The Book of Lost Languages

THIS ITEM IS AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER ONLY AND WILL BE RELEASED ON 19 JANUARY 2027.

An Epic Quest to Decipher the Past

In 1799, a lieutenant in Napoleon’s army accidentally stumbled upon an engraved rock near the Egyptian port city of Rosetta. The Rosetta Stone, as it came to be called, became the key that allowed archaeologists and linguists to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs, finally unlocking one of the world’s most enigmatic ancient languages.

But Egyptian hieroglyphs are only one of more than a dozen ancient scripts we meet in The Book of Lost Languages. Polymath and endangered-language expert Daniel Harbour takes us on an adventure of discovery through the most extraordinary language decipherments in history: from the eighteenth century effort by a French clergyman to unlock the Palmyrene and Phoenician languages; to the Imperial court of China’s use of engraved human remains known as “dragon bones” to decipher Old Chinese; to the Russian-led decoding of Mayan glyphs during the Cold War.

Featuring puzzles throughout that help readers learn the code-breaking techniques behind this art, The Book of Lost Languages reveals the beguiling artistry behind some of the greatest puzzles ever created. Harbour weaves an utterly gripping story of the very texture of ancient life on earth.