Excerpted from The Greatest Invention: A History of the World in Nine Mysterious Scripts by Silvia Ferrara. Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Copyright © 2019 by Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Editore s.r.l. Translation copyright © 2022 by Todd Portnowitz. All rights reserved. On the Old Continent, on Crete, hidden among the ancient Aegean scripts from 4,000 years ago, is another script, perhaps an isolate, perhaps not, but certainly the most mysterious of all. And like all the most hidden and impenetrable mysteries, it’s right there before our eyes, hiding in plain…
