{"title":"Silvia Ferrara","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"greatest-invention-book-silvia-ferrara-9781529064759","title":"The Greatest Invention","description":"'Ferrara’s book is an introduction to writing as a process of revelation, but it’s also a celebration of these things still undeciphered, and many other tantalising mysteries besides.' Spectator  This book tells the story of our greatest invention. Or, it almost does. Almost, because while the story has a beginning – in fact, it has many beginnings, not only in Mesopotamia, 3,100 years before the birth of Christ, but also in China, Egypt and Central America – and it certainly has a middle, one that snakes through the painted petroglyphs of Easter Island, through the great machines of empires and across the desks of inspired, brilliant scholars, the end of the story remains to be written.  The invention of writing allowed humans to create a record of their lives and to persist past the limits of their lifetimes. In the shadows and swirls of ancient inscriptions, we can decipher the stories they sought to record, but we can also tease out the timeless truths of human nature, of our ceaseless drive to connect, create and be remembered.  The Greatest Invention chronicles an uncharted journey, one filled with past flashes of brilliance, present-day scientific research and the faint, fleeting echo of writing’s future. Professor Silvia Ferrara, a modern-day adventurer who travels the world studying ancient texts, takes us along with her; we touch the knotted, coloured strings of the Incan khipu and consider the case of the Phaistos disk. Ferrara takes us to the cutting edge of decipherment, where high-powered laser scanners bring tears to an engineer’s eye, and further still, to gaze at the outline of writing’s future. The Greatest Invention lifts the words off every page and changes the contours of the world around us – just keep reading.  'The Greatest Invention is a celebration not of achievements, but of moments of illumination and \"the most important thing in the world: our desire to be understood.\"' TLS","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49582723170577,"sku":"GOR012173136","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49664118685969,"sku":"GOR012864881","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":50698122559761,"sku":"NGR9781529064759","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1529064759.jpg?v=1750925902"},{"product_id":"greatest-invention-book-silvia-ferrara-9781529064780","title":"The Greatest Invention","description":"‘Ferrara’s book is an introduction to writing as a process of revelation, but it’s also a celebration of these things still undeciphered, and many other tantalising mysteries besides.‘ - The Spectator  This book tells the story of our greatest invention. Or, it almost does. Almost, because while the story has a beginning – in fact, it has many beginnings, not only in Mesopotamia, 3,100 years before the birth of Christ, but also in China, Egypt and Central America – and it certainly has a middle, one that snakes through the painted petroglyphs of Easter Island, through the great machines of empires and across the desks of inspired, brilliant scholars, the end of the story remains to be written.  The invention of writing allowed humans to create a record of their lives and to persist past the limits of their lifetimes. In the shadows and swirls of ancient inscriptions, we can decipher the stories they sought to record, but we can also tease out the timeless truths of human nature, of our ceaseless drive to connect, create and be remembered.  The Greatest Invention chronicles an uncharted journey, one filled with past flashes of brilliance, present-day scientific research and the faint, fleeting echo of writing’s future. Professor Silvia Ferrara, a modern-day adventurer who travels the world studying ancient texts, takes us along with her; we touch the knotted, coloured strings of the Incan khipu and consider the case of the Phaistos disk. Ferrara takes us to the cutting edge of decipherment, where high-powered laser scanners bring tears to an engineer’s eye, and further still, to gaze at the outline of writing’s future. The Greatest Invention lifts the words off every page and changes the contours of the world around us – just keep reading.  ‘The Greatest Invention is a celebration not of achievements, but of moments of illumination and “the most important thing in the world: our desire to be understood”.‘ - TLS","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49659607679249,"sku":"GOR013055173","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49743967486225,"sku":"NGR9781529064780","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50433402634513,"sku":"GOR013055947","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50433499201809,"sku":"GOR013949624","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53336245305617,"sku":"GOR014856431","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1529064783.jpg?v=1751117788"},{"product_id":"greatest-invention-book-silvia-ferrara-9781250862990","title":"The Greatest Invention","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eIn this exhilarating celebration of human ingenuity\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cb\u003eand perseverance--published all around\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cb\u003ethe world--a trailblazing Italian scholar sifts\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cb\u003ethrough our cultural and social behavior in\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cb\u003esearch of the origins of our greatest invention:\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cb\u003ewriting.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e The L where a tabletop meets the legs, the T between double doors, the D of an armchair's oval backrest--all around us is an alphabet in things. 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In \u003ci\u003eThe Greatest Invention\u003c\/i\u003e, Silvia Ferrara takes a profound look at how--and how many times--human beings have managed to produce the miracle of written language, traveling back and forth in time and all across the globe to Mesopotamia, Crete, China, Egypt, Central America, Easter Island, and beyond.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e With Ferrara as our guide, we examine the enigmas of undeciphered scripts, including famous cases like the Phaistos Disk and the Voynich Manuscript; we touch the knotted, colored strings of the Inca quipu; we study the turtle shells and ox scapulae that bear the earliest Chinese inscriptions; we watch in awe as Sequoyah single-handedly invents a script for the Cherokee language; and we venture to the cutting edge of decipherment, in which high-powered laser scanners bring tears to an engineer's eye.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e A code-cracking tour around the globe, \u003ci\u003eThe\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eGreatest Invention\u003c\/i\u003e chronicles a previously uncharted journey, one filled with past flashes of brilliance, present-day scientific research, and a faint, fleeting glimpse of writing's future.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49863309132049,"sku":"CIN125086299XVG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50482713657617,"sku":"CIN125086299XG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51022056423697,"sku":"NIN9781250862990","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51681263255825,"sku":"GOR014348477","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/125086299X.jpg?v=1751208070"},{"product_id":"greatest-invention-book-silvia-ferrara-9780374601621","title":"The Greatest Invention","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eIn this exhilarating celebration of human ingenuity\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cb\u003eand perseverance--published all around\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cb\u003ethe world--a trailblazing Italian scholar sifts\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cb\u003ethrough our cultural and social behavior in\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cb\u003esearch of the origins of our greatest invention:\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cb\u003ewriting.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e The L where a tabletop meets the legs, the T between double doors, the D of an armchair's oval backrest--all around us is an alphabet in things. 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It is free to read on the Oxford Academic platform and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.   Writing from Invention to Decipherment contains a wealth of global scholarship on ancient writing systems from China, Mesopotamia, Central America, and the Mediterranean, to more recent newly created scripts such as the Rongorongo from Easter Island, the Caroline Island scripts, as well as the alphabet. The aim is to dig into the foundations of writing, showcasing the complexities and varieties of scripts, from their invention to the potential decipherment of poorly understood scripts.   The volume offers state-of-the-art research on undeciphered scripts from the Aegean (as for example, Cretan Hieroglyphic and Linear A) or not completely deciphered (as for example Maya) scripts. From a methodological perspective, these contributions lay out how and why writing was invented, who used it, and to what ends. 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The volume seeks to extend the boundaries of our understanding of what language and writing can do to show how language can be understood as part of broader codes, as well as how images and figural objects can contribute to meaning-making in communication. The book is divided into four parts, each exploring a different dimension of the interplay between representation, symbolic meaning, and perception in the study of images, drawing on case studies from around the world. The first part looks at cognitive approaches to the earliest symbol-making while the second considers the interaction between images and writing in early scripts. The third part addresses images outside their boxes, showcasing how ancient communication devices can be reinterpreted. The final part features chapters reflecting on embodied semiotic approaches to the representation of images.  This book will be of interest to scholars in semiotics, archaeology, cognitive psychology, and linguistic and cultural anthropology.  The Open Access version of this book, available at http:\/\/www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND license 4.0 license.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51103660998929,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51103665848593,"sku":"NIN9781032712963","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52598377677073,"sku":"NLS9781032712963","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1032712961.jpg?v=1750951709"},{"product_id":"la-grande-invenzione-storia-del-mondo-in-nove-scritture-misteriose-book-silvia-ferrara-9788807492624","title":"La grande invenzione.Storia del mondo in nove scritture misteriose","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51674900955409,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51674901250321,"sku":"GOR014358210","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/8807492628.jpg?v=1750969011"},{"product_id":"talking-images-book-silvia-ferrara-9781032712994","title":"Talking Images","description":"This innovative collection offers a holistic portrait of the multimodal communication potential of images from the Upper Paleolithic through to today, showcasing image-based creativity throughout the centuries.  The volume seeks to extend the boundaries of our understanding of what language and writing can do to show how language can be understood as part of broader codes, as well as how images and figural objects can contribute to meaning-making in communication. The book is divided into four parts, each exploring a different dimension of the interplay between representation, symbolic meaning, and perception in the study of images, drawing on case studies from around the world. The first part looks at cognitive approaches to the earliest symbol-making while the second considers the interaction between images and writing in early scripts. The third part addresses images outside their boxes, showcasing how ancient communication devices can be reinterpreted. The final part features chapters reflecting on embodied semiotic approaches to the representation of images.  This book will be of interest to scholars in semiotics, archaeology, cognitive psychology, and linguistic and cultural anthropology.  The Open Access version of this book, available at http:\/\/www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND license 4.0 license.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":52953922961681,"sku":"NGR9781032712994","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53069635256593,"sku":"NLS9781032712994","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781032712994.jpg?v=1768039875"},{"product_id":"cypro-minoan-inscriptions-book-silvia-ferrara-9780199607570","title":"Cypro-Minoan Inscriptions","description":"This volume offers the first comprehensive examination of an ancient writing system from Cyprus and Syria known as Cypro-Minoan. After Linear B was deciphered by Michael Ventris in 1952, other un-deciphered scripts of the second millennium BC from the Aegean world (Linear A) and the Eastern Mediterranean (Cypro-Minoan) became the focus of those trying to crack this ancient and historical code. Despite several attempts for both syllabaries, this prospect has remained unrealized. This is especially true for Cypro-Minoan, the script of Late Bronze Age Cyprus found also at Ugarit in Syria, which, counting no more than 250 inscriptions, remains not only poorly documented, but also insufficiently explored in previous scholarship.  Today progress in the study of this enigmatic script demands that we direct our attention to gaining new insight through a contextual analysis of Cypro-Minoan by tracing its life in the archaeological record and investigating its purpose and significance in the Cypriot and Syrian settlements that created and used it.   With a new methodology concentrating on a ground-breaking contextual approach, Ferrara presents the first large-scale study of Cypro-Minoan with an analysis of all the inscriptions through a multidisciplinary perspective that embraces aspects of archaeology, epigraphy, and palaeography.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53137766711569,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":53137766940945,"sku":"NGR9780199607570","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780199607570.jpg?v=1771456758"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/author-books-by-silvia-ferrara.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}