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Cretan Hieroglyphs: The end of a Quest?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

S. Davis
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Extract

The mysterious writing on Cretan seals first attracted Arthur Evans to Crete. His own words are well worth quoting. ‘In the course of a visit to Greece in the spring of 1893 I came across some three- and four-sided stones perforated along their axis, upon which had been engraved a series of remarkable symbols. The symbols occurred in groups on the facets of the stones, and it struck me at once that they belonged to a hieroglyphic system. They were, however, quite distinct from Egyptian in character, and though they seemed to show a nearer approach to Hittite forms, it was evident that they belonged to an independent series. My inquiries succeeded in tracing these to a Cretan source. … I therefore determined to follow up my investigations on Cretan soil.’

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , October 1964 , pp. 106 - 127
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1964

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References

page 106 note 1 J.H.S. xiv (1894), 274f.Google Scholar

page 106 note 2 Ibid. 375 ff.

page 106 note 3 Davis, S., ‘The Affinities of the Language of Linear A—the Solution of a Problem’, London University Institute of Classical Studies, Mycenaean Seminar, and ‘Notes Circulated’, 18 10 1961Google Scholar; The Phaistos Disk and the Eteocretan Inscriptions from Psychro and Praisos (Witwatersrand University Press, Johannesburg, 11 1961)Google Scholar, henceforth cited as Phaistos Disk.

page 107 note 1 Sturtevant, E. H. and Hahn, A., A Comparative Grammar of the Hittite Language (Yale, 1951), 9Google Scholar. Cf. also the ‘family tree’ given there.

page 109 note 1 Davis, S., ‘The Affinities of the Language of Linear A—the Solution of a Problem’, London University Institute of Classical Studies, Mycenaean Seminar, and ‘Notes Circulated’, 18 10 1961, p. 11Google Scholar; cf. id. Phaistos Disk, 8.Google Scholar

page 110 note 1 Davis, S., Phaistos Disk, 16.Google Scholar

page 110 note 2 Evans, A. J., Scripta Minoa, i (Oxford, 1909), 144.Google Scholar

page 110 note 3 Ibid. 250 ff.

page 110 note 4 Grumach, E., ‘Zur Frage des x-Initials in den hieroglyphischen Inschriften’, Minoica (Berlin, 1958), 162ff.Google Scholar

page 110 note 5 The numbering of the pictographic inscriptions will henceforth be given as in Evans, A. J., op. cit. 149ff.Google Scholar

page 111 note 1 Friedrich, J., Hethitisches Wörterbuch (Heidelberg, 1953), 158.Google Scholar

page 112 note 1 Friedrich, J., Hethitisches Elementarbuch (Heidelberg, 1960), 67.Google Scholar

page 113 note 1 Davis, S., Phaistos Disk, 15.Google Scholar

page 113 note 2 Vilborg, E., A Tentative Grammar of Mycenaean Greek (Göteborg, 1960), 36Google Scholar; cf. Ventris, M. and Chadwick, J., Documents in Mycenaean Greek (Cambridge 1956), 46.Google Scholar

page 113 note 3 Friedrich, J., Hethitisches Wörterbuch, 242.Google Scholar

page 113 note 4 Evans, A. J., Scripta Minoa, i. 159.Google Scholar

page 113 note 5 Friedrich, J., Hethitisches Elementarbuch, 57, § 88.Google Scholar

page 114 note 1 Friedrich, J., Hethitisches Elementarbuch, 67.Google Scholar

page 114 note 2 Id., Hethitisches Wörterbuch, 141.Google Scholar

page 114 note 3 Xenaki-Sakellariou, Agni, ‘Inscriptions de la Collection Giamalakis’, Minos, i (1951), 86Google Scholar, Nos. 3111 and 3289. Cf. also note 3 on p. 87.

page 115 note 1 Cf. Ventris, M. and Chadwick, J., op. cit. 23, Fig. 23.Google Scholar

page 115 note 2 Davis, S., op. cit. 15Google Scholar. Cf. Evans, A. J., Scripta Minoa, i. 276, No. 23.Google Scholar

page 115 note 3 Davis, S., op. cit. 15Google Scholar. Cf. Evans, A. J., op. cit. 276, No. 25.Google Scholar

page 115 note 4 Evans, A. J., op. cit. 211Google Scholar, No. 84.

page 115 note 5 Id., op. cit. 189, No. 23.

page 116 note 1 Evans, A. J., op. cit. 153, 252.Google Scholar

page 116 note 2 Friedrich, J., Hethitisches Wörterbuch, 44, 93.Google Scholar

page 116 note 3 Evans, A. J., op. cit. 276Google Scholar, Fig. 126, No. 141; Davis, S., Phaistos Disk, 15.Google Scholar

page 116 note 4 Friedrich, J., Hethitisches Wörterbuch, 67.Google Scholar

page 118 note 1 Friedrich, J., Hethitisches Wörterbuch, 243Google Scholar; Hethitisches Elementarbuch, 95Google Scholar. Cf. Sturtevant, E. H. and Hahn, A., A Comparative Grammar of the Hittite Language, i (New Haven, 1951), 129Google Scholar, where this type of verb in -sk- is described as ‘durative’.

page 118 note 2 Ventris, M. and Chadwick, J., op. cit. 64, Fig. 12.Google Scholar

page 118 note 3 Friedrich, J., Hethitisches Wörterbuch, 25Google Scholar, s.v. appan: ‘hinten; hinterher, darnach, später’.

page 118 note 4 Davis, S., Phaistos Disk, 15Google Scholar; cf. Evans, A. J., op. cit. 276, No. 38.Google Scholar

page 118 note 5 Evans, A. J., op. cit. 149.Google Scholar

page 118 note 6 Ibid. 152.

page 119 note 1 Ibid. i. 199.

page 120 note 1 Evans, A. J., The Palace of Minos (Oxford, 1921–1936), i 277Google Scholar, Fig. 207 c, 3; cf. Kenna, V. E. G., Cretan Seals (Oxford, 1960), p. 112 and PL 7, No. 170.Google Scholar

page 120 note 2 Davis, S., op. cit. 15Google Scholar; Evans, A. J., Scripta Minoa, i. 276, No. 39.Google Scholar

page 120 note 3 Evans, A. J., Scripta Minoa, i. 161.Google Scholar

page 121 note 1 Evans, A. J., Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxx (1900), 216Google Scholar; Scripta Minoa, i. 70, Fig. 38.Google Scholar

page 121 note 2 Evans, A. J., The Palace of Minos, i. 277Google Scholar, Fig. 207c:, 4; cf. Kenna, V. E. G., op. cit., p. 112Google Scholar and Pl. 7, No. 169.

page 122 note 1 Evans, A. J., Scripta Minoa, i. 158.Google Scholar

page 122 note 2 Friedrich, J., Hethitisches Wörterbuch, 175.Google Scholar

page 123 note 1 Evans, A. J., Scripta Minoa, 152.Google Scholar

page 123 note 2 Friedrich, J., Hethitisches Elementarbuch, 67.Google Scholar

page 123 note 3 Xenaki-Sakellariou, Agni, op. cit. 86, Nos. 3111 and 3232.Google Scholar

page 123 note 4 Evans, A. J., Scripta Minoa, 181, No. 2.Google Scholar

page 124 note 1 Cf. Myres, J. L., ‘An Eight-sided Sealstone in the Ashmolean Museum’, B.S.A. xliv (1949), 326–7Google Scholar; Kenna, V. E. G., Cretan Seals, 111Google Scholar and Pl. 7, No. 165. I am indebted to Dr. H. W. Catling, Assistant Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, for sending me a seal-wax impression which facilitated the task of reading the sides of the seal in the correct order.

page 124 note 2 Myres, J. L., op. cit. 326.Google Scholar

page 124 note 3 Evans, A. J., Scripta Minoa, Fig. 102, No. 58.Google Scholar

page 124 note 4 Cf. ibid. 204: ‘In Crete this marine animal was specially chosen as a symbol by the inhabitants of Itanos at the easternmost corner of the island where two confronted hippocampi form the principal types on the reverse of its fifth-century coins.’ Cf. also Seltman, C., ‘Greek Coins’ (London, 1933), 172Google Scholar. It seems as though the hippocamp on coins of Itanos was a type parlant, standing for the initial letter, and so for the name, of the town. Cf. (koppa) for Κορινθίων on the coins of Corinth. In the pictographic script, according to the acrophonic principle, the hippocamp would be one of the signs standing for i. It is to be noted that Itanos is a city of Minoan ancestry.

page 125 note 1 Evans, A. J., Scripta Minoa, i, Fig. 103, No. 80.Google Scholar

page 125 note 2 Friedrich, J., Hethitisches Wörterbuch, 48.Google Scholar

page 125 note 3 Evans, A. J., Scripta Minoa, i. 154, p. 26d.Google Scholar

page 125 note 4 Friedrich, J., Hethitisches Wörterbuch, 113f.Google Scholar; cf. also his Hethitisches Elementarbuch, 82.Google Scholar

page 125 note 5 Evans, A. J., Scripta Minoa, i, Fig. 102, No. 8.Google Scholar

page 125 note 6 Friedrich, J., Hethitisches Wörterbuch, 83.Google Scholar

page 126 note 1 Hethitisches Elementarbuch, 67.Google Scholar

page 126 note 2 Aldred, C., The Egyptians (London, 1961), 19.Google Scholar

page 127 note 1 Figures from Sir Arthur Evans's Scripta Minoa, Vol. i, are reproduced by courtesy of the Clarendon Press; Figs. 14 and 17 by courtesy of Messrs. Macmillan & Co., Ltd.; Figs. 20 and 21 by courtesy of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Colegio Trilingüe de la Universidad, Salamanca; and Fig. 22 by courtesy of the Managing Committee of the British School at Athens.