The name of Professor Cyrus Herzl Gordon (1908-2001) is well known both to a narrow circle of Assyriological specialists and to a huge number of readers in Europe and the USA. Among books devoted to the history of writing, Gordon's work stands out for its main focus - he strives not so much to tell about the history of writing, but to acquaint the reader with the history of deciphering ancient texts. In his book, he talks about the fates and scientific ideas of pioneers in the field of deciphering Egyptian, ancient Persian, Sumerian-Akkadian and Hittite “forgotten scripts”, talks about how the texts of Ugaritic and Aegean writing were discovered and then deciphered. The author presents us with a whole gallery of portraits of scientists of the past, using the example of their destinies to show how thorny the paths of science can sometimes be. Using simple examples, he explains what deciphering is and what qualities a real scientist should have. Both specialists and people just beginning their journey into the unknown worlds of past centuries will find a lot of interesting things in this book. CONTENTS: Preface to the Russian edition Preface to the expanded and expanded edition Preface to the first edition Chapter 1. Codes and ciphers Chapter 2. Decipherment of Egyptian writing Chapter 3 Grotefend's decipherment of ancient Persian writingChapter 4. Development of the Sumerian-Akkadian heritageChapter 5. Cuneiform and hieroglyphic Hittite languageChapter 6. Ugarit. Decipherment and interaction with other cultural traditionsChapter 7. Aegean syllabaryChapter 8. Ebla ArchivesChapter 9. Samples of found treasuresAfterwordNotesBibliography