Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login
Lost Languages Discovered in One of the World’s Oldest Libraries (2017) (smithsonianmag.com)
108 points by gumby on Sept 26, 2020 | hide | past | favorite | 8 comments



I love reading about newly discovered works from the ancients. I'm really hoping some of the missing plays and history and math shows up here. There are also those burned red sea scrolls, I hope later tech can read them.


The most interesting possible source of lost books that I know of are the burned scrolls found in Herculaneum [0]. We just need medical imaging to advance a bit more.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herculaneum_papyri


Unfortunately those are philosophical writings, the bar for "most interesting" is really low here. If you are looking for Sappho or Euripides or even Ennius, it's not in there.


You might enjoy these two Smithsonian films about the discoveries of lost Christian texts in the 19th century.

https://www.smithsonianchannel.com/details/series/bible-hunt...


The what scrolls? Burned Red Sea? I'm guessing you mean Dead Sea scrolls, but I haven't heard of any that were burned.


Danh, yeah, got that wrong, not sure why dead went to red, thanks for the fix.


There is a link at the bottom of the article to some of the text images here: http://emel-library.org/gallery/sinai-palimpsests-processed-...


> the newly revealed texts ... date from the 4th to the 12th century

So we shouldn't expect to find any Voynichese, I suppose.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: