A section from the journey

A Writing We Cannot Read

The people of the cities could write. They left thousands of tiny inscriptions, mostly on stone seals. But their script has never been read. There is no key to unlock it, and the messages are very short. So we begin with honesty: here is what we can say, and here is where we must stop.

We have walked the streets of these cities. We have seen their wells, their baths, their fine beads and their careful weights. Now we come to a quieter wonder, and a harder one. The people who built all this could write.

They left their writing behind, in great numbers. It is found on more than four thousand objects. Most of these are small seals carved from a soft stone, each one no bigger than a postage stamp. There are signs on pottery too, and on copper, and on little tablets.

Scholars have counted the different signs as best they can. There are something like four hundred of them, perhaps more. That is far too many for an alphabet, where each sign is one sound. So the script is likely a richer kind, where some signs may stand for whole words or syllables. The writing usually runs from right to left.

And now the honest part, the part we must not soften. No one has read it. Not one seal has been opened with certainty. The signs are there, clear and patient on the stone, and they keep their meaning to themselves. The wisest scholars in the world have tried for a hundred years, and the script has not yielded.

Why is it so hard? We will look at the reasons closely in the sittings ahead. But hold the heart of it now. The messages are very short, only a few signs each. We have no second language written beside them to give us a key. And we do not even know for sure which tongue these people spoke. Without those helps, the door stays shut.

So let this set the tone for all that follows. When we say what the seals might mean, we will say "might." When we reach the edge of what the evidence allows, we will stop there and tell you so. Anyone who claims to read these signs with certainty is reaching past what we truly know.

Imagine holding a letter written by someone long gone, in a hand you cannot read. You know it meant something to them. You can feel its care, but not its words. Sit a moment with that feeling. Is there a kind of respect in saying honestly, "I do not know"?