People
625 people in 95 mysteries
Researchers, witnesses, makers and the missing: everyone the mysteries' records name, with what they did in each.
A 8
AG
Alan GardinerEgyptologist who read b'lt and explained the script as acrophonic · 1879–1963
ABProto-Sinaitic and Wadi el-Hol: the first alphabet
Alexander BrusovLed the 1945 Soviet investigation; dated the destruction to 9 to 11 April 1945 · 1885–1966
ATAmber Room
Alexander ThomEngineer and surveyor of megalithic sites · 1894–1985
AMCarnac alignments
Antonin MorletVichy physician and amateur prehistorian who leased the field in 1925, excavated until 1936, published the finds as a Neolithic station with
Arthur Conan DoyleAuthor of the 1884 story · 1859–1930
AEMary Celeste
Arthur EvansExcavator of Knossos; named and first catalogued the script · 1851–1941
Cretan Hieroglyphic
Arthur EvansPublished the disc in Scripta Minoa · 1891–1961
Phaistos Disc
Arthur EvansExcavator of Knossos; named Linear A · 1891–1961
Linear A
B 1
D 2
DZ
Dong ZuobinArchaeologist who began the scientific excavation of Anyang in October 1928 and in 1933 published the ten criteria that divide the inscripti
DGDorothy GarrodBritish Palaeolithic archaeologist, later the first woman professor at Cambridge, who sat on the international commission that dug at Glozel
E 2
Edward ElgarComposer; author of the note · 1857–1934
EFDorabella cipher
Emil ForrerSwiss Assyriologist who in 1919 sorted the Boğazköy tablets into eight languages and isolated Hattic · 1894–1986
Hattic, Kassite and the half-read languages of the cuneiform archives
F 3
FP
Flinders PetrieExcavator of Serabit el-Khadim; found and first published the Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions · 1853–1942
FLProto-Sinaitic and Wadi el-Hol: the first alphabet
Francis Llewellyn GriffithEgyptologist; deciphered the Meroitic script · 1862–1934
FSMeroitic
Frederick Solly-FloodAttorney General and Advocate General of Gibraltar · 1829–1909
Mary Celeste
G 3
GS
George SmithAssyriologist (British Museum); deciphered the Cypriot syllabary from the Idalion bilingual, 1871 · 1840–1876
GTGeorge T. FlomLinguist; argued the inscription is modern · 1871–1960
GMKensington Runestone
Guo MoruoWriter, historian and palaeographer, editor-in-chief (with Hu Houxuan as chief editor) of the Jiaguwen heji, the 13-volume standard corpus o
H 2
HS
Hallie StillwellTeacher and rancher of the Big Bend; told on television in 1989 of seeing the lights in 1916 · 1897–1997
Marfa lights
Hjalmar HolandHistorian and owner; chief advocate of authenticity · 1872–1963
Kensington Runestone
J 3
JK
Jakob KrallEgyptologist, Vienna; identified the Zagreb mummy wrappings as Etruscan in 1892 · 1857–1905
Etruscan: the readable language that cannot be fully translated
Johan Ludvig HeibergPhilologist; identified the Archimedes undertext in 1906 · 1854–1928
Archimedes Palimpsest
John RaeHudson's Bay Company surgeon and explorer; reported Inuit accounts in 1854 · 1813–1893
Franklin expedition (HMS Erebus and HMS Terror)
L 1
M 2
MD
Maurice DunandFrench archaeologist who directed the excavation of Byblos from 1924 to 1975, found the pseudo-hieroglyphic inscriptions in 1928 to 1932, an
MVMiloje VasićSerbian archaeologist who excavated Vinča-Belo Brdo from 1908 and published Preistorijska Vinča · 1869–1956
R 1
S 3
SR
Salomon ReinachArchaeologist, member of the Académie des Inscriptions and director of the Musée des Antiquités nationales, who dug at Glozel for three days
Secondo PiaLawyer and photographer; first photographed the cloth · 1855–1941
Shroud of Turin
Stanton FriedmanResearcher who reopened the case in 1978 · 1898–1961
Roswell, 1947
T 1
W 3
WG
Wang GuoweiHistorian who in 1917 matched the ancestors and kings named in the inscriptions to Sima Qian's Shang king list, confirming the list with cor
WYWang YirongQing official and antiquarian who in 1899 first recognised the marks on the Anyang bones as ancient writing; he died in August 1900 during t
WFWilliam F. AlbrightOrientalist who published the fullest decipherment of the Sinai texts in 1966 · 1891–1971
Proto-Sinaitic and Wadi el-Hol: the first alphabet