107 139 doi 10 1093 oso 9780198908746 003 0007 retrieved 2026 02 07 schwenger peter 2019 asemic the art of writing university of minnesota press isbn 978 1 5179 0697 9 retrieved 2026 02 07 silvia ferrara barbara montecchi miguel valério in search of lost signs a new approach to the issue of writing and non writing on cretan hieroglyphic seals oxford journal of archaeology 42 2023 lazarovici gheorghe merlini marco 2016 tărtăria tablets the latest evidence in an archaeological thriller in nikolova lolita ed western pontic culture ambience and pattern in memory of eugen comsa warsaw poland de gruyter open poland pp 53 142 1 2 kenoyer j m 2006 the origin context and function of the indus script recent insights from harappa in osada toshiki ed proceedings of the pre symposium and the 7th esca harvard kyoto roundtable pdf kyoto research institute for humanity and nature pp 9 27 retrieved 2026 02 07 baldacci giorgia 2024 the phaistos disc placing an enigmatic artefact in its cultural context in ferrara silvia montecchi barbara valério miguel eds writing from invention to decipherment oxford university press pp 155 170 doi 10 1093 oso 9780198908746 003 0009 retrieved 2026 02 07 zhang juzhong cui qilong 2013 the jiahu site in the huai river area in underhill anne p ed a companion to chinese archaeology john wiley sons p 248 isbn 978 1 118 32578 0 demattè paola 2022 early and middle neolithic signs to the fourth millennium bce the origins of chinese writing oxford university press pp 99 148 doi 10 1093 oso 9780197635766 003 0005 isbn 9780197635766 woon wee lee 1987 漢字的原始和演變 chinese writing its origin and evolution in chinese macau university of east asia pp 275 276 qiu xigui 2000 1988 chinese writing translated by mattos gilbert l norman jerry berkeley society for the study of early china and the institute of east asian studies university of california p 33 isbn 978 1 55729 071 7 tan shengmin 2003 壮泰民族传统文化比较研究 a comprehensive comparative study on zhuang and thai nationalities traditional culture in chinese vol ii guangxi people s publishing house pp 798 799 isbn 978 7 219 04915 0 liang tingwang 2000 壮族文化概论 overview of the culture of the zhuang people in chinese guangxi educational publishing house pp 496 498 isbn 978 7 5435 2992 2 1 2 encyclopedia of the zhuang ethnicity editorial committee april 1993 本源书 sawgoek 壮族百科辞典 encyclopedia of the zhuang ethnicity in chinese guangxi people s publishing house isbn 978 7 219 02476 8 lazarovici gheorghe merlini marco 2016 tărtăria tablets the latest evidence in an archaeological thriller in nikolova lolita ed western pontic culture ambience and pattern in memory of eugen comsa warsaw poland de gruyter open poland pp 53 142 owens gareth a 1999 balkan neolithic scripts kadmos 38 1 2 114 120 doi 10 1515 kadm 1999 38 1 2 114 s2cid 162088927 shinde vasant willis rick j 2014 a new type of inscribed copper plate from indus valley harappan civilisation pdf ancient asia 5 doi 10 5334 aa 12317 bryant edwin francis 2001 the quest for the origins of vedic culture the indo aryan migration debate oxford university press p 178 doi 10 1093 0195137779 001 0001 isbn 978 0 19 513777 4 lal b b 1962 from the megalithic to harappa tracing back the graffiti on the pottery ancient india bulletin of the archaeological survey of india 16 21 24 yeganeh sepideh jamshidi holakooei parviz nokandeh jebrael piran sedigheh dahl jacob l 2025 complexity of proto elamite administration system insights from compositional data from sealings and tablets journal of archaeological science reports 61 104973 bibcode 2025jarsr 61j4973j doi 10 1016 j jasrep 2025 104973 the byblos syllabary waal willemijn 2017 how to read the signs the use of symbols markings and pictographs in bronze age anatolia in jasink anna margherita weingarten judith ferrara silvia eds non scribal communication media in the bronze age aegean and surrounding areas the semantics of a literate and proto literate media firenze university press pp 111 129 bonmann svenja halfmann jakob korobzow natalie bobomulloev bobomullo 2023 a partial decipherment of the unknown kushan script transactions of the philological society 121 2 293 329 doi 10 1111 1467 968x 12269 s2cid 259851498 carrara elisa stolbunova vera de la vaissière étienne 2023 the decipherment of the unknown kushan script transactions of the philological society doi 10 1111 1467 968x 12255 civitillo matilde ferrara silvia meissner torsten 2024 introduction the earliest script on crete semiotics linguistics archaeology and palaeography cretan hieroglyphic pdf cambridge university press pp 1 12 yule paul 1981 early cretan seals a study of chronology marburger studien zur vor und frühgeschichte 4 mainz doi 10 11588 diglit 3044 isbn 3 8053 0490 0 cite book cs1 maint location missing publisher link castleden rodney 2002 minoans life in bronze age crete routledge p 100 isbn 978 1 134 88064 5 salgarella ester 2022 linear a oxford classical dictionary oxford university press doi 10 1093 acrefore 9780199381135 013 8927 inactive 8 february 2026 isbn 978 0 19 938113 5 cite encyclopedia cs1 maint doi inactive as of february 2026 link duhoux yves 1977 le disque de phaestos the phaistos disc in french leuven cite book cs1 maint location missing publisher link achterberg winfried best jan enzler kees rietveld lia woudhuizen fred 2004 the phaistos disc a luwian letter to nestor publications of the henry frankfort foundation vol 13 isbn 978 90 72067 11 1 palaima thomas g 1989 cypro minoan scripts problems of historical context in duhoux yves palaima thomas g bennet john eds problems in decipherment louvain la neuve peeters pp 121 188 isbn 90 6831 177 8 burton tara isabella 16 september 2015 ancient script spurs rethinking of historic backwater national geographic archived from the original on september 17 2015 valério miguel 2014 the interpretative limits of the southwestern script jour...