Undeciphered scripts have long tantalized the public, whether it's the possibility of hearing the voices of ancient peoples or the puzzle solver's taste for the challenges posed by breaking codes. Here, Andrew Robinson investigates the most famous examples, beginning with the stories of three great decipherments: Egyptian hieroglyphs, Maya glyphs, and the Minoan Linear B clay tablets. He then covers the important scripts that have yet to be cracked,...

In 1898, a Minnesota farmer uproots a large stone covered with mysterious runes. Now known as the Kensington Rune Stone, it details a journey of land acquisition and murder-- in the year 1362. Thought by some to be a hoax, new evidence suggests it could be real, and a clue that the Knights Templar discovered America 100 years before Columbus, perhaps bringing with them history's greatest treasure-- the Holy Grail. See how symbols on the Rune Stone...

"As early as 3500 BCE, scribes in the mud-walled city-state of Sumer used a reed stylus to press tiny wedge-shaped symbols into clay. For three thousand years, the script chronicled the military conquests, scientific discoveries, and epic literature of the grand kingdoms of Mesoptamia--Assyria, Babylon, the mighty Achaemenid Empire--along with precious minutia about every day life so long ago. But as the palaces of these once great kingdoms sank...