The heroic days of deciphering hieroglyphics and cuneiform make for great stories, but will we ever see that happen again?

The symbols they used were called hieroglyphs, which comes from a Greek word meaning ‘sacred carving’. The ancient Egyptians believed that hieroglyphs had been invented by the gods.

In the two decades following the discovery, Thomas Young, an Englishman, would go on to deduce part of the hieroglyphic alphabet and Jean-François Champollion, a Frenchman, to decipher the ...