Chapter 1, the Invention of Writing, gives a very in depth introduction to the history of design.  It begins by briefly explaining the evolution of homo sapiens and then describes the very first forms of communication.  This chapter does a great job explaining the overall process that writing undertook:  from pictographs to cuneiforms and finally reaching advanced styles of hieroglyphics.  The one thing I can appreciate is that this book doesn't simply state the facts, but gives reason as to why the ancient people did what they did.  Examples- reasons for using the Book of the Dead, and the purpose of using scarab beetles throughout Egyptian culture.

I am honestly impressed by Jean Francois Champollion's ability to decipher the Rosetta Stone.  He begins by noticing patterns in the stone, realizing hieroglyphs often functioned as phonograms and then sounded out Cleopatra.  By this discovery he was able to assign sounds to particular glyphs, and his success just exploded from there.  It shows you have to start from the very beginning, the bitch work if you will, in order to make something huge.

I really want to know when Jean began to study the Rosetta Stone.  It was discovered in 1799, and he lived from 1790-1832.  Clearly he didn't live very long and yet he deciphered a lot of information,... but I'm curious to know how long it took him to decipher the whole thing.  It's quite impressive.