Note: "The last great mystery of the pyramids could be closer to being found thanks to a robot built in Leeds," according to the Daily Mail (2011)
"Images captured by a new 'micro snake' camera traveling deep within the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt reveal small hieroglyphs written in red paint on the floor of a small, hidden chamber.
"Egyptologists believe that if deciphered the markings could unlock the secrets of why tunnels, doors and secret chambers were built within pyramids such as this one."
"Beowulf, the epic poem of derring-do and monsters, was composed by a single author, research suggests, pouring cold water on the idea it was stitched together from two poems." Source: The Guardian.
Based on a computer analysis of "small features of the text," this research "suggests – although cannot conclusively prove – that it was the work of a single poet, the researchers say.
"...But mysteries remain – not least the identity of the Beowulf author. 'The most that can be inferred from the language of the poem is that the author probably spoke the Mercian dialect and probably lived during the first half of the eighth century,' said Madison Krieger, co-author of the study from Harvard University."
Note:According to Wikipedia, "The Beowulf manuscript was transcribed from an original by two scribes, one of whom wrote the prose at the beginning of the manuscript and the first 1939 lines before breaking off in mid sentence. The first scribe made a point of carefully regularizing the spelling of the original document by using the common West Saxon language and by avoiding any archaic or dialectical features. The second scribe, who wrote the remainder, with a difference in handwriting noticeable after line 1939, seems to have written more vigorously and with less interest. As a result, the second scribe's script retains more archaic dialectic features which allow modern scholars to ascribe the poem a cultural context."
"Hundreds of medieval and early modern Greek manuscripts – including classical texts and some of the most important treatises on religion, mathematics, history, drama and philosophy – are to be digitised and made available to anyone with access to the internet." Source: Archaeology News Network.
"A 2,000-year-old bronze tablet from Yemen, has engraved writing that mentions a lost temple dedicated to a god named 'Athtar Ḥarmān,' a deity whom scholars have never heard of before." Source: Live Science.
"Written in the Sabaic language, in a text known as Sabaean [see next video], the bronze inscription reads:
"'Ilīmataʿ and Khabīʾat, the two servants of Khawliyān offered to Athtar Ḥarmān, the owner of Bana, with a tablet of bronze, their sons and those he will add, for their salvation'" (translation by Christian Robin)."
Note: "For readers of the Bible, the region (Saba) is best known for its possible identification as the biblical land of Sheba. In 1 Kings 10 the Queen of Sheba travels to Jerusalem with a large retinue and brings spices, gold, and other valuables with her. She tests Solomon’s wisdom and they then exchange gifts." (Daily Beast)
"The Phaistos Disc ... is a disk of fired clay from the Minoan palace of Phaistos [next video] on the island of Crete, possibly dating to the middle or late Minoan Bronze Age (second millennium B.C.). The disk is about 15 cm (5.9 in) in diameter and covered on both sides with a spiral of stamped symbols. Its purpose and meaning, and even its original geographical place of manufacture, remain disputed, making it one of the most famous mysteries of archaeology. This unique object is now on display at the archaeological museum of Heraklion" (Wikipedia)
"This object has been subject of many studies," according to Ancient Scripts. "Steven Fischer has claimed to have deciphered it [1] and that it was a document in an archaic form of Greek. Because no other similar artifacts have ever been found anywhere in the Crete, it is thought that the object was foreign and brought in from another place. The place of its origin is extremely speculative, although subtle clues may exist in the highly pictorial signs on the disc. A sign depicts a helmet with crest, which was used later by Philistines. Another sign depict a structure similar to sarcophagus used by the Lycians of Asia Minor."
[1] There have been dozens of decipherment claims over the years. According to Wikipedia, "[a] large part of the claims are clearly pseudoscientific, if not bordering on the esoteric. Linguists are doubtful whether the inscription is sufficiently long to be unambiguously interpreted. It is possible that one of these decipherments is correct, and that, without further material in the same script, we will never know which."
"Containing six lines of cuneiform script, and roughly the size of an adult thumb, [this tablet] was donated to the [Cambridge] University Library in 1921 but then lost to sight for many years before its rediscovery in 2016, during research for the Curious Objects exhibition, held as part of the University Library’s 600th anniversary." Source: Cambridge University Library.
"The full translation of the laconic text runs as follows: 18 jars of pig fat – Balli. 4 jars of pig fat – Nimgir-ab-lah. Fat dispensed (at ?) the city of Zabala. Ab-kid-kid, the scribe. 4th year 10th month."
Note: The words Balli, Nimgir-ab-lah, etc., are thought to be personal names. According to Cambridge, "[t]he man named Balli turns up regularly in other texts from the same area during the same period of history, and seems to be an official in charge of a wide range of oils: from pig fat and butter to sesame oil and almond oil."
This clay tablet is apparently the oldest written object held at Cambridge. A 3D animation and more information about the tablet can be found here.
"Four-thousand years ago, an urban civilization lived and traded on what is now the border between Pakistan and India. During the past century, thousands of artifacts bearing hieroglyphics left by this prehistoric people have been discovered. Today, a team of Indian and American researchers are using mathematics and computer science to try to piece together information about the still-unknown script." Source: Science Daily (2009).
Video from 2015. I'm not sure how accurate some of this is.
Note: "The Indus script (also known as the Harappan script) is a corpus of symbols produced by the Indus Valley Civilisation during the Kot Diji and Mature Harappan periods between 3500 and 1900 BCE. Most inscriptions containing these symbols are extremely short, making it difficult to judge whether or not these symbols constituted a script used to record a language, or even symbolise a writing system. In spite of many attempts, ‘the script’ has not yet been deciphered, but efforts are ongoing. There is no known bilingual inscription to help decipher the script, and the script shows no significant changes over time. However, some of the syntax (if that is what it may be termed) varies depending upon location." (Wikipedia)
DNA evidence has supposedly established that the Etruscans originally came from the area of modern Turkey:
"...the Etruscans, whose descendants today live in central Italy, have long been among the great enigmas of antiquity. Their language, which has never properly been deciphered, was unlike any other in classical Italy. Their origins have been hotly debated by scholars for centuries." Source: The Guardian (2007)
"Genetic research made public at the weekend appears to put the matter beyond doubt, however. It shows the Etruscans came from the area which is now Turkey - and that the nearest genetic relatives of many of today's Tuscans and Umbrians are to be found, not in Italy, but around Izmir."
This is an old story and the findings could be inaccurate or misleading. For instance, it might be possible that the modern Tuscans and Umbrians used in the DNA tests were more closely related to Turkish people than they were to the ancient Etruscans. Also, the connection between the Etruscans and the area of modern Turkey may be due to the fact that the Villanovans developed from the earlier Bronze-Age Urnfield Culture which covered a large area of central Europe. It's possible that eastern peoples migrated into central Europe and then spread into Italy, where some of them eventually laid the foundations for the Villanovan Culture and then the Etruscan civilization.
The theory that the Etruscans emerged locally from the Villanovan Culture in Italy apparently goes back to the Italian historian Massimo Pallottino. According to the Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD, 3rd ed. revised), "Pallottino's hypothesis of ethnic formation in Etruria itself has long provided the best explanation of the facts." This doesn't necessarily contradict the idea that the Etruscans were descended from eastern migrants through the Villanovan Culture, however.
The picture is still very murky. For instance, ancient Greek historians such as Herodotus wrote that the Etruscans were descended from a group of Greek colonists from Lydia and linguistic analysis of the Etruscan language might support that view. According to the OCD, "the only language that has so far been shown to be 'related' to Etruscan, i.e. to be descended from a common source, is the pre-Greek idiom of Lemnos, and the evidence even for this is limited to a few texts. It may at best provide an argument in favour of the view championed by Herodotus that the Etruscans originated in the region of the Aegean and Asia Minor."
"Over 11,000 graffiti samples have been uncovered in the excavations of Pompeii," according to Wikipedia. Note: Some graffiti examples can be found on this Wikipedia page.
"Much of the graffiti at Pompeii seems surprisingly modern ... Ancient inscriptions include declarations of love ('Health to you, Victoria, and wherever you are may you sneeze sweetly.'); insults ('Sanius to Cornelius: Go hang yourself!'); and remembrances ('Pyrrhus to his chum Chias: I’m sorry to hear you are dead, and so, goodbye!'). There are also billboard-esque painted inscriptions that included political campaign messages, advertisements for Gladiatorial games, and other public notices—like the equivalent of a giant flyer for a lost horse. The commonplace nature of these inscriptions is part of what makes them so historically valuable." Source: The Atlantic (2016).
"[Pompeii's] well-preserved first level has given archaeologists, historians and classicists an unparalleled view of the ancient world, brought to a halt in the middle of an ordinary day." (Smithsonian, 2010)
"From the very beginning, archaeologists noticed copious amounts of graffiti on the outsides of buildings. In the late 1800s, scholars began making careful copies of Latin inscriptions throughout the ancient Roman world, including Pompeii, and cataloging them. This effort is a boon to scholars ... since more than 90 percent of Pompeii’s recorded graffiti have since been erased by exposure to the elements."