Treasure hunt begins in England

Chapter 507 The Eternal Mystery
"It's actually a linear letter a, now I'm in trouble." When those clay tablets were sent to the temporary studio on site, the leader of the Irish Museum glanced at the words on them and subconsciously said.

The reason why the other party said this is also very simple, that is because there are so few cultural relics with the linear graph a that it is impossible for people to find enough comparative materials and translate the above text.

As for the linear character b, the situation is much better, because a large number of similar cultural relics have been discovered before, so now these characters have been deciphered.

Of course, Liang En is also the decipherer of linear characters in this world. Although the theory of that article at that time was very reasonable, and it was recognized by a series of people who became famous in language and characters,
But in fact, he mastered the translation ability through cards.This ability was mastered when he was excavating the Minoan palace. At that time, in addition to the translation ability of Linear b, he also mastered the translation of Linear a.

It's just that because there are too few related cultural relics unearthed, Liang En was worried that he would not be able to explain how he translated it, so he didn't write a thesis like translating Linear b.

This is why the Irish archaeologist seems so sorry, and even today the entire ancient text translation community believes that unless more examples can be found, this text cannot be translated at all.

The only good news is that some of the previous cultural relics allow them to compare, so they can decipher a small part of the linear script a.

"I remember that there should be papyrus in that era." Just as the scholars began to examine these clay tablets, Joan leaned over and asked in a low voice. "Why is there still a clay tablet here?
"" Very simple.Although papyrus already existed at that time, this kind of paper was very expensive, at least it was difficult for ordinary people to afford, not to mention that if you want to get papyrus here, you can only import it, so the price will be even more expensive . Liang En quickly explained the situation inside to Joan of Arc.

Although papyrus has paper characters, it is definitely not something that can be used by the public made of a bunch of cheap raw materials like real paper. This kind of thing is not cheap in terms of raw materials or production costs.

On the one hand, the papyrus used as raw material was only available near the Nile River at that time, and the output was very limited; on the other hand, the production process of this papyrus was extremely cumbersome.

In the process, it is necessary to first cut the main stem of papyrus into small sections with a length of 40-50 cm, remove the bast, split the pith into strips as wide as possible, and spread these strips in two layers on the hard board (The first layer is laid horizontally, and the second layer is laid vertically).

The maker then squeezes and beats the semi-finished product, using a small amount of water and using the plant's own slime to stick the two layers of strips together.Once dry, smooth the surface with stones or shells, and trim the edges to finish.

From a certain point of view, the production of papyrus is not like real paper, but rather like plywood, and the cumbersome process and limited raw materials make this kind of paper that is not easy to use expensive.

However, compared to the parchment used by Europeans in the third century, this kind of paper is already considered to be of high quality and low price. After all, if Europeans in the Middle Ages wanted to copy a Bible, they needed hundreds of sheep to produce the parchment. supply.

Because papyrus is generally not cheap, it is often only used by those in the upper class to record some important content. Even the top craftsmen are unlikely to use these papers in their daily life.

But craftsmen are different from ordinary people. They need to use words to communicate and write some content, so they can only use clay tablets in West Asia as a carrier to record these things in daily life.

Anyway, for those who work in metal smelters, there's enough to use in this place that they just need to put their clay tablets over a flame to harden after they've written something.

Theoretically speaking, it is impossible for the hard clay tablets to survive for more than 3000 years. However, after the volcanic eruption, a large amount of hot volcanic ash turned these clay tablets into hard pottery tablets, and the words on them have been preserved to this day. .

"Here is a word I know." After carefully examining the clay tablets found in the metal smelter, everyone quickly tried to check these things comprehensively. Soon, Professor Harry discovered that one of the words could be translated. of.

"This vocabulary should come from a copy of all the clay tablets that have Linear A and Linear B written on it at the same time." Harry pointed to the vocabulary and said with affirmation.

"If there is no mistranslation of the linear script b before, the meaning of this word is equivalent to the Greek ρεχαλκο, and it should be written as oreikhalkos today."

"oreikhalkos?" As a person who also mastered ancient Greek, Liang En quickly realized what the word was, but he still asked out of caution. "Is this thing orichalcos?"

"Yes." Professor Harry became excited, but soon showed a regretful expression. "It's a pity that we don't understand the text on it, otherwise we can know why this word appears here."

If this word is translated into Chinese, it means Olihagang, which is the legendary mountain copper. According to historical records, this is a mysterious metal from the legendary Atlantis.

The story of Atlantis was handed down by the famous ancient Greek philosopher Plato, more than 1000 years after the eruption of the Santorini volcano, that is, around 400 BC.

In his two works "Timaeus" and "Crea", Plato talked about a splendid civilization and an island that suddenly sank in a day and night and was submerged under the waves forever.

It’s just that in the legend, Plato never mentioned the specific location of the island, but vaguely said that the island is located in front of the Strait of Gibraltar, and its area is larger than that of Libya and the entire Asia Minor combined.

He writes that the story was told by a visiting Egyptian priest to the Greek statesman Solon in around 590 BC.

In the following time, Solon told the story to his son, who passed it on to his grandson, and then passed it to Plato's ears after several generations.

Although it is because of Plato's detailed description of Atlantis Island, for example, the island is a ring of land and water, and it also describes the size of each city in detail, but there is no specific location. People are very controversial about this.

So far, many people claim to have discovered Atlantis, these places are scattered in a huge space between the coast from the Bahamas to Cyprus.

Although some local landforms are indeed similar to Atlantis mentioned by Plato, after research, it is found that they are either formed naturally, or have nothing to do with ancient Greek civilization, or both.

So this legendary country is still a mystery, and the content described on the pile of pottery plates that Liang En and the others found before is the key to solve this mystery.

(End of this chapter)