Table of Contents
Olly Richards tells of a museum guard at the citadel in Van who set out to read inscriptions specialists still could not fully decipher. The channel calls the writing Urartian, a dead language with no course, cut into the stones of a kingdom that faded nearly three thousand years ago. With a primary school education, the guard copied signs and traveled into Iran and Armenia to chase Hurrian, a related tongue already partly read and written in a similar cuneiform. Richards says he separated numbers from sound signs, settled on a syllabary, and over many years built a vocabulary of royal names, gods, battles, rituals, and canals. Royal boasts name a supreme god and speak of founding cities. Professors doubted the homemade alphabet, then agreed the guard had broken the script and began to consult him. He refused offers to leave Turkey, including a long residence permit, and stayed near the ruins. The talk is Richards’s portrait of that decipherment, not a genetic history of later peoples.
Key points
- The inscriptions are Urartian, and Richards says nobody had a full reading of them.
- A guard at Van copied the signs for years and used partly known Hurrian writing as his lead.
- He treated the script as a syllabary and built a vocabulary large enough for royal texts.
- Specialists rejected his alphabet at first, then treated him as someone who had solved it.
- He turned down offers to teach abroad and stayed with the ruins in Turkey.
Short quotes
started working as a guard at this ancient Fortress and his job was simple
Olly Richards, Learning the Urartian script
Richards sets his subject as a guard whose post was the ancient fortress. Watch at 3:12
the clues were in the writing you see hurrians used a similar kind of writing
Olly Richards, Learning the Urartian script
A related people, the Hurrians, gave him a script he could compare. Watch at 7:43
Professor didn't believe them they said it's very nice finally they realized that he had actually cracked it and
Olly Richards, Learning the Urartian script
Doubt from professors turned into agreement that the writing had been solved. Watch at 14:06
Video by Olly Richards. Watch on YouTube.