The Language of Linear C and Linear D from Cyprus

Near Eastern Archaeology, 1999

2000

The three collaborators in the official publication (hereafter cited as TOP = Tablettes Odos Pelopidou) of the 238 new Linear B tablets and inscribed tablet fragments from Mycenaean Thebes are to be congratulated for the care taken with the edition of the texts and for guiding the teams of excavators, field archaeologists, technical conservators, menders of pottery and tablets, site and museum guards, photographers, and layout and copy editors that made their publication of the largest discovery of Linear B tablets since the Pylos excavations (1939-1963) possible. The Greek Ministry of Culture and its Secretary General, G. Thomas, and the Director of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities, I. Tzedakis, deserve thanks for their support, and the Institute for Aegean Prehistory for its funding. It is fitting here at the outset to thank the collective da-mo te-qa-jo (8fj|j.os TWV 0r)(3aLüJv) for supporting the scientific work that has preserved for Mycenologists around the world evidence about the lives and language of the earliest literate Thebans (ca. 1200 B.c.E.). V. Aravantinos has overseen all aspects of the excavation, preservation, recording and publication of the tablets and the material remains associated with them. He himself thanks the people of Thebes (p. 10) and local collaborators like E. Andrikou and A. Papadaki. The fine tablet drawings were made by the expert eyes and hand of Louis Godart and then checked by all three editors. Readers should first examine the superb color photograph of the upper half of Fq 254 [+] 255 that graces the front of the dust jacket of the volume, and then imagine the skill required of the entire archaeological and epigraphical team assembled by V. Aravantinos in identifying these many fragments in the soil, extracting them with surgical precision, preserving and joining them together in their fragile state, and then proceeding to read, draw and transcribe them in the publication we now have in our hands after a quick six years. This is good work, and it is fitting that the volume reached most Mycenologists in the year that marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Ventris decipherment. The edition begins (pp. 9-23) with a succinct discussion, accompanied by related bibliography, of the initial discovery of the tablets in 1993 to 1995. The introduction also has an archaeological commentary concerning findspots: (1) of tablets from the Odos Pelopidou excavation (although nothing, as yet-this may appear in volume two of this series-like the Bill McDonald drawings of the find-spots from the Archives Complex at Pylos that have led eventually to K. Pluta's careful study in Minos 31-32 [1996-97], pp. 231-250); (2) of tablet fragments found in reexamining ceramic material from the 'Arsenal' excavations of 1964 and that join tablets of the Ug series from that excavation-the new readings will appear in volume three; and (3) of a tablet and three inscribed sealings from cleaning work in the 'Treasury'-these texts should also appear in volume three. The introduction includes a brief report on context pottery that makes clear that the Odos Pelopidou tablets and the 'Arsenal' tablets all date to the end of LH III B:2. It also

e s t r a t t o STUDI MICENEI ED EGEO-ANATOLICI NUOVA SERIE SUPPLEMENTO 1 è una pubblicazione del Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Roma

Cambridge Archaeological Journal

A neglected aspect of 'miniaturization' is the development of the so-called 'pictographic' or 'iconographic' writing systems. 'Picture-writing' is the term used to describe the beginnings of various scripts, whereby the initial inspiration for the visual rendering of the signs is suggested to have been an array of tangible objects, or parts thereof. This article investigates the 'miniaturization' of objects to script signs and the cognitive processes at play during most of the second millennium BCE in the Aegean. The Cretan Hieroglyphic, Linear A and Linear B had a standard and constantly renewed relation with this virtual 'borrowing' of object forms for the needs of the scripts themselves and the administrative systems that commanded them. This process ran parallel to other 'miniaturization' favourites of the same period, namely the 'miniaturization' of clay pots, animals and humans as well as representations of human activities. The eventual relations between these different 'miniaturizations' are also examined.

Speculations on the Genesis of the Minoan Linear A Script An Examination of the Transformation of the Signs of the Cretan Hieroglyphic Script into the Signs of the Linear A Script. This discussion will examine the conversion of the more ‘picture-like’ signs of the Cretan Hieroglyphic Script into the abbreviated sign forms that constitute the Linear A Script. The techniques employed to effect this change are explored in detail. Scholars are encouraged to consider all of the various forms of the signs of the Linear A script rather than relying solely on the ‘Table of Standard Linear AB Signs’ published in GORILA V. In regard to the signs of the Cretan Hieroglyphic Script (CHS), it is important to visually review the inscribed seal stones and their impressions in order to gain a sense of what the standard ‘Hieroglyphic’ sign looks like. In “The Corpus of Hieroglyphic Inscription of Crete” (CHIC), the ‘catalog of sign forms’ on pages 385-431 is a convenient list of the categories of signs as organized by Olivier and Godart. There is though no substitute for reviewing quality images of the actual inscribed artifacts. These can be found in CHIC on pages 180 – 331 for seal stones and pages 123 – 179 for seal stone impressions. The following examination of the individual signs of the CHS is organized by syllabic consonantal categories ( d-z ) beginning with a review of the signs for the single vowel signs. It is clear that Linear A was a more convenient to use script than the CHS, particularly when writing on clay tablets. Linear A mostly avoids making use of signs that have small circular elements, preferring instead small short lines or strokes distantly reminiscent of cuneiform wedge marks. Vertical lines predominate and the more picture-like signs tend to be ‘ideograms’ or non-syllabic symbols. Due to the methods and techniques used to transform the CHS signs into their Linear A counterparts, the impression emerges that one very clever person may have achieved this conversion process. This suspicion of a single author for Linear A script is but speculation based on the sign comparisons that follow. The sign correlations suggested below reflect this authors assessment of the CHS, along with the suggestions made by a variety of scholars as well as the comparisons provided by the authors of CHIC on page 19 of CHIC. The following value assignments that agree with the comparisons made on page 19 of CHIC are indicated with a plus (+) mark. The syllabic values suggested by this author are speculations based on the evidence presented herein and in CHIC, as well as from many other sources. These signs are indicated with a question mark this way: (?). Though many of these assignments may seem obvious, the scholarly community is largely undecided or in disagreement on the correlation of most of the well represented signs of these two scripts. The many speculative value assignments that I have made in this work represent the more probable of the possible designations. These assignments are based on the published evidence. My conclusions are the result of forty years of study on this subject. I have reviewed this information countless times and I am confident that the overwhelming majority of these speculations are valid and correct. The reader will note that the transformation of the Cretan Hieroglyphic signs into their Linear A counterparts was primarily accomplished by the following methods: Reduction to simplified elements or a single element of the CHS sign. Sectioning along the CHS sign’s vertical axis. Utilizing a ‘stick-figure’ approach to simplifying the CHS signs. Putting simplified CHS sign images or “icons” on top of an upright line or stick.

Humanities and Social Science Research, 1(1): 21-29, 2018

This paper presents seven “syllabograms” of the Cretan Protolinear script (signs used for Consonant-Vowel [CV] syllables). This presentation is conducted following the theory of the Cretan Protolinear (CP) script as the one that all the Aegean scripts evolved from, including Linear A, Cretan Hieroglyphics and Linear B. The seven syllabograms of this particular set depict inanimate objects or constructions that were very common or important in everyday life, economy and religion. It is also demonstrated that the phonetic value of each syllabogram corresponds to the Sumerian name of the object depicted by the syllabogram, in a conservative dialect. Thus, more light is shed on the linguistic ancestry of the Aegean scripts, the practice followed for their creation, and, indirectly, on some cultural aspects of the Minoan Civilization.

Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 2021

What is the origin of the earliest script in Europe? Is it invented locally or borrowed from an external template? How can we go about addressing this problem? A common view is that the script in question, Cretan Hieroglyphic, is locally created but externally inspired, probably through an influence from Egypt. But this appreciation should be the result of a full examination of the evidence, rather than a superficial appraisal of the script signs. This article reframes this approach, starting with generic assessments on origin and stimulus, and so opens a new avenue that takes into account the following aspects: 1. The establishment of a methodology for cross-comparisons between the Egyptian and Cretan scripts; 2. The situated context of the Egyptian and Cretan scripts in the mid-third to late third millennium B.C.E.; 3. The local Cretan seal imagery; and 4. Case studies of sign shapes, representing physical and immaterial referents across the Egyptian Hieroglyphic and Cretan repertoires. Only from this broad, multi-centric framework, which has input from archaeology, epigraphy, iconography and paleography, can we establish a solid method to address the origin of Cretan Hieroglyphic.