Every writing system in history followed the same hidden trajectory, shedding thousands of symbols down to a handful of sounds. This is the story of how that compression happened, and why the alphabet ...

The ancient Maya developed one of the most sophisticated systems of timekeeping ever created. Using a combination of calendars, numerical notation, and hieroglyphic writing, they recorded historical ...

For thousands of years, these ancient writing systems have resisted every attempt at decipherment — and what they might tell us about the ancient world remains one of archaeology's greatest unsolved ...

The late, great sinologist Simon Leys once pointed out a peculiar paradox. China is the world’s oldest surviving civilization, and yet very little material of its past remains—far less than in Europe ...