Solid hardcover with clean pages, no writing, no owner name, no folded pages. Crisp DJ with minimal edge wear and a few scratches on the lower eight corner. For over 5000 years humans have communicated with written signs, but the ability to read the signs was often lost over time. Great vistas of the past have been revealed, enabling scholars to read the monuments, tablets, seals, papyri and other objects on which marks had been drawn or engraved. Book includes over 200 B&W illustrations. (9F)