The ancients recorded their knowledge on scrolls, artifacts, and even cave walls. In some cases, the passage of time has erases our ability to understand a disused alphabet. In other cases, knowledge is purposely encrypted in complex codes understood by only a select (and long dead) few.

There are many such ancient writings, pictographs, and ciphers that still defy understanding. Whenever one is cracked, it almost always yields exciting new information. Here are 10 decoded books, paintings, scrolls, and artifacts that allow us an unprecedented glimpse into the secret societies, lost libraries, beliefs, and rituals of Antiquity.

10 Egyptian Book Of Spells

In 2014, after decades to trying, researchers finally deciphered an Egyptian codex, and they were amazed to discover that it was a spell caster’s handbook. The beautifully illustrated pages contain spells for Egyptians who wanted love, success in business, a cure from black jaundice, or to perform an exorcism. Depending on one’s mood, there are options to use a spell to either make peace with an enemy or to crush him.

The 1,300-year-old parchment references Jesus as well as an unknown godlike figure called “Bakthiotha.” Some invocations are even linked to an extinct religious movement, the Sethians, who in this codex, refer to Seth (third son of Adam and Eve) as “the living Christ.” It might sound like the Egyptians were religiously confused during this period, but researchers believe that the document marks the transition of a society moving from other belief systems to Orthodox Christianity.

Whoever owned and used the book remains a mystery. Nobody knows where it originally comes from, either. The “Handbook of Ritual Power” (as the researchers are calling it) did leave a clue, though. The Coptic writing style points to Upper Egypt, perhaps even the ancient city of Hermopolis.

9 The Ein Gedi Scroll

Ein Gedi is a desert oasis located on the western shore of the Dead Sea. Its rich history includes nearly 5,000 years of off-and-on human occupation. Perhaps best known as the hideout of David when he fled from King Saul, Ein Gedi was also the site of a Byzantine Jewish village. At some point, the entire village burned down, including its mosaic-floored synagogue. In 1970, archaeologists unearthed a badly scorched scroll at the site where Ein Gedi’s synagogue used to be. Fire damage made it impossible to open, let alone read.

Almost 50 years later, modern technology did the unimaginable; it allowed the 1,500-year-old scroll to be read without unrolling it. Scientists scanned the parchment with specialized software that opened the scroll virtually. They were stunned when the process revealed legible writing, which nobody had truly expected. What they found were the opening verses of the Book of Leviticus. Now recognized as the oldest biblical text since the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Ein Gedi scroll is also the first Torah scroll to be unearthed in a synagogue during archaeological excavations.

8 The Real Shakespeare

A 400-year-old book about botany could be holding an extraordinary treasure—a portrait of William Shakespeare. It’s the only portrait known to have been created during the playwright’s lifetime. Since it was done during his living days, researchers believe that it shows what he really looked like—handsome, aged 33, and soon to pen Hamlet.

The now rare book, The Herball, came to the attention of historian Mark Griffith (also a botanist) when he was busy studying author John Gerard’s life. Griffith became convinced that four faces depicted on the title page weren’t merely decorative but rather were long-lost portraits of actual people. Griffith deciphered surrounding imagery connected to heraldry and emblematic flowers before their real identities emerged, namely the author of the book, another prominent botanist, and Queen Elizabeth’s lord treasurer.

Finding Shakespeare among them knocked Griffith’s socks off. What apparently identifies Shakespeare is the fact that he’s holding a fritillary and an ear of sweetcorn, both references to his works. Griffith also recognized an Elizabethan cipher beneath the Bard, which gave credibility to the discovery.

7 The T514 Glyph

The majority of Mayan glyphs have already been decoded, but a few still keep their secrets. One of these proved to be incredibly insightful once researchers determined its meaning. Called the T514 glyph, it sat in an undiscovered royal tomb in southern Mexico for over 1,700 years.

The toothy picture (a representation of a jaguar’s molar) resisted deciphering for over 60 years before being found to mean “sharp edge.” Researchers figured this out by studying actual skulls of jaguars and other glyphs. The discovery also finally revealed the name of the chamber where King Pakal was buried—“The House of the Nine Sharp Spears.”

T514 has a war focus, appearing in many inscriptions about war. The king’s tomb itself was decorated to honor battle. The glyph is related to warriors invading cities and taking prisoners. The finding helped researchers to determine the frequency at which wars were waged between AD 700 and 800. There actually weren’t many wars during this period, despite the Maya favoring a warrior philosophy.

6 The Eye Society

A secret brotherhood obsessed with eye treatment was uncovered when researchers found what could be their only surviving relic—the Copiale Cipher, an 18th-century book that is both beautiful and strange. Bound in gold and green brocade paper, the 105-page manuscript is entirely handwritten. The book is mostly composed of abstract, never-before-seen symbols, though there are also Greek and Roman letters. The only other readable text is “Phillipp 1866,” and “Copiales 3,” which gave the manuscript its name.

An international team of cryptographers tried to decode it but were hampered by the Greek and Roman letters and not knowing the authors’ native language. They had tried 80 languages before the letters were determined to be a ruse to deceive any would-be code crackers; they meant nothing. After discarding the useless letters, they tried German, since the book was found in Berlin and the name “Phillipp” is written in its German spelling. That cracked the code.

The Copiale Cipher revealed a German secret society called the “Oculist Order.” The manuscript contains records of their politics and rituals (including an eyebrow-plucking initiation ceremony) as well as discussions on Freemasonry. Researchers believe that the group members weren’t necessarily eye doctors, despite their obsession. The eye is a symbol of power in many secret societies, which could’ve been the case with the Oculist Order.

5 ‘Winged Monster’

A cave painting in Utah is claimed by some to document an ancient pterodactyl sighting. Discovered in 1928, the bright, red pictographs were created by Native American hands around 2,000 years ago. Sometime after its discovery, a man chalked the image and declared that it looked like a “weird bird.” Although now illegal, it was common practice back then to smear cave paintings with chalk to make the image clearer. However, doing so changes the rock chemistry and damages the art.

Even experts jumped on the pterodactyl bandwagon. In the 1970s, rock art expert Polly Schaafsma described a “beak lined with sharp teeth,” and geologist Francis Barnes said that it looked like the flying reptile whose fossils are indeed found in the region.

The mystery was solved when modern technology proved the “winged monster” wasn’t a single image but rather five overlapping images. When scientists photographed the art with DStretch, a tool that can separate images by differentiating between their different pigments, they discovered that there was no mysterious ancient pterodactyl encounter. Instead, the pictographs show a tall person with large eyes, a shorter person, a dog, sheep, and a snakelike creature.

4 The Herculaneum Scrolls

When Mount Vesuvius famously wiped out Pompeii in AD 79, it also destroyed the neighboring city of Herculaneum. Excavations in 1752 uncovered the latter’s library. Most of the 1,800 scrolls were so badly burned by the eruption they were no more than unreadable carbonized lumps. More than two centuries later, archaeologists used X-rays to read the parchments too fragile to unroll. They managed to pick up Greek letters and phrases, but reading the more damaged scrolls remains an ongoing effort.

While the Herculaneum papyri don’t have secret symbols or hidden messages, they are remarkable. They remain the only complete library ever recovered from ancient times. Some could be opened manually, and they revealed a philosophical treasure—lost prose and poems by the famous Greek philosopher Epicurus. There are even texts that were completely unknown to philosophical scholars.

Not only does this allow researchers to gain a deeper understanding of ancient Greek and Latin works, but it also adjusts what we know about the history of ink. When scientists analyzed the scroll fragments, they found that the ink contained a high amount of lead. Metallic inks were thought to have been introduced around AD 420 for Greek and Roman manuscripts, but the Herculaneum scrolls predate that notion by a couple of centuries.

3 The Fate Of The Ark Of The Covenant

While Hebrew is not a mysterious language, a recently translated text revealed what happened to the famed Ark of the Covenant after King’s Solomon’s Temple was looted. Called the “Treatise of the Vessels,” the document claims that shortly before Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II sacked the temple, the Ark was removed to a place of safety. With the help of prophets, the holy relic and other treasures were taken by Levites.

However, the document is a buzzkill for any would-be treasure hunter. As far as the temple’s treasures are concerned, the Treatise would only say that they were hidden all over Israel and in Babylonia. It’s even more tight-lipped about the exact whereabouts of the Ark. It staunchly states that the location will not be revealed “until the day of the coming of the Messiah son of David . . . ”

Some feel that the Treatise isn’t a factual document, but rather a piece of religious fiction based on legend. That’s understandable, given its claims that several of the treasures were made of gold (taken from the walls of the Garden of Eden) and ended up in the hands of angels. It’s possible that the at least one aspect of the story has some truth to it—that the Ark was hidden before Nebuchadnezzar could get it. Perhaps faced with an incomplete tale, the author filled the Treatise with legends.

2 Phaistos Disk

Researchers have been trying to decode the 4,000-year-old Phaistos Disk ever since its discovery in 1908. Found on the island of Crete in a palace called Phaistos, the disk is about 15 centimeters (6 in) in diameter and is made from fired clay. Both sides are adorned with 45 symbols, which appear in different combinations in 241 boxed segments, almost like a picture cartoon. The segments then run in a spiral and can be read by starting from the outside edge and along toward the middle of the disk.

After a six-year project, studies done at Oxford University allowed around 90 percent of the data to be deciphered. It started when the most constant word was found to be “mother.” Soon, it became clear that the disk was engraved with a prayer honoring the mother goddess of the Minoan era. According to researchers, one side of the famous artifact is dedicated to a pregnant woman and the other to a woman in labor.

1 The Voynich Breakthrough

The infamously hard-to-crack Voynich manuscript has finally allowed researchers a microscopic break. Stephen Bax, a linguistics professor, hit on the idea to look for recognizable plants and Zodiac signs in the richly illustrated medieval book. Even though every code breaking technique tried before had failed, Bax’s simple approach paid off.

The Voynich manuscript has many illustrations. Bax banked on the hope that at least some of the plants and stars would be recognizable and would have their names lurking nearby, ready for extraction. The word “Taurus” came to light after he identified a group of stars, the Pleiades. which are a part of the constellation. Plant names started to appear when Bax referenced contemporary medieval books about herbs. The words “juniper,” “coriander,” and “hellebore” were found next to their illustrations, just as he had suspected.

All in all, he decoded 14 characters, which enabled him to read six more words. Although Bax’s breakthrough hasn’t decoded the entire book, it proves that the unknown alphabet is not an elaborate 15th-century hoax as some claim. The complicated cipher is very real and is slowly starting to yield its secrets.

The writings of great men like Plato and Marcus Aurelius are studied today with the same fervor and admiration they enjoyed thousands of years ago. However, we often overlook the poor folk who lived ordinary lives and dealt with ordinary problems. Etchings from some of these men have survived thousands of years and give us extraordinary glimpses into everyday life in ancient empires.

10 An Egyptian Soldier Abroad Just Wanted To Go Home

In AD 214, an Egyptian man named Aurelius Polion left his home to fight in the Roman legion. He was stationed in Pannonia Inferior near modern Hungary, which was 1,600 kilometers (1,000 mi) from home. The boy was terrified—not of dying in battle but of being forgotten by his family.

“I sent six letters to you,” Polion wrote to his family, “but you never wrote to me.”

He believed that his family had forsaken him. Still, he wanted to be with them more than anything else—so much so that he would have abandoned his post if they had written him a single word.

“The moment you have me in mind,” he promised, “I shall come to you so that you may know that I am your brother.”

9 A Babylonian Trader Struggled With A Powerful Merchant

A Babylonian man named Nanni holds the unique honor of writing history’s first letter of complaint in 1750 BC. Ea-nasir, a copper merchant, had tricked Nanni into buying a low-quality product. When Nanni’s messenger complained, he was told, “If you do not want to take them, go away!” He wasn’t refunded a single coin.

Nanni was furious, but there wasn’t much he could do. According to other translated documents, Ea-nasir was powerful in the copper business and a trader probably couldn’t succeed without going through Ea-nasir.

Still, Nanni furiously chiseled these words into his tablet: “Take cognizance that from now on, I will not accept here any copper from you!” Reality must have sunk in, though, because he added a meek “that is not of fine quality.”

8 A Priest Helped A Starving Chinese Woman Get Back To Her Mother

In AD 313, a Chinese woman named Miwnay was stranded in a town called Dunhuang, living in abject poverty, and desperately trying to get home to her mother.

Miwnay may have lost her husband. In a letter to her mother, she wrote that her journey home was delayed by her husband’s relative, who disapproved of her trip. The other in-laws followed suit, and every person she came to closed their doors.

“I live wretchedly,” Miwnay wrote, “without clothing, without money.” She only got by through the charity of a priest, who promised to give her a camel and take care of her on the journey.

Miwnay sent a letter home promising to be back soon. However, the letter was confiscated by a Chinese garrison and locked in a tower for 1,500 years. Miwnay’s mother never saw the anguished words her daughter wrote.

7 A Sumerian Work Crew Was Paid In Beer

In 3000 BC, a group of Sumerian workers left their homes to work for a powerful man. This was at the dawn of civilization before the country used currency. Workers were paid in beer instead of coin.

As a receipt for their payment, a Sumerian bookkeeper tacked up a clay tablet that survives today. The tablet only says that the men were given beer for work—but it’s a fascinating look into what life was like before money.

Most men could provide shelter and food for their families by the toil of their hands, but they didn’t have the resources to make wine. So early men left their families to work for someone more powerful—and get drunk.

6 An Angry Roman Drew Jesus As A Crucified Donkey

In AD 200, a Roman named Alexamenos was a member of the Christian faith and his community didn’t care for it. One man, who must have hated Alexamenos, etched a crude drawing of a man worshiping a donkey-headed man on a cross. Scribbled underneath were the words: “Alexamenos worships his God.”

It was a hateful act, but it wasn’t unique. In the early days of Christianity, many Romans believed that Christians were cannibals. Even Marcus Aurelius’s tutor went on record saying that Christians held rituals “initiated by the slaughter and the blood of an infant.”

Jesus was often called the “Donkey Priest” as an insult. A few people even seem to have believed that Jesus literally had the head of a donkey. So when Alexamenos saw the crude drawing on the wall, the message was clear. He was not trusted—and he was not wanted.

5 An Egyptian Worker Refused to Take A Sick Day

In 1500 BC, Egyptian workers lived in a town called Deir el-Medina near the Valley of the Kings. These men would make the trek to the tombs of the pharaohs to work, leaving their families for a week at a time.

Papyrus scrolls show that the workers were given paid leave when sick and a physician would be dispatched to their homes to take care of them.

A reprimanding record tells us that one worker named Merysekhmet drudged through his work while ill, refusing to take time off. For two days, he worked despite the pain—until he couldn’t do it anymore.

Merysekhmet was forced to take a few days off to recover. But as soon as he was able, he headed back to work on a project that would outlive even the kings for whom he built it.

4 The People Of Pompeii Loved To Party

Before Pompeii was buried in a volcanic eruption, the city was a party town filled with obscene art and brothels—and graffiti.

Messages like “I screwed the barmaid” showed up on tavern walls. “Celadus the Thracian makes the girls moan!” was scribbled in a gladiator’s barracks. The most memorable of all was on the walls of a brothel. “Weep, you girls!” it said. “My penis has given you up! Now it penetrates men’s behinds.”

The people of Pompeii drank and enjoyed themselves, but they loved, too. One proud man wrote on the walls of a home: “If anyone does not believe in Venus, they should gaze at my girlfriend.” A woman wrote that she wouldn’t sell her husband “for all the gold in the world.”

But in a city frozen in time, it’s the simplest message that seems the most meaningful. “Gaius and Aulus,” it reads. “Friends forever.”

3 A Greek Tourist In Egypt Missed His Mother

Around 278 BC, tourists from Greece and Italy started flocking to the Valley of the Kings in Egypt to see the tombs. They also left graffiti that shows an incredible reverence for the site.

Some etched their names or their jobs on the sides of walls while others wrote of their amazement for the place where they stood. However, one unique piece of graffiti at the Colossi of Memnon stands out.

The Colossi had been damaged in earthquakes, and air seeping through the cracks tended to make a high whistling sound. When one Greek tourist heard the whistle, he believed that Memnon had cried out the name of his mother.

He wrote what he’d heard on the foot. Then he added a message to someone else. “I missed you, O my mother,” he wrote, “and I prayed that you might hear him, too.”

2 The Men Who Built The Pyramids Left Their Marks

Some young men in Egyptian villages had never seen more than a few hundred people in their whole lives—until someone came and ordered them to work on the “royal labor project” as a form of taxation.

They were sent on great journeys across the country, leaving their homes for the first time. Then they saw what they were going to build—the pyramids, a wonder of the world towering above the horizon.

It must have changed everything these men understood about what was possible in this world. While they worked, they lived in lean-tos, ate at a local bakery, and sometimes died on the pyramid walls and were buried nearby.

Even so, each crew left their tag on the walls they’d worked on, making sure that their part in building something that would be remembered for millennia would not be forgotten.

1 Sumerian Accountants And Slave Traders Just Wanted To Do Their Jobs

The oldest names written in history are the names of common people doing nothing more than working through the daily drudge of their jobs.

The first written name we have is an accountant from 3100 BC. The tablet reads, “29,086 measures of barley [over the course of] 37 months” and is signed “Kushim.” The first tablet with more than one name is an ad from a slave trader that reads, “Two slaves held by Gal-Sal: En-pap X and Sukkalgir.”

These writings were likely mundane moments in the lives of these men. They were repeating things they did every day at work. Kushim was counting barley, Gal-Sal was selling slaves, and En-pap X and Sukkalgir were dreading a new life of servitude.

+Further Reading

It is always surprising to see how much the ancient’s lives had in common with our own (minus free and easy debt of course). Here are some other lists of a similar nature from the archives:

10 Ways We’re All Picturing The Ancient World Incorrectly
Top 10 Ancient Jobs That Sucked Big Time
10 Surprising Facts About The Ancient World
10 Discoveries Of Ancient Cultures Nearly Lost To History