Early Alphabets
Map Making
Ancient Texts
Code Breakers
100
An ancestor to our alphabet, or an inscription that contains the alphabet.
What is an abecedary?
100
The common material our ancestors used to record ancient maps.
What is clay and stone?
100
Used to record major events in chronological order. Usually, ancient artifacts that list events by year, without narrative.
What is an Annal?
100
The art of concealing a message so no one except the intended recipient will read it.
What is steganography?
200
An early found version of the Phoenician alphabet, dated back to the tenth century B.C., predating the Greek alphabet. All the letters were found carved into a boulder.
What is proto-Canaanite?
200
Besides clay and stone, name a few other items that have been discovered holding ancient maps.
What are a mammoth tusk, animal skins, silk, shells, agave paper, leaves, sticks tied together in the form of a grid, star map paintings on cave walls.
200
A collection of historical events, in chronological order, but that provide more details of the events.
What is a Chronicle?
200
When using this method, the message is altered with the hopes only the recipient will be able to decipher it.
What is cryptology?
300
This husband-wife archaeological team discovered the first phonetic alphabet.
Who is John and Deborah Darnell.
300
When archaeologists examine ancient maps, they look to see where the creator placed themselves to give an understanding of how much of the outside world they know and understand. When you place yourself at the center, that is called being....
What is ethnocentric?
300
The term used to describe something broken or used that is recycled into something to write on.
What is an ostraca? Usually broken pieces of pottery that were turned into "paper."
300
Used to ask a god to defeat an enemy or cause them harm. Usually placed in close proximity to the victim, and may have been found in wells or other water sources the victim drank from.
What is a defixiones?
400
A mysterious alphabet discovered by Italian archaeologist Luigi Pernier in 1908. It has 241 symbols, which appear to have been stamped before the clay disc was fired.
What is the Phaistos Disc?
400
When an artifact is found that seems to be completely out of place based on the technology available at the time it was thought to have been created.
What is an Oopart? (Out Of Place ARTifcat).
400
Created by ancient Egyptians around 4,000 B.C., using a plant that grew along the Nile River. We still use a version of this today.
What is papyrus?
400
A well designed algorithm used to perform encryptions?
What is a cipher?
500
This unlocked the mysteries of hieroglyphics and finally held the key to decoding the ancient language.
What is the Rosetta Stone?
500
This modern device is the way we make maps and analyze landforms today.
What is satellite technology?
500
An ancient book or manuscript written before the invention of the printing press in the fifteenth century. Early Romans carried these and used them as notepads.
What is a codex?
500
A modern example of a code that was able to be used over telegraph wires. This has been essential during war time.
What is Morse code?
M
e
n
u