Writing in the West

Bronze Age Aegean scripts, Cypriot

scripts, and the evolution of the
Greek alphabet

Historical background

Minoans in Crete

Palace of Knossos

Minoan writing system

Mycenaeans in mainland Greece

Fortified centers
Mycenae

Pylos

Mycenaean writing

Decipherment of Linear B

Sir Arthur Evans

Began excavating at
Knossos in 1900
Discovered 3000 clay
tablets
Published first volume
after WWI, but most
inscriptions remained
unpublished
Coined Linear A and
Linear B

Discovery of the Pylos archive

1939
SW mainland Greece
Archive room discovered
with the first trench

First steps in decipherment

Early steps in decipherment

Establishment of the
signary
Problems with
handwriting one sign
or two?
Direction of writing:
tablets began at left
edge and finished
before right edge

Alice Kober
Compiled over 180,000
attestations of signs
Created frequency list
of signs
Initial, medial, or final
position
Let us face the facts:
an unknown language,
in an unknown script,
cannot be deciphered.

Kobers triplets

Michael Ventris
Architect by training
Bucking the trend Cypriot script was used for
Greek, deciphered in the 1870s

Tentative decipherment
Ko-no-so Knossos
A-mi-ni-so Amnisos
to-so and to-sa
Greek tosos and tos,
so much/many ???
Greek words began
appearing;
collaboration with John
Chadwick

Decipherment passes the test!

Dark blue: ti-ri-po-de

Light blue: ti-ri-po
Green: di-pa me-zo-e qe-to-ro-we (goblet, large fourhandled)
Yellow: di-pa me-zo-e ti-ri-we-e (goblet, large threehandled)

Aegean Scripts

Cretan Hieroglyphs

First used ca. 1800 BCE

Mallia and Knossos
Seals and clay bars
Undeciphered

Phaistos disk

6.5 in diameter
242 signs arranged into 61 groups
Runs right to left overlapping signs

Arkalochori axe

Linear A
Ayia Triadha primarily
First used ca. 1700 BCE
1427 documents with
~7400 signs
Writing is sloppier
than Linear B
Unknown language

Linear A
Written left to right
Three vowels: A, I, U
Written on clay tablets,
stone offering tables,
hair pins, pots

Linear B archives

Linear B syllabograms

Linear B spelling
89 syllabic signs
Five vowels are represented (A, E, I, O, U)
Two diphthongs are represented (AI and AU)
All other diphthongs require two syllables
qa-si-re-u = basileus, (ruler)

MANY ambiguities in Mycenaean writing

pe can be Greek , , , , ,

Linear B ideograms

~160 ideograms

Usually written in Latin

CUR (currus) chariot
OVIS sheep

Sample tablet

Mycenaean religion

Di-wo Zeus
Di-wo-nu-so Dionysos
A-re Ares
A-ta-na-po-ti-ni-ia Athena Potnia
Po-se-da-o Poseidon

Po-re-na those brought

Human sacrifice?? PY Tn 316

Writing in ancient Cyprus

Cypriot writing systems

Cypro-Minoan
1450-900 BCE
Undeciphered

Cypriot Syllabary
800-250 BCE
Deciphered

Cypro-Minoan 1
204 texts
Clay balls, cylinder
seals, copper ingots,
votive stands, ivory
objects, bowls
72 syllabograms
1079 signs in texts
1450 - 900 BCE

Cypro-Minoan 2
3 clay tablets from
Enkomi
61 syllabograms
2000 signs in texts
1200-1100 BCE

Cypro-Minoan 3
8 clay tablets from
Ugarit in Syria
50 syllabograms
253 signs in texts
1250-1100 BCE

Cypro-Minoan: How many languages?

CM 1 and CM 2 probably represent two
different languages
CM 3 differs markedly from CM 2 but may
represent the same language as CM 1

Cypro-Syllabic / Cypriot Syllabary

Used 800-250 BCE
55 syllabic signs
Inscriptions are written in Greek and Cypriot

Decipherment of Cypro-Syllabic

Cypriot and Phoenician bilingual

Idalion tablet

Phoenician at Idalion

Cypro-Syllabic at Idalion

Evolution of the Greek

alphabet
From aleph to alpha

Herodotus
These Phoenicians who came with Cadmusbrought with them to
Hellas, among many other kinds of learning, the alphabet, which
had been unknown before this, I think, to the Greeks. As time went
on the sound and the form of the letters were changed.
At this time the Greeks who were settled around them were for the
most part Ionians, and after being taught the letters by the
Phoenicians, they used them with a few changes of form. In so
doing, they gave to these characters the name of Phoenician, as
was quite fair seeing that the Phoenicians had brought them into
Greece.
The Ionians have also from ancient times called sheets of papyrus
skins, since they formerly used the skins of sheep and goats due to
the lack of papyrus. Even to this day there are many foreigners
who write on such skins.

From Phoenician to Greek

Adoption of the 22 letters of the Phoenician
alphabet
5 of the consonants were converted into vowels
Addition of four new letters

Dating of the transmission

Phoenician was consistently written R to L after
1050 BCE
Problem: No Greek inscriptions for another 300 years!

Adopted ca. 850 BCE? Many possibilities:

Mixing of merchants in Cyprus

Phoenicians sailing to the Aegean
Greeks sailing to the Levant
Adoption of the alphabet from groups in Turkey

Use of alphabet in Euboea first

Dipylon inscription ca. 750 BCE

Nestors Cup ca. 750 BCE

[] [] []
[] []
[ ] [] .
Nestors cup I am, good to drink from.
Whoever drinks from this cup, him straightaway
the desire of beautiful-crowned Aphrodite will seize.

Epichoric alphabets
Each regional power
had its own version of
the alphabet
Greek inscriptions
written L to R, R to L,
boustrophedon
Alphabet finally
standardized ca. 400
BCE