[Image source: AncientScripts.com]

While there are numerous good resources available on the Internet to the student of modern / contemporary languages, same is not the case for someone interested in studying ancient scripts around the world. Given that the number of such people will be very small, this is understandable. However, the creator of the website Ancient Scripts took it onto himself to create first such dedicated website for scripts used by our distant ancestors around the world. The creator, Lawrence Lo, is a software engineer whose spare-time activity involves researching about these ancient scripts and updating the website he created. The website gives comprehensive list of various families of scripts used in ancient and modern times, origins of language and writing, the types of scripts such as syllabic, alphabetic, logophonetic etc. Lawrence has tried to make the website content interesting by making available some fonts as well as games for the visitors of the site to download. The best feature of the website for those interested in further pursuing their own research is the comprehensive listing of references and links to various little sections of websites that talk about ancient scripts. So overall it is a very useful “starting point” for anyone interested in just knowing about or indulging seriously into research about language scripts used thousands of years ago.

From the Internet links section of above site, I came across another website, Omniglot.com, which, as its name suggests, deals with all sorts of languages, not just ancient.