underestimating the east

... again. Damn us Westerners. A very interesting article that reveals recent scholarship proving that Arab scholars deciphered hieroglyphics long before Champollion. These are the people who invented chess, astronomy, and calculus: as someone who has not been quite as successful tackling those three as I have been with translating 'glyphs, I'd just like to ask why the heck did no one figure this out many, many, many years ago??

via mirabilis.