Recounts the work of leading nineteenthand twentieth-century literary archaeologists in searching out, studying, and deciphering ancient writings and thereby retrieving the histories and literatures of ancient cultures
This book is outdated but still fascinating. There is so much more to translating an unknown language and syllabry than just swapping sounds for shapes. Worth the read if you don't mind doing some research afterward to find out what's happened in decoding these languages in the 50 years since publication.