Evidence · Byblos syllabary

The current specialist overviews conclude that the script remains undeciphered and that no proposal since 1946 has…

The current specialist overviews conclude that the script remains undeciphered and that no proposal since 1946 has produced solid results.

Supported0

What it means

Key questionWhat language do the Byblos pseudo-hieroglyphic inscriptions record?

6 answers, none ahead yet

Openunchanged

Answer this evidence bears onUndetermined: the texts cannot yet be assigned to a language

Supports2 for, none against

Still possibleunchanged

Next steps 3

Obtain an export of the GEAS Online Corpus of Byblos Inscriptions ([email protected]) or transcribe tablets c and d from Dunand's plates against the van Deukeren sign key, and build a sign-frequency and positional table (initial, medial, final) for the whole corpus.

~12 h

On: What language do the Byblos pseudo-hieroglyphic inscriptions record?

—not judged

Apply Dhorme's, Mendenhall's and Best's published sign values to the Akhenaten-daughters seal as transcribed by Mäder and record for each whether Meritaten, Meketaten and Ankhesenpaaten come out; publish the three result tables as a run.

~8 h

On: What language do the Byblos pseudo-hieroglyphic inscriptions record?

—not judged

Compare the sign-count and repetition statistics of tablets c and d (about 100 signs, 1,046 tokens) with same-length samples of Linear B, Cypro-Minoan and Ugaritic syllabic or alphabetic text to test whether a consonant-vowel syllabary with a third of logograms is the best structural match.

~10 h

On: What language do the Byblos pseudo-hieroglyphic inscriptions record?

—not judged

Ranked by how likely each is to move the key question, for the time it takes

Sources 3

Byblos (Pseudo-hieroglyphic) - Mnamon: Ancient Writing Systems in the Mediterranean

Merlo 2022

SRC

Pseudo-hieroglyphs of Byblos

Daniels 1996

SRC

The Byblos Script

Vita 2018

SRC

Cite it

Mysteries Department. (2026). The current specialist overviews conclude that the script remains undeciphered and that no proposal since 1946 has… [Evidence EVD0DEDV4SM9H2R]. https://mysteriesdept.com/r/EVD0DEDV4SM9H2R

@misc{mysteriesdept_evd0dedv4sm9h2r,
  title     = {The current specialist overviews conclude that the script remains undeciphered and that no proposal since 1946 has…},
  author    = {{Mysteries Department}},
  year      = {2026},
  note      = {Evidence, catalog key EVD0DEDV4SM9H2R},
  url       = {https://mysteriesdept.com/r/EVD0DEDV4SM9H2R}
}