Citation (42)
What makes an ancient language ancient? The term conjures up images, often romantic, of archaeologists feverishly copying hieroglyphs by torchlight in a freshly discovered burial chamber; of philologists dangling over a precipice in some remote corner of the earth, taking impressions of an inscription carved in a cliff-face; of a solitary scholar working far into the night, puzzling out some ancient secret, long forgotten by mankind, from a brittle-leafed manuscript or patina-encrusted tablet. The allure is undeniable…
—Roger Woodward, ed.
(The Ancient Languages
of Asia Minor, preface)
