Writing on the Walls: Languages and Stories Engraved in Time

Question: A 50,000-year-old rock carving in Australia possibly contains the first example of what image?

Answer: Human faces

Virtually every city nowadays offers exceptional opportunities to experience art, literature, and local history. Large murals cover walls of warehouses and corner stores. Remnants of history are commemorated through statues and plaques. From London’s Brick Lane to Lisbon’s Bairro Alto, it’s in our nature to want to put our stories out there, in whatever form we see fit. In fact, it’s been in our nature for over 50,000 years.

If you ever get the chance to journey to Murujuga National Park in the northwest of Australia, you’ll see undeniable evidence. Along its red rocks, some of the oldest examples of man-made art depict recognizable animals such as kangaroos and turtles, and even human faces. Over a million of these carvings exist in Murujuga, and contain references to extinct animals, like the Tibetan tiger. The faces, though, are especially fascinating because they are distinctive enough to suggest that each one represented an individual, rather than a generic form.

These are the first examples of rock carvings, but evidence like this continues through Australia, including Uluru (Ayers Rock), and around the world. Uluru itself holds images tens of thousands of years old and are still easily visible to tourists today. While most showcase nature or common rituals, images and records like these were the last that were fairly easy to decode.

Petroglyphs, which is the official term for historic/prehistoric rock carving, have been discovered all over the world, save for Antarctica. Africa and northern Europe and Asia hold the highest amount, dating back around 10,000 years on average. Around 8,000 years ago, many of the first writing systems started to come into play and much of the cave art began to be replaced with sophisticated examples of early language. Illustrations of single animals and hunting scenes gave way to pictures and symbols with a much deeper level of representation. A few examples include Ancient Sumerian, Chinese, and of course, Ancient Egyptian.

Breaking the Pharoah’s Code

Probably the most well-known example of ancient writing, the Egyptian hieroglyphs adorn monuments and tombs all over the country. Walls will be covered in names of Pharaohs, spells from the Book of the Dead, military recounts, and more. But 3,500 years of hieroglyphic writing ended in 394 A.D., with the last inscription being carved at Philae. For centuries, the meaning behind these beautiful symbols was lost to time—until the famous discovery of the Rosetta Stone by French soldiers in 1799. This finding provided talented French linguist Jean-Francois Champollion what he needed. He cracked the Egyptian language in 1822, recognizing that it had figurative, symbolic, and phonetic elements. He showcased his work to the French Academy of Inscriptions and Literature and became a national sensation.

Ironically the young Frenchman gained this notoriety before he had even stepped foot in Egypt. That was short-lived though, and within a few years, he led a formal expedition to the Nile. Since then, Egyptology has grown immensely as an area of study and Champollion’s work with the Rosetta Stone is recognized as a significant step in deciphering ancient language.

Expand your Ancient Egypt knowledge when you visit Luxor and the Valley of the Kings on Egypt & the Eternal Nile.

It’s all Greek to me!

Much of Ancient Greek history is readily available to us, thanks to the classical Greek alphabet and works by Plato, Aristotle, Sophocles, and Herodotus. This period also included the Olympics and Alexander the Great. However, Ancient Greece goes back even further to eras known as Mycenaean Greece (c. 1450-1200 BCE) and Minoan Crete (c. 1800-1450 BCE). The Mycenaean Era held a writing system known as Linear B, which followed the Minoan system of Linear A. Both languages were seemingly lost to time, with a large gap between the end of Mycenaean Greece and the beginning of the classical Greece that we’re familiar with today.

English Architect Michael Ventris was convinced otherwise, though. When he was just 14, he saw an exhibition of Cretan archaeology containing symbols from the written language now known as Linear B. This writing had been found off the Greek mainland and was much older, to the point where many scholars believed it to be entirely different than classical Greek. At that young age, Ventris decided he would be the one to decode this forgotten language. By 1952, he proved to have correctly called his shot after utilizing statistical methods to showcase that Linear B is the oldest known form of Greek language.

Practice your Greek when you travel through its mainland and islands on Aegean Islands, Athens & Istanbul.

Following the Mayan trail

One of the most prominent and accomplished civilizations on Earth in their time, the Maya of Central and South America left behind quite the legacy. Their advancements in mathematics, writing, astronomy, art, and agriculture have dutifully impressed historians to date. However, the Spanish Conquest during the 1500s led to much of their script and knowledge being lost. The only surviving writings were the glyphs carved onto temples and monuments. It wasn’t until the 19th century that scholars went out to decipher these written symbols.

With so many Mayan glyphs being based on astronomy and mathematics, scholars debated the possibility that this civilization did not actually record spoken language. Soviet linguist Yuri Knorozov disagreed, though. As a young soldier, he stumbled upon a book detailing 16th century Mayan encounters. He proposed that the language combined both symbols for words and symbols for sounds. It wasn’t until decades later that Western scholars realized he was right. Tatiana Proskouriakoff, a Russian-born American architect, took the decoding a step further when she noted a pattern of glyphs in groups of 60-70 years, which she realized were biographies. She put forth correct translations of glyphs describing births, deaths, and other significant life events. Thanks to Knorozov, Proskouriakoff, and dozens of other hard-working linguists, the Mayan language that was once completely lost is now 90% restored.

Step into the history of pre-Columbian Americas as you journey on Route of the Maya.

Learn about the sacred significance of Uluru to its Aboriginal caretakers during Ultimate Australia.