ArtFire

This copper pendant depicts a fragment of Meroitic script. It hangs from three 1 mm and 1.5 mm leather cords in black, brown, and red that repeat the colors in the patina. The pendant measures 3/4 inch wide and 1 1/4 inches long; the cords are eighteen inches long including the handmade bronze S-clasp.

Meroitic script developed in the Sudan in the third century BC. It has two forms, one hieroglyphic and one cursive, developed from the Egyptian systems. British Egyptologist Francis Llewellyn Griffith deciphered the phonetic values of both forms around 1911, but other than proper names only a few dozen words have been translated, based on context.

I-171

As I reached the pictures in the "New Scientist" article I knew I had stumbled on what I had been looking for. Bronze has a feeling of antiquity about it that seems suited to fragments of text, and I wanted to incorporate script into the pieces I was making, but in all the texts I was looking at the meaning had to be considered. Here were "Eight Scripts That Still Can't Be Read", and they were both enormously varied and visually intriguing. From the organic feel of Linear A to the impossible precision of Rongo-rongo, from the almost familiar pictures of Olmec, Proto-Elamite, and the Phaistos Disc to the abstract lines and squiggles of Meroitic, all were visually and intellectually engaging in a different way than known text could be. They say something, but they are more cultural artifact than simple text. Even if one turns out to be a warehouse inventory I won't be disappointed because their meaning goes beyond their translation. So here is my "Undeciphered Texts" collection.

copper, leather, bronze