Paleography

n.	1.	An ancient manner of writing; ancient writings, collectively; as, Punic paleography.
	2.	The study of ancient inscriptions and modes of writing; the art or science of deciphering ancient writings, and determining their origin, period, etc., from external characters; diplomatics.

Noun

1.

paleography - the study of ancient forms of writing (and the deciphering of them)

IPA, ITA, Initial Teaching Alphabet, International Phonetic Alphabet, alphabet, alphabetics, autography, bowwow theory, calligraphy, chirography, comparative linguistics, criticism, cryptanalysis, cryptography, cryptology, derivation, descriptive linguistics, diagnostics, dialectology, dingdong theory, epigraphy, etymology, exegetics, fist, futhark, glossematics, glossology, glottochronology, glottology, grammar, graphanalysis, graphemics, graphology, graphometry, hand, handwriting, hermeneutics, historical linguistics, language study, letters, lexicography, lexicology, lexicostatistics, linguistic geography, linguistic science, linguistics, literary criticism, manuscript, mathematical linguistics, metoposcopy, morphology, morphophonemics, oneirology, pathognomy, pencraft, penmanship, penscript, philology, phonetics, phonology, physiognomics, physiognomy, psycholinguistics, runic alphabet, script, scription, scrive, semantics, semeiology, semeiotics, sociolinguistics, structuralism, stylography, syllabary, symptomatology, syntactics, textual criticism, transformational linguistics, tropology, writing system