Mysteries Department
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People

625 people in 95 mysteries

Researchers, witnesses, makers and the missing: everyone the mysteries' records name, with what they did in each.

All mysteries
All mysteries1908 Tunguska event1979 Vela incident1I/'Oumuamua2004 Nimitz encounter and the Navy videosAmber RoomAmerica's missing scientists, 2021–2026Antikythera MechanismArchimedes PalimpsestBall lightningBeale ciphersBermuda TriangleBloop and NOAA's unexplained ocean soundsCarnac alignmentsCascajal block and Isthmian writingCicada 3301Copiale cipherCretan HieroglyphicCypro-MinoanDead Sea Scrolls: dating, scribes and provenanceDhofari scriptDisappearance of Amelia EarhartDorabella cipherDyatlov Pass incidentEarth flyby anomalyEaster Island moaiEtruscan: the readable language that cannot be fully translatedEye of the Sahara and AtlantisFast radio bursts and the origin of the one-off burstsFlor de la MarFranklin expedition (HMS Erebus and HMS Terror)Gallo-Roman dodecahedraGreat Sphinx of GizaGreat houses of Chaco CanyonGunung PadangGöbekli TepeHD 139139, the "Random Transiter"Hattic, Kassite and the half-read languages of the cuneiform archivesHerculaneum Papyri and the Vesuvius ChallengeHessdalen lightsHijacking of Northwest 305 (D. B. Cooper)Homo floresiensis, the origin of the Flores "hobbits"Homo naledi and the Rising Star burial claimsHow the Great Pyramid was builtHurrian songs of UgaritIberian language and Palaeohispanic scriptsIndus scriptInka khipus: the knotted-cord recordsKensington RunestoneKryptosLate Bronze Age collapseLinear ALoch NessLost Colony of RoanokeLost Dutchman's gold mineMalaysia Airlines Flight MH370Marfa lightsMars methane puzzleMary CelesteMeroiticMonte Sierpe, the "Band of Holes"Nazca LinesNebra Sky DiscOak Island money pitPatterson-Gimlin filmPhaistos DiscPhoenix Lights, 13 March 1997Phosphine in the clouds of VenusPictish symbol stonesProto-Elamite and Linear ElamiteProto-Sinaitic and Wadi el-Hol: the first alphabetProto-cuneiform: the archaic texts of UrukPuma Punku and TiwanakuRendlesham Forest, December 1980Ricky McCormick's notesRohonc CodexRongorongoRoswell, 1947San José galleonSanxingdui and its sacrificial pitsShroud of TurinShugborough inscriptionSkinwalker RanchSomerton Man (Tamam Shud)StonehengeStradivari "secret"Tabby's star (KIC 8462852)Tarim Basin mummies (Xiaohe)US government UAP disclosuresUVB-76, "the Buzzer"Unread cuneiform: half a million tablets and the limits of SumerianWhite Shaman MuralWho were the Denisovans? The Harbin "Dragon Man" craniumWow! signalYounger Dryas impact hypothesisZodiac ciphers
Assyriologist
Any roleArchaeologistLinguistAssyriologistAuthorCo-authorGeologistAstronomerDirectorPhysicistEpigrapherHistorianEgyptologistExcavatorEpigraphist
Any period
Any periodBefore 18001800s1900–19491950–1999Since 2000
With a portraitClear
AllABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ#

A 2

AF
Adam FalkensteinAssyriologist; first editor of the Uruk archaic tablets (ATU 1, 1936) · 1906–1966
Proto-cuneiform: the archaic texts of Uruk
AD
Anne Draffkorn KilmerAssyriologist at Berkeley who published CBS 10996 (1960), synthesised the Babylonian theory texts (1971) and read h.6 as dyads with repetiti
Hurrian songs of Ugarit

E 2

EF
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
EJ
Enrique JiménezAssyriologist at LMU Munich who leads the electronic Babylonian Library and its Fragmentarium.
Unread cuneiform: half a million tablets and the limits of Sumerian

G 1

GS
George SmithAssyriologist (British Museum); deciphered the Cypriot syllabary from the Idalion bilingual, 1871 · 1840–1876

J 1

JL
Jacob L. DahlAssyriologist (Oxford); Proto-Elamite sign list and CDLI corpus; critic of continuity · born 1972
Proto-Elamite and Linear Elamite

K 3

KK
Kathryn KelleyAssyriologist (Uppsala); computational Proto-Elamite work
Proto-Elamite and Linear Elamite
KK
Kathryn KelleyAssyriologist; computational work on proto-cuneiform and proto-Elamite sign use
Proto-cuneiform: the archaic texts of Uruk
KB
Kemal BalkanTurkish Assyriologist whose Kassitenstudien 1 (1954) collected the Kassite language · 1920–1992
Hattic, Kassite and the half-read languages of the cuneiform archives

M 2

MK
Manfred KrebernikJena Assyriologist and the leading editor of Early Dynastic literary and incantation texts from Fara, Ebla and Abu Salabikh. · born 1953
Unread cuneiform: half a million tablets and the limits of Sumerian
MM
Manuel MolinaCSIC Assyriologist who built and edits the Database of Neo-Sumerian Texts, the census of the Ur III corpus.
Unread cuneiform: half a million tablets and the limits of Sumerian

O 1

OR
Oliver Robert GurneyOxford Assyriologist who published the Ur tuning text UET VII 74 (1968) and first read the string list Nabnitu XXXII. · 1911–2001
Hurrian songs of Ugarit

P 1

PS
Piotr SteinkellerAssyriologist (Harvard); reviewer of ZATU and defender of Sumerian readings
Proto-cuneiform: the archaic texts of Uruk

R 3

RD
Robert D. BiggsOriental Institute Assyriologist who published the Abu Salabikh tablets and the archaic Kesh Temple Hymn. · born 1934
Unread cuneiform: half a million tablets and the limits of Sumerian
RK
Robert K. EnglundAssyriologist at UCLA, founding director of the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative and editor of the archaic Uruk texts. · 1952–2020
Unread cuneiform: half a million tablets and the limits of Sumerian
RK
Robert K. EnglundAssyriologist; editor of most of the proto-cuneiform corpus and founder of CDLI; held the language unknown · 1952–2020
Proto-cuneiform: the archaic texts of Uruk

S 1

SG
Shai GordinAssyriologist at Ariel University who leads the Digital Pasts Lab and co-authored the neural restoration and Akkadian machine-translation pa
Unread cuneiform: half a million tablets and the limits of Sumerian

É 1

ÉD
Édouard DhormeFrench Assyriologist and Semitist (1881 to 1966), one of the decipherers of the Ugaritic alphabet in 1930, who in 1946 announced a Phoenicia