Undeciphered systems

Linear A

Linear A remains undeciphered according to the British School at Athens. Some signs resemble those of Linear B, and comparison can generate tentative readings; it cannot demonstrate that both scripts wrote Greek or that every matching shape had the same value. A good proposal would account for recurring sign groups, grammar, objects and words across the Linear A corpus without changing values whenever a form is awkward. Until that test succeeds, a phonetic-looking transcription should be labeled provisional.

Indus signs

The British Museum describes short Indus inscriptions on seals and identifies the writing as still unread. A five-character seal from Mohenjo-daro is a concrete example of the limit: its object type and archaeological setting can be described, but five characters do not yield a secure personal name, language or sentence. Seals may be formulaic, and their carved face reverses in an impression. A language assignment based only on a proposed modern cognate is not a reading of the signs.

A useful research step is to test sign order, positional restrictions and repeated groups across independently documented seals. Such structure can be real even without a translation. Claims about the script’s linguistic status and language affiliation remain separate questions, to be argued from the corpus rather than assumed from a motif.

Rongorongo and partial access

The British Museum holds a wooden Rongorongo tablet from Rapa Nui. Its carved motifs can be documented and compared, while an accepted linguistic reading is lacking. Small and historically complicated surviving evidence requires special care with object histories, copies, possible damage and reading direction. Do not turn a pictorial resemblance into a claimed translation.

Meroitic illustrates a different limit: many sign sounds are known, but much of the language is not understood. “Undeciphered” is therefore not a single state. For each system, state whether the open problem concerns sign identity, sound values, language identification, grammar, or semantics.

Practice

Choose the British Museum Indus seal and Rongorongo tablet. For each, write three observations visible or documented in the object record and three questions the record cannot answer. Keep proposals about language, word meaning and cultural use in a separate, explicitly tentative column.