For a long time, anthropologists believed that a written language was a hallmark of a society being complex or 'advanced.' A new study on precolonial Mesoamerican societies shows that you can have a ...

Athena Lee does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their ...

What is a Logographic System? Traditionally, languages are thought to require an alphabet for written communication, consisting of letters like A, B, and C. However, Chinese (Mandarin) defies this ...

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 ...

Indus, Rongorongo, Linear A: Some ancient writing systems cannot be deciphered. Can artificial intelligence help crack the codes of the past? Do you enjoy solving puzzles? What would you do if given a ...