Understanding Relations Between Scripts

Philippa Steele

• Publisher: Oxbow Books
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781785706455
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Greek Ancient History
• Index: History

Understanding Relations Between Scripts examines the writing systems of the ancient Aegean and Cyprus in the second and first millennia BC, principally Cretan 'Hieroglyphic', Linear A, Linear B, Cypro-Minoan and the Cypriot Syllabary. These scripts, of which some are deciphered and others are not, are known to be related to each other. However, the details of their relationships with each other have remained poorly understood and this will be the first volume dedicated solely to this issue. Nine papers aim to reach a better appreciation of relationships between writing systems than has been possible in previous research, through an interdisciplinary dialogue that takes account of both features of the writing systems and the contextual factors affecting the way in which writing was passed on. Each individual contribution furthers this aim by presenting the latest research on the Aegean scripts, demonstrating the great advances in our understanding of script relations that are possible through such detailed and innovative studies.

Chapter 1

Introduction: The Aegean writing systems

Philippa M. Steele

1. Introduction

Many writing systems were in use across the ancient world, and while a few of them began as primary inventions (i.e. created ex nihilo, without influence from any other writing system), the majority bear some relationship with other known scripts. Since the first attested examples of writing systems in the 4th and 3rd millennia BC, we know of numerous instances when writing was passed on from one group of people to another, with each process of adoption usually accompanied by one of adaptation. The results of such processes are writing systems that we classify as separate entities, sharing some properties with each other while in other aspects they differ or innovate. While individual ancient writing systems have not themselves been neglected in scholarship, there has been quite limited and indirect treatment of the ways in which we can study relationships between them, based on the evidence that has survived. This is where the Understanding Relations Between Scripts (URBS) series aims to redress some of the overlooked or underrepresented questions regarding script adaptations and how we understand them, beginning with this first volume focused on the syllabic writing systems of the ancient Aegean.

There are many questions that we might ask about how different writing systems are connected to each other, from both epigraphic and contextual points of view. How do we tell one script from another? What are the indicators that tell us how different scripts are related to each other? How does the process of adapting an old script to create a new one work? What are the motivations behind adapting the new script? How do the adaptors communicate with the original possessors of the script they are borrowing? What is the socio-cultural background to these communications and processes? The conclusions we draw and the assumptions we make about the participants in, and the contexts of, script adaptations will necessarily play an important role in our understanding of the propagation of writing. An attempt to answer some of these questions, and an investigation into the methodology we might be able to use to answer them, therefore has the potential to change our view not only of the technology of writing itself, but also of the linguistic and cultural contexts in which writing was used and developed.

This volume concentrates on one particular set of related scripts, which have been termed in the book’s title ‘the Aegean writing systems’. These are writing systems of the Middle and Late Bronze Age Aegean, attested mainly on Crete and the Greek mainland, as well as some related systems of Late Bronze Age and Iron Age Cyprus. Each of the volume’s contributors deals with one or more of these scripts, looking at issues of adaptation and context in order to develop our understanding of how and why writing was passed on. This introduction will begin with a brief overview of the scripts under consideration, aimed at non-specialists or at those who might be more familiar with one of the scripts than with the others, followed by a description of the book’s chapters and their themes.

2. The Aegean writing systems

Writing first appeared on Crete in the Early Minoan III or Middle Minoan I period, around the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. Although it has been suggested that the concept of writing was borrowed from elsewhere in the Mediterranean, with Egypt as the most cited candidate, it is impossible to be certain what prompted the initial impetus to begin using writing. Some of the very earliest inscriptions have often been classed as belonging to the ‘Archanes script’, consisting of a small number of undeciphered inscribed seal stones that are sometimes (but not always) considered to be written in a separate script, otherwise unattested. However, they are perhaps better included with the main body of material belonging to the first of the well attested writing systems, Cretan Hieroglyphic.

Cretan Hieroglyphic survives in about 300 inscriptions, many of which are on seal stones although there are also numerous clay documents and other objects, dating between the beginning of the 2nd millennium and about 1600 BC (up to the end of the Middle Minoan III period). Like the names for most other scripts of the Aegean group, the term ‘Cretan Hieroglyphic’ was coined by the archaeologist Arthur Evans, who famously excavated Knossos and published the first treatments of Aegean writing systems in the early 20th century in the first volume of Scripta Minoa. The basis for labelling it ‘hieroglyphic’ was that its signs are relatively pictorial in nature and often have the appearance of real-world referents such as people, animals and objects. However, the script is not a ‘pictographic’ one (i.e. one where most signs represent whole words or concepts) and is in type quite different from the Egyptian Hieroglyphic script that inspired its name. Although it is considered undeciphered,1 it appears to be a script of a type closely related to those of the other Aegean scripts, namely one consisting of a core of syllabic signs (where each sign represents a vowel or a consonant + vowel combination) that also features an ideographic component (a group of signs representing whole words or concepts employed alongside the syllabic signs that were used to spell words out).

The next script was termed Linear A by Evans, in reference to the less pictorial and more abstract-looking nature of many of its signs. Linear A makes its first appearance not long after Cretan Hieroglyphic, c. 1900 or 1800 BC (Middle Minoan IB–II) and co-exists with it for some hundreds of years. As far as we know from surviving inscriptions, Linear A continued in use for 100 years or more after the last attested Cretan Hieroglyphic inscriptions, making its final appearances around the Late Minoan IA period or even slightly later (c. 1500–1450 BC). Its inscriptions come from both administrative and private contexts, ranging from clay tablets and sealings to votive inscriptions and texts on luxury items including jewellery, and are found mainly in Crete but also in the Greek islands and even on the mainland. Since it is better attested than Cretan Hieroglyphic with around 1,500 surviving inscriptions, our resources for studying Linear A enable a finer appreciation of the structure and use of the script. Like Cretan Hieroglyphic and the other related scripts, it is a syllabic system, with a supplementary set of ideographic signs used to represent quantities and commodities whose use is best attested in the administrative documents originating from Cretan sites such as Knossos, Hagia Triada and Phaistos. The content of the Linear A inscriptions cannot be understood in any detail, however, because the language in which they are written (often referred to as ‘Minoan’2) remains unidentified.

The Linear B script was adapted from Linear A, presumably around or before the period of its first attestations in Late Minoan II–IIIA1 (c. 1450–1400 BC); in scholarship this period is now referred to as ‘Mycenaean’, continuing until the final destruction of the Mycenaean palaces on the Greek mainland c. 1200 BC (the end of Late Helladic IIIB). The best attested of all the Aegean scripts, Linear B was deciphered3 in the mid-20th century by Michael Ventris, who collaborated with John Chadwick and built on the earlier work of scholars including Alice Kober and Emmett L. Bennett. The decipherment was undoubtedly aided by the serendipitous fact that what was written in this script was an early form of a language well understood and surviving up to the modern day, namely Greek. For this reason, the study of Linear B is able to reach a level of refinement far surpassing anything that can be done with Cretan Hieroglyphic or Linear A: we have a good understanding of the repertoire of the script’s signs, the spelling rules employed by its users (necessary because each sign represents an open syllable, which presents a challenge when trying to write the consonant-clusters and final consonants that are common in Greek), the immediate and wider administrative context of its use and the content of the documents written in it. Although there remain some uncertainties, overall the corpus of Linear B material, with c. 6,000 documents, provides an invaluable record of the early Greek language and the workings of the Mycenaean palaces, allowing historical as well as linguistic, epigraphic and archaeological analysis.

The writing tradition of the Bronze Age Aegean was at some point carried eastwards. In the Late Cypriot I period (the 16th or early 15th century BC), the technology of writing began to appear on the eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus in a form that was clearly related to the writing systems of Crete and the Aegean, labelled by Evans as ‘Cypro-Minoan’ to highlight its connection to the other scripts. Too early to have been adapted directly from Linear B, it is likely that it was adapted from the earlier script Linear A, although this is difficult to confirm beyond doubt because the repertoire of signs appears somewhat different and must have undergone some changes in the new script’s creation. With only c. 250 inscriptions of very disparate types, most of them very short, it is even difficult to tell whether only one or multiple writing systems existed in Cyprus during the Late Bronze Age, and, as with Cretan Hieroglyphic and Linear A, we cannot understand the content of the texts.

Finally, by the 8th century BC a new script had been adapted from Cypro-Minoan on Cyprus. This is usually labelled the Cypriot Syllabic script, although some different names for it persist in scholarship, including the Classical Cypriot Syllabary and, more recently, the Cypro-Greek Syllabary (by analogy with the term Cypro-Minoan). The new script again has advantages over the earlier Cypriot one(s) in terms of our ability to understand it, not only in the larger number of surviving inscriptions (c. 1,500) but also in the fact that, like Linear B, it was used to record the Greek language. Alongside one or more other languages that are now poorly understood (the best attested of which is usually termed ‘Eteocypriot’), the Cypriot Greek dialect stands out as the only form of Greek used during the 1st millennium BC that was written in a syllabic script, while the rest of the Greek-speaking world was using the Greek alphabet (itself derived from the Phoenician script in or by the 8th century BC). The last of the surviving Cypriot Syllabic inscriptions date from well into the Hellenistic period, probably the 3rd or 2nd century BC. The script was deciphered in the 19th century, largely by the Assyriologist George Smith, with the aid of a bilingual text in Phoenician and Greek. Because we can read many of the inscriptions written in it, we know that the script was composed of a core of signs representing open syllables, just as in Linear B, although it lacked any ideographic component beyond basic numerals. As the first of the Aegean scripts to be deciphered, it has long aided our understanding of the type and composition of the other writing systems.

3. The contents and structure of this volume

Following this introduction, the first two chapters deal with the emergence of writing in the Aegean and the question of how the impetus for literacy arose around the end of the Early Minoan period. Chapter 2 (Silvia Ferrara) introduces the problem of how and why writing systems are acquired, emphasising the degree of creativity that is essential in the adaptation of a new script, and looking at not only the beginnings of writing in Crete and Cyprus but also at other areas such as Anatolia and Ugarit. In assessing these factors she shows the importance of considering both the linguistic features that to some extent dictated the type and composition of a new script and the social and cultural context in which writing was perceived as a necessary or desirable technology to develop. The following Chapter 3 (Roeland Decorte) focuses on the earliest of the Aegean scripts, Cretan Hieroglyphic, and the problematic and arguably false division that has often been drawn between early writing and decorative or artistic elements. In a writing system whose very pictorial nature affected scholarly perceptions of it from the start, this has had a significant effect on the analysis of its sign repertoire: challenging previous assumptions about what constitutes a script sign, and in particular what does not, has the potential to open up a wealth of new evidence for this writing system.

The next two papers turn to the question of how the administrative context of much surviving writing from early Crete affected the development of Cretan scripts and the documents written in them. Chapter 4 (Helena Tomas) considers where, when, why and how Linear B was adapted and demonstrates the importance of separating the development of the script itself from the contexts and inscription types in which it was used. While the Linear B script was clearly developed directly from Linear A, the administrative system in which its texts existed appears to have been influenced at least in part also by the types and usage of Cretan Hieroglyphic documents. Chapter 5 (Vassilis Petrakis) also concerns the development of Linear B document types, and the links between Cretan Hieroglyphic, Linear A and Linear B administrative systems. Taking a different approach, he argues for the appropriation of existing bureaucratic practices alongside new innovative developments as the Mycenaean administration came to dominate in north-central Crete. This also has repercussions for our understanding of the preceding administrative system, in which the co-existence of Cretan Hieroglyphic and Linear A has never satisfactorily been explained.

The following two papers shift the emphasis from the context of writing to the composition of the writing systems themselves, with two chapters focusing on the adaptation of Linear B from Linear A. Chapter 6 (Philippa Steele and Torsten Meißner) looks at the sign values of both scripts and shows that even though Linear A has traditionally been labelled an ‘undeciphered’ script, we can be reasonably confident that we know the values of most of its signs. The existence of sign sequences shared by both Linear A and Linear B, along with the remarkable stability of sign values in related scripts across the Aegean and Cyprus and several other features, points conclusively towards an adaptation process in which the values of Linear A signs were borrowed along with the signs themselves in the creation of Linear B. Chapter 7 (Anna Judson) focuses on a subsection of the Linear B syllabary, a set of ‘extra’ signs that provided optional variant spellings used by Mycenaean scribes. Through an analysis of the use and palaeography of these signs, she demonstrates that they are not useful indicators of the structure or underlying linguistic features of Minoan Linear A, as has often been assumed, while conversely they offer a valuable insight into the adaptation and early development of Linear B.

The final three papers focus on the related writing systems found on Cyprus, including their relationship with the other Aegean scripts and their separate development on the island. Chapter 8 (Miguel Valério) takes a palaeographical approach to the connections between Linear A and Cypro-Minoan, looking in detail at the ways in which individual signs developed in the adaptation of Cypriot writing. The combination of script comparison with an internal analysis of the signs as they appear in inscriptions allows a greater degree of certainty in the reconstruction of Cypro-Minoan sign values. This is followed by Chapter 9 (Yves Duhoux), in which the long-hypothesised internal divisions in the Cypro-Minoan repertoire are considered via a statistical analysis. By comparing the signs attested within particular groups of Cypro-Minoan inscriptions, he shows that Cypro-Minoan writing at Ugarit (labelled ‘CM3’) appears to have different characteristics from the samples originating from the mainland, and suggests that a different Cypro-Minoan writing tradition was in use at this site. Finally, Chapter 10 (Markus Egetmeyer) focuses on the inscriptions of the Cypriot Geometric period, sparked by the recent discovery of two new inscriptions. His discussion of the epigraphic material shows the importance of considering not only developments in script signs and their shapes, but also the cultural background of script use, in an attempt to understand the development of the new Cypro-Greek Syllabary from earlier Cypro-Minoan.

1 The term ‘undeciphered’, however, should be treated with some caution. We can in fact be reasonably certain of the values of a number of Cretan Hieroglyphic signs, just as we can to an even greater degree for the next of the Aegean scripts, Linear A (the chapter by Steele and Meißner, this volume, is concerned with just this issue). The languages underlying these two writing systems remain mysterious, but that does not mean that we cannot ‘read’ sequences written in them to some extent. A script can be partially deciphered without achieving the ultimate aim of understanding fully the content of its inscriptions as well as the values of its signs.

2 Whether Cretan Hieroglyphic and Linear A were used to write the same language or different ones similarly remains an open question.

3 Again the term ‘deciphered’ can be considered problematic: while we know the values of the ma...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• 1. Introduction: The Aegean writing systems: Philippa M. Steele
• 2. Another beginning’s end: Secondary script formation in the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean: Silvia Ferrara
• 3. Cretan ‘Hieroglyphic’ and the nature of script: Roeland P.-J.E. Decorte
• 4. Linear B script and Linear B administrative system – different patterns in their development: Helena Tomas
• 5. Reconstructing the matrix of the ‘Mycenaean’ literate administrations: Vassilis Petrakis
• 6. From Linear B to Linear A: The problem of the backward projection of sound values: Philippa M. Steele and Torsten Meißner
• 7. Processes of script adaptation and creation in Linear B: The evidence of the ‘extra’ signs: Anna P. Judson
• 8. Script comparison in the investigation of Cypro-Minoan: Miguel Valério
• 9. Is there anything like a Cypro-Minoan 3 script?: Yves Duhoux
• 10. Script and language on Cyprus during the Geometric Period: An overview on the occasion of two new inscriptions: Markus Egetmeyer
• Bibliography