10 Prehistoric Symbols No One Has Ever Been Able To Read
Prehistoric Cole
3,770 views
Ten sets of prehistoric symbols that no one has ever been able to read. At Dholavira, in western India, ten white gypsum signs, each about 37 centimeters tall, lay face down in the dirt for some four thousand years, still in the order someone set them. Of the twenty-seven inscribed rongorongo objects that survive, not one is on Rapa Nui. And the bilingual the Indus script has always lacked once existed: a seal from Mesopotamia names a man who worked as an interpreter of the language of Meluhha, widely believed to be the Indus civilization.
CHAPTERS
10. The Ishango bone, Democratic Republic of the Congo
9. The Phaistos Disc, Crete, Greece
8. Engraved eggshell flasks, Diepkloof Rock Shelter, South Africa
7. Ice Age cave signs, Lascaux and Font-de-Gaume, France
6. Inca khipus, Puruchuco, Peru
5. Linear A, Crete, Greece
4. Proto-Elamite tablets, Susa, Iran
3. Neanderthal finger flutings, La Roche-Cotard, France
2. Rongorongo, Rapa Nui (Easter Island)
1. The Indus script, Dholavira, India
SOURCES
Original script written for this channel, not copied from any other creator. Researched from peer-reviewed literature and from museum, excavation and heritage records, with one primary source per entry:
10. Brooks and Smith (1987), African Archaeological Review — "Ishango revisited," the new age determinations that moved the Ishango layers back into the last ice age.
9. Heraklion Archaeological Museum, official collection record for the Phaistos Disc — the find of July 3, 1908, the signs stamped into the clay before firing, and the date of about 1700 to 1650 BC.
8. Texier and colleagues (2010), PNAS — the engraved ostrich eggshell containers of Diepkloof Rock Shelter, their motifs, and the shift in design through the Howiesons Poort sequence.
7. Bacon and colleagues (2023), Cambridge Archaeological Journal — the proposed lunar calendar and Y sign. The narration sets it against the critique by Nowell, Bahn and Le Quellec (2024) in the same journal.
6. Urton and Brezine (2005), Science — the Puruchuco khipus, their three-level accounting hierarchy, and the proposed place-name sign of three figure-eight knots.
5. Salgarella (2025), Writing in Bronze Age Crete: 'Minoan' Linear A, Cambridge University Press — the still undeciphered Linear A script. The Knossos ivory ring is published by Kanta, Nakassis, Palaima and Perna (2024), Ariadne Supplement 5.
4. Kelley (2026), Proto-Elamite, Cambridge Elements — the tablet corpus, how little of it can be read, and the script's failure to develop into a multipurpose writing system.
3. Marquet and colleagues (2023), PLOS ONE — the finger flutings of La Roche-Cotard and the luminescence dating of the sediment that sealed the cave at least 57,000 years ago.
2. Ferrara and colleagues (2024), Scientific Reports — new radiocarbon dates on four rongorongo tablets held in Rome, including the Échancrée tablet, made from a tree felled between about 1493 and 1509.
1. Rao and colleagues (2009), Science — the statistical structure of Indus sign sequences. The narration sets it against Farmer, Sproat and Witzel (2004), Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies, which argues the signs do not encode language.
DISCLAIMER
Educational and for reference only. Archaeology changes as new evidence appears, several claims here are debated, and the narration flags inferred, modeled and disputed points where they occur. This video judges no culture, nation, ethnic group or religion, takes no political or ideological position, does not promote pseudoarchaeology or unverified decipherment claims, and is not intended to incite or offend. Naming a researcher or institution is attribution only, not endorsement. Corrections with a published reference are welcome.
#Archaeology #Prehistory #AncientScripts #Undeciphered #LostLanguages
10 Prehistoric Symbols No One Has Ever Been Able To Read
Prehistoric Cole
3,770 views
Ten sets of prehistoric symbols that no one has ever been able to read. At Dholavira, in western India, ten white gypsum signs, each about 37 centimeters tall, lay face down in the dirt for some four thousand years, still in the order someone set them. Of the twenty-seven inscribed rongorongo objects that survive, not one is on Rapa Nui. And the bilingual the Indus script has always lacked once existed: a seal from Mesopotamia names a man who worked as an interpreter of the language of Meluhha, widely believed to be the Indus civilization.
CHAPTERS
10. The Ishango bone, Democratic Republic of the Congo
9. The Phaistos Disc, Crete, Greece
8. Engraved eggshell flasks, Diepkloof Rock Shelter, South Africa
7. Ice Age cave signs, Lascaux and Font-de-Gaume, France
6. Inca khipus, Puruchuco, Peru
5. Linear A, Crete, Greece
4. Proto-Elamite tablets, Susa, Iran
3. Neanderthal finger flutings, La Roche-Cotard, France
2. Rongorongo, Rapa Nui (Easter Island)
1. The Indus script, Dholavira, India
SOURCES
Original script written for this channel, not copied from any other creator. Researched from peer-reviewed literature and from museum, excavation and heritage records, with one primary source per entry:
10. Brooks and Smith (1987), African Archaeological Review — "Ishango revisited," the new age determinations that moved the Ishango layers back into the last ice age.
9. Heraklion Archaeological Museum, official collection record for the Phaistos Disc — the find of July 3, 1908, the signs stamped into the clay before firing, and the date of about 1700 to 1650 BC.
8. Texier and colleagues (2010), PNAS — the engraved ostrich eggshell containers of Diepkloof Rock Shelter, their motifs, and the shift in design through the Howiesons Poort sequence.
7. Bacon and colleagues (2023), Cambridge Archaeological Journal — the proposed lunar calendar and Y sign. The narration sets it against the critique by Nowell, Bahn and Le Quellec (2024) in the same journal.
6. Urton and Brezine (2005), Science — the Puruchuco khipus, their three-level accounting hierarchy, and the proposed place-name sign of three figure-eight knots.
5. Salgarella (2025), Writing in Bronze Age Crete: 'Minoan' Linear A, Cambridge University Press — the still undeciphered Linear A script. The Knossos ivory ring is published by Kanta, Nakassis, Palaima and Perna (2024), Ariadne Supplement 5.
4. Kelley (2026), Proto-Elamite, Cambridge Elements — the tablet corpus, how little of it can be read, and the script's failure to develop into a multipurpose writing system.
3. Marquet and colleagues (2023), PLOS ONE — the finger flutings of La Roche-Cotard and the luminescence dating of the sediment that sealed the cave at least 57,000 years ago.
2. Ferrara and colleagues (2024), Scientific Reports — new radiocarbon dates on four rongorongo tablets held in Rome, including the Échancrée tablet, made from a tree felled between about 1493 and 1509.
1. Rao and colleagues (2009), Science — the statistical structure of Indus sign sequences. The narration sets it against Farmer, Sproat and Witzel (2004), Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies, which argues the signs do not encode language.
DISCLAIMER
Educational and for reference only. Archaeology changes as new evidence appears, several claims here are debated, and the narration flags inferred, modeled and disputed points where they occur. This video judges no culture, nation, ethnic group or religion, takes no political or ideological position, does not promote pseudoarchaeology or unverified decipherment claims, and is not intended to incite or offend. Naming a researcher or institution is attribution only, not endorsement. Corrections with a published reference are welcome.
#Archaeology #Prehistory #AncientScripts #Undeciphered #LostLanguages