Introduction

The 19th and early 20th centuries saw a succession of amazing discoveries about the ancient world. How did we get from there to today when every time archaeologists unearth a new tablet with writing on it, there seems to be an expert at hand ready to translate it? And how is it that we can read all these funny scripts and dead languages? Some of which we didn't know existed a century ago. You'll also hear about the businessman who went digging for a mythical city and the architect who cracked the code of the Linear B tablets.