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Title: Reading the Past: Ancient Writing from Cueniform to the Alphabet by J. T. Hooker, C. B. F. Walker, John F. Healey ISBN: 0-520-07431-9 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: January, 2000 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $39.95

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Average Customer Rating: 4.67 (3 reviews)

Rating: 5
Summary: Discovery and Decipherment
Comment: _Reading the Past_ is a collection of six long essays on the discovery and decipherment of writing systems found from Mesopotamia to Italy. Quite often it has been taught that writing began in Uruk sometime around 3000 BCE. Or that once the Rosetta Stone had been found, Egyptian hieroglyphics were a snap. Or that once it was recognized that Linear B was Greek, it, too, was a snap; just plug Greek words into a new script. This book dispels those ideas as it tells in detail the stories of the discovery and decipherment of those writing systems along with the Semitic alphabet, Greek inscriptions, and what may seem to be the odd man out, Etruscan.

The essay on Etruscan may help one to understand what this book is all about. Etruscan is not a member of the Indo-European family of languages. Rather it is an isolated language. Its literature disappeared about the 3rd century BCE. It is an unknown language in a known script (the exact opposite of Linear B), an adopted Greek script whose alphabet gave it the letters B, D, G, and O which it never used. This latter is like adoption of the Latin alphabet by the Italians. K, J, W, and Y never ever appear in Italian words. There are some 13,000 inscriptions of Etruscan extant and more are being found. A short grammar helps one to understand why the language turned out as it did. Languages, like a plant, grow every which way. Yet this essay is not just about Etruscan. There were other non-Latin languages spoken in Italy. Among them was Oscan which was spoken at Pompeii.

For all of the diversity of these ancient writing systems, their writers shared some common beliefs. Among hieroglyphic funery inscriptions a person's name had to be made known to insure benefits. Among the Etruscans, when one wrote down another's name, one acted upon it for good or evil. Saying or writing a name had power in a way that we do not conceive of in modern times.

People will continue to seek who they are by seeking who they were. This can be done only by reading the thoughts of those who lived in the past. This will be the continuing fascination with "reading the past."

Rating: 5
Summary: Interesting Reading
Comment: Very interesting and enjoyable. The section on Greek is a bit dull (it relies more heavily on "picture - Greek transcription - translation" content than the other sections), but as informative as all other sections. Lacking in some areas, such as Indic scripts, but covers each area very thoroughly. Unfortunately, since each chapter was originally a separate book and by different authors, the sections lack a continuity of ideas and information. Very good for those without an academic background in historical linguistics.

Rating: 4
Summary: Encyclopedic
Comment: This book contains six booklets: Cuneiform by C. B. F. Walker, Egyptian Hieroglyphs by W. V. Davies, Linear B by John Chadwick, The Early Alphabet by John F. Healey, Greek Inscriptions by B. F. Cook, and Etruscan by Larissa Bonfante. The information on each topic is extremely detailed and quite informative. The text is remarkably readable, despite its scholarly nature. One weakness is that Indian scripts are almost entirely omitted. Although mentioned briefly in the text, they are missing from the chart entitled "Relationship between Main Scripts" on page 255. However, information on Semitic, Greek, and Lain scripts is quite extensive. The major weakness of the book, however, is the lack of an overall story, a big picture view. Without such a synopsis, each section stands by itself, and it's difficult for the reader to put the pieces of the story together. The brief introduction by J. T. Hooker works toward this goal, but by bringing in Chinese and Japanese, it's a little too general, yet the brevity of the piece prevents the full story behind the scripts covered in the book from being told.