The Decipherment of Meroitic
Claude Rilly, Sorbonne University

We are excited to welcome Claude Rilly, one of the world’s foremost scholars in Meroitic Writing for a lecture that approaches the translation of this ancient language from Sudan. Meroitic was the language spoken in ancient times in the land of Kush, north of present-day Sudan. During the last phase of this civilization, strongly influenced by Pharaonic Egypt and known as the "Kingdom of Meroe" (270 BC/330 AD), an alphasyllabic script was created to transcribe the language. Around two thousand texts, often long and varied, are known to date. Meroitic disappeared in the early Middle Ages without leaving any descendants. The script was deciphered in 1911, but after a century of research, the language has yet to be fully translated. Recent progress has been made, largely thanks to the identification of its linguistic family. In the near future, we can hope to finally understand the texts of the oldest written language in sub-Saharan Africa.