Ideas worth spreading

2,308,325 views | Rajesh Rao • TED2011

A Rosetta Stone for a lost language

Rajesh Rao is fascinated by "the mother of all crossword puzzles": how to decipher the 4000-year-old Indus script. He's enlisting modern computation to try to read this lost language, the key to understanding this ancient civilization.

Become a TED Member

Want to hear more great ideas like this one? Sign up for TED Membership to get exclusive access to captivating conversations, engaging events, and more!

This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

Rajesh Rao is fascinated by "the mother of all crossword puzzles": how to decipher the 4000-year-old Indus script. He's enlisting modern computation to try to read this lost language, the key to understanding this ancient civilization.

This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

About the speaker

Computational neuroscientist

See speaker profile

Rajesh Rao seeks to understand the human brain through computational modeling, on two fronts: developing computer models of our minds, and using tech to decipher the 4,000-year-old lost script of the Indus Valley civilization.