Minoan Writing: Languages. Hieroglyphics, Linear A | Early European History And Religion

MINOAN LANGUAGE

Tablet with Minoan writing
The Minoan language (or languages) of the Minoan civilization (3000 -1100 B.C.) Crete was written in the Cretan hieroglyphs and later in Linear A. As the Cretan hieroglyphs are undeciphered and Linear A is only partly deciphered, the Minoan language is unknown and unclassified. With the existing evidence, it is even impossible to be certain that the two scripts record the same language. The Eteocretan language, attested in a few alphabetic inscriptions from Crete 1,000 years later, is possibly a descendant of Minoan, but is also unclassified. [Source Wikipedia]

From the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt (1550-1292 B.C.), when King Tut reigned, come four texts containing names and spells in the Minoan (Keftiu) language. They are written in Egyptian hieroglyphs, which has allowed the pronunciation of those names and spells to be reconstructed. On the basis of these texts, some of phonetic system of the Minoan language can be reconstructed and certain consonant sounds can ascertained.

It has been compared inconclusively to the Indo-European, Semitic and Tyrsenian language families. Brent Davis, a linguist and archaeologist at the University of Melbourne, has proposed that the basic word order of the language written in Linear A may be verb-subject-object based on the properties of a common formulaic sequence found in Linear A.

Good Archaeology Websites Aegean Prehistoric Archaeology sites.dartmouth.edu; Archaeology News Report archaeologynewsreport.blogspot.com ; Archaeology magazine archaeology.org ; HeritageDaily heritagedaily.com; Livescience livescience.com/ ; Websites on Ancient Greece: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Greece sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Hellenistic World sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; BBC Ancient Greeks bbc.co.uk/history/; Perseus Project - Tufts University; perseus.tufts.edu ; ; Gutenberg.org gutenberg.org; British Museum ancientgreece.co.uk; Illustrated Greek History, Dr. Janice Siegel, Hampden–Sydney College hsc.edu/drjclassics ; The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization pbs.org/empires/thegreeks ; Cambridge Classics External Gateway to Humanities Resources web.archive.org/web; Ancient Greek Sites on the Web from Medea showgate.com/medea ; Greek History Course from Reed web.archive.org

Minoan Writing

Minoans were the first Europeans to use writing. Their main written language, known as Linear A, has only been partly deciphered starting in the late 1990s. The few scraps of Minoan text that have been translated are mainly records of trade, inventories of military equipment, and lists of harvests of wheat and olives. Linear A clay tablets, dated between 1900 and 1700 B.C., were found at Knossos. They were found along with tablets with Minoan hieroglyphics, Linear B, and a still undeciphered Cretan script dated to 2000-1700 B.C.

Cretan hieroglyphs on a green jasper Minoan seal, 1800 BC

The Minoans have left large quantities of written records. Unfortunately, unlike the writings of the Egyptians, Hittites and Babylonians which shed light on such things as social organization, religious beliefs and historical events, those Minoan writings discovered so far are simply inventory records- detailed, plentiful but not as enlightening as one might hope. An added complication is that scholars have been only been able to decipher a small portion of their written language.” [Source: Canadian Museum of History]

Colette Hemingway and Seán Hemingway of the Metropolitan Museum of Art wrote: “With the palaces came the development of writing, probably as a result of the new record-keeping demands of the palace economy. The Minoans on Crete employed two types of scripts, a hieroglyphic script whose source of inspiration was probably Egypt, and a linear script, Linear A, perhaps inspired by the cuneiform of the eastern Mediterranean. The scripts are found on sun-dried clay tablets that are mostly administrative records; on ritual objects such as miniature double axes and stone libation tables; and on pottery and rings. [Source: Colette and Seán Hemingway, Metropolitan Museum of Art, October 2002 metmuseum.org \^/]

Minoan writing systems belong to a group of scripts and hieroglyphics that evolved independently of the Egyptian and Mesopotamian systems. During the second millennium B.C., there were four major branches: Linear A, Linear B, Cypro-Minoan, and Cretan hieroglyphic. In the 1950s, Linear B was deciphered and found to have an underlying language of Mycenaean Greek. Linear A shares many glyphs and alloglyphs with Linear B, and the syllabic glyphs are thought to notate similar syllabic values, but none of the proposed readings lead to a language that scholars can read. [Source: Wikipedia]

Cretan Hieroglyphs

Cretan hieroglyphics is a hieroglyphic writing system used approximately from 2100 to 1700 B.C. in the Minoan era on Crete. Named “Cretan hieroglyphics,” because they are at least somewhat pictorial, these symbols predate Linear A by about a century. For most of their history the two writing systems were used at the same time. As of 2024, Cretan hieroglyphics were undeciphered.

As of 1989, the corpus of Cretan hieroglyphic inscriptions consited of two groups: 1) Seals and sealings comprised of 150 documents with 307 sign-groups, using 832 signs in all; and 2) Other documents on clay, comprised of 120 documents with 274 sign-groups, using 723 signs. More documents, such as those from the Petras deposit, have been published since then. A four sided prism was found in 2011 at Vrysinas in western Crete. [Source: Wikipedia]

Symbol inventories have been compiled by Evans (1909), Meijer (1982), and Olivier & Godart (1996). The glyph inventory for Cretan hieroglyphics (CHIC) includes 96 syllabograms representing sounds, ten of which double as logograms, representing words or portions of words. There are also 23 logograms representing four levels of numerals (units, tens, hundreds, thousands), nine signs for numerical fractions, and two types of punctuation.

Many symbols have apparent Linear A counterparts, so that it is tempting to insert Linear B sound values. Moreover, there are multiple parallels (words and phrases) from hieroglyphic inscriptions that occur also in Linear A and/or B in similar contexts (words for "total", toponyms, personal names etc.)

Cretan hieroglyphics on seals (A) and tablets (B)

Cypro-Minoan

Cypro-Minoan Script — also known as Cypro-Minoan syllabary — is an undeciphered written language used on the island of Cyprus and at its trading partners between the late 16th and early 11th centuries B.C. The term "Cypro-Minoan" was coined by Arthur Evans in 1909 based on its visual similarity to Linear A on Minoan Crete, from which CM is thought to be derived. Approximately 250 objects—such as clay balls, cylinders, and tablets which bear Cypro-Minoan inscriptions, have been found. Discoveries have been made at various sites around Cyprus, as well as in the ancient city of Ugarit on the Syrian coast. It is thought to be somehow related to the later Cypriot syllabary. [Source Wikipedia]

It is not known which language the Cypro-Minoan Script confers. It is also not known if that language changed over the four centuries the script was in use or even if it encoded multiple languages, all things seen with cuneiform scripts. Some early, failed, attempts were made at decipherment by assuming it is similar to Mycenaean Greek.

Only about 200 Cypro-Minoan texts still survive, of which "most are very short," wrote Nicolle Hirschfeld, a classical studies professor at Trinity University in San Antonio, in an article published in "The Oxford Handbook of the Bronze Age Aegean" (Oxford University Press, 2010). The small number of surviving Cypro-Minoan texts and the short length of many of those texts make decipherment difficult, Hirschfeld wrote. "Decipherment is not possible unless substantial archives are uncovered or a bilingual [text] is discovered." [Source Owen Jarus, Live Science, July 19, 2017]

Linear A

Linear A is a writing system that was used by the Minoans of Crete from 1800 BC to 1450 B.C. It was the primary script used in palace and religious writings of the Minoan civilization. It evolved into Linear B, which was used by the Mycenaeans to write an early form of Greek.

Linear A was discovered on stones bought at a flea market by Sir Arthur Evans in Athens in 1893 and later found by Evans on the Island of Crete. Linear A contains 45 "letters" and is categorized by some as an ancient form of Greek. It is still largely undeciphered. No texts in Linear A have yet been deciphered. Evans named the script "Linear" because its characters consisted simply of lines inscribed in clay, in contrast to the more pictographic characters in Cretan hieroglyphs. Sources: Wikipedia, Candida Moss, Daily Beast, 2017]

Linear A, from Omniglot

Linear A consists of over 300 signs including regional variants and examples in which only one instance has been recorded) . Among these, a core group of 90 occur with some frequency throughout the script's geographic and chronological extent. About half of these show up a lot. [Source Wikipedia]

As a logosyllabic writing system, Linear A includes signs which stand for syllables as well as others standing for words or concepts. Linear A's signs could be combined via ligature to form complex signs. Complex signs usually behave as ideograms and most are hapax legomena, occurring only once in the surviving corpus. Thus, Linear A signs are divided into four categories: 1) syllabic signs; 2) ligatures and composite signs; 3) ideograms; and 4) numerals and metrical signs. Linear A was usually written left-to-right, but a handful of documents were written right-to-left or boustrophedon.

Decipherment of a Linear A Tablets

Linear A Tablet HT 86 (Haghia Triada) was inscribed entirely in Old Minoan (OM), the original Minoan substrate language. The deciphering of this tablet constitutes a major advancement in the decipherment of Linear A, all the more so, since DAME & SARU appear on other Linear A tablets from Haghia Triada. [Source Ancientfoods, May 2, 2018]

Here is the decipherment of HT 86: RECTO: 15 units (something like litres) liquid of ripe figs from fig trees, 24 pistachio-nuts, 10 barley cakes (apparently seasoned with pistachio-nuts), 2 roses, and 4 more units (something like kilograms) of ripe fruit + 22 DAQERA? (some kind of fruit), 22 3/4 units (something like litres or kilograms) falling to earth + 15 1/2 figs. 1. AKARU (in a) field, KUNI… 2. SU = emmer wheat…

VERSO: 3 growing (grown) ripe (i.e. the figs) with 1 unit (something like a flagon) of drops of wine in 3 units (something like kilograms or kilolitres) of honey, and 66 units (something like kilograms) of DADUMA (some kind of fruit, possibly or even probably grapes) + 3 1/4 units of REKI? + 35 SAMA? + 17 1/2 PA3NINA?

ZA 8 (Zakros) is another Linear A inscription largely inscribed in proto-Greek and/or Mycenaean Greek, and deals mainly with groats, figs and wheat dough: “the brim (of a vessel or pot), with groats inside it + 1 1/2 units of figs * (not in the pot!) in a slanting) urn OR 2/3rds of a unit of liquid measurement (of the figs) + 2/5 salty units (something like milligrams) of wheat dough + 1/2 mapa (unknown) + 2 1/4 maikase (unknown) + 2 1/2 daipita + 4 2/5 due measures.

Linear B

Linear B is a written language discovered on clay tablets at Mycenaean and Minoan sites. It was the main written language of the ancient Mycenaeans and dates back at least to 1200 B.C., called Tablets found in 1939 at Pylos by American archaeologist Carl Blegen and deciphered in 1940 by an eighteen-year-old young Englishman named Michael Ventris, who revealed his discovery in a 1952 BBC interview and also revealed that the language was a precursor of Greek and the was oldest written Indo-European language known.

Linear B is an early form of ancient Greek writing used by the palaces during the Mycenaean era of Greece (1600-1100 B.C.). Nicholas Wade wrote in the New York Times: “Linear B tablets were preserved in the fiery destruction of palaces when the soft clay on which they were written was baked into permanent form. Caches of tablets have been found in Knossos, the main palace of Crete, and in Pylos and other mainland palaces. Linear B, a script in which each symbol stands for a syllable, was later succeeded by the familiar Greek alphabet in which each symbol represents a single vowel or consonant.” [Source: Nicholas Wade, New York Times, October 26, 2015]

These where startling revelations when one considers that no one had any idea what language the Mycenaeans spoke, that written Greek didn't reappear until 400 years later in the 5th century B.C. and that the Greek alphabet and the Mycenaean symbols looked as different from one another as Chinese and English. [Source: "The Creators" by Daniel Boorstin,μ]

Blegen found 1,200 clay tablets, which had been preserved in a palace fire in 1200 B.C. He determined that Linear B there was used primarily to record palace inventories and administrative records of thing like olives, wine, chariot wheels, tripods, sheep, oxen, wheat, barely, spices, plots of land, chariots, slaves, horses and taxes to be collected. So far no references to the Trojan War or anyone mentioned in the “ Iliad” have been found in Linear B.

Phaistos Disk, and Efforts to Decipher It

The Phaistos Disk, found in the ruins of the 3700-year-old palace in Phaistos, is the earliest know example of printing. The 15-centimeter (six-inch), baked-clay disk contains 241 pictorial designs comprised of 45 different letters arranged in a spiral formation. The symbols were placed on the disk with a set of punches, one for each symbol, using the same concept as movable type. Both sides are adorned with 45 symbols, which appear in different combinations in 241 boxed segments, almost like a picture cartoon. The segments then run in a spiral and can be read by starting from the outside edge of the disk, moving towards the middle.

The Phaistos Disk was discovered in 1908. Thought to date to around 1700 B.C., this roundish disk of clay contains of 61 “words,” 16 of which are accompanied by a mysterious "slash" mark. The symbols portray recognizable objects like human figures and body parts, animals, weapons, and plants. For more than a century, while other difficult-to-decipher ancient languages such as Linear B and Ugaritic were cracked, the Phaistos Disk eluded decipherment. Since the text of the disk is so short, decipherment by statistical cryptographic techniques used by Michael Ventris used to crack Linear B are impossible.

After six years of work a team at Oxford University deciphered around 90 percent of the text. The process of unraveling it began when the most frequently-appearing word was found to be “mother.” After a while, it was determined that the disk contained an engraved with a prayer honoring the Minoan mother goddess. According to researchers, one side of the famous artifact is dedicated to a pregnant woman and the other to a woman in labor.

Phaistos disk
The American linguist twins Rev. Kevin Massey-Gillespie and Dr. Keith Massey claimed they deciphered the Phaistos Disk and wrote about their experience in an e-book called "Mysteries of History Solved!" They wrote: “Another ancient writing system provides the key to reading the Phaistos Disk. At Byblos in modern day Lebanon, an advanced culture flourished for centuries. There are many signs of contact between Ancient Crete and Byblos, including signs of orthographic borrowing as pointed out by Victor Kenna in "The Stamp Seal, Byblos 6593" Kadmos 9 (1970) pp 93-96. Further, examples of the yet undeciphered Linear A script have recently been found in Turkey, providing evidence of orthographic relationships between Crete and Asia Minor. The Proto-Byblic script was used in the early part of the 2nd millenium B.C. a time contemporary with the supposed date of the Phaistos Disk. The underlying language of the Proto-Byblic script was Semitic. It is a linear script which displays many identifiable objects, like weapons, human figures, and body parts. The Proto-Byblic script, catalogued by Maurice Dunand in the 1940's bears striking resemblance to the symbols of the Phaistos Disk. [Source: Internet Archive, from Phaistos]

“Eduard Dhorme, one of the decipherers of Hittite, published the first consonantal values for the Proto-Byblic script in SYRIA XXV 1946 in an article, "Dechiffrement des Inscriptions Pseudo-Hieroglyphicques de Byblos." A comparison of these values with the symbols of the Phaistos Disk yielded consonantal assignments for a surprising amount of the writing on the disk. It should be noted here that all previous attempts to decipher the Phaistos Disk have been subjective attempts, assigning phonetic values to the characters with no true objective criteria. This is therefore the first effort at cracking the disk by OBJECTIVE determinations. When these consonantal values are examined, elements of an Hellenic language emerge in the text of the disk. Scholars had never known what the significence of a mysterious "slash" on 16 of the words of the Phaistos Disk. We observed, based on our values, that each of these 16 words are numerals counting commodities on the disk, similar to the majority of Linear B texts.”“

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons, The Louvre, The British Museum

Text Sources: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Greece sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Hellenistic World sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; BBC Ancient Greeks bbc.co.uk/history/; Canadian Museum of History, Perseus Project - Tufts University; perseus.tufts.edu ; MIT Classics Online classics.mit.edu ; Gutenberg.org, Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, Live Science, Discover magazine, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, Encyclopædia Britannica, "The Discoverers" and "The Creators" by Daniel Boorstin. "Greek and Roman Life" by Ian Jenkins from the British Museum, Wikipedia, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP and various books and other publications.

Last updated September 2024