Minoan language blog

Riddles in Linear A - Part II

2012-01-03T17:40:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year to everyone! I hope you enjoyed my last post about hard-to decipher Linear A tablets. Now we shall examine some even more mysterious ancient documents: those ones that can only be understood if we analyse not just the names - but the numbers standing beside them. It is now time for some mathematics!

The most obvious problem one can encounter when reading Minoan clay tablets is the lack of knowledge about the transaction terms themselves. After all, how can we understand anything about Cretan accounting, if we do not even know if the goods mentioned were actually collected or - on the contrary - distributed? Our path is clear: to understand more of the meaning of the tablets, we have to analyse the quantities of wares.

Let our first specimen to study be the clay tablet HT8 (see figure). This tablet is fortunately complete, and written with easily readable characters. But it still somehow lacks in clarity. Judged from the absence of any totalling term (KU-RO), it likely lists outgoing goods: the headers seem to list the total stockpile of oil (OLE+KI) to be distributed. The modifier 'KI' might point to a type of "scented oil" (e.g. rose-scented or sage-scented) that was sent to sanctuaries of gods all across the land on certain annual festivals - if we can believe the Linear B tablets already deciphered by Ventris and Chadwick. The distribution patterns on HT8 are quite intriguing on their own, and may admit more than one possible solution. At least some of the entries must be transaction terms, otherwise the numbers would not work. The most trivial solution to the problem was found by Brent Davis & John Younger. But this is not the only possible one. You shall also see my rival hypothesis on the same figure.

The main strength of the original solution is the ability to interpret both sides of the tablet as complete and integrated entity. However, Davis & Younger needed to assume two transaction terms to achieve this goal - both the sole 'PA' syllabogram and the hapax word SU-PU2-*188. Although a single 'PA' returns on other documents, no other tablet supports their reading as transaction terms. On the other hand, most names clearly recur on other tablets, such as PA-JA-RE [HT29, HT88, ZA10], TE-WE [HT98] or QA-*310-I [HT85, HT122]. HT85 even features a similar single-syllable 'PA' term. However, on the toponym list HT85, 'PA' probably abbreviates PA-I-TO, the name of Phaistos. It is tempting to believe that the same applies to the place-name list on HT10, where a toponym tied to KU-NI-SU (Knossos?) is contrasted to a list headed by 'PA' (tributaries to Phaistos?). To remedy the situation, I played around the numbers to find an even better solution to this tablet. As you can see on the figure, if we split the document into two almost-separate lists (with 15 units of oil to distribute, instead of 10), we only have to assume the existence of a single transaction term on side B. KA-PA is a more-or less obvious candidate: it also returns on the headers of tablets HT6, HT94, HT102 and HT105. On HT11 and HT140 we also find a counting term 'KA' (abbreviation, KA-PA?) that frequently stands beside large quantities without any names mentioned. KA-PA is likely related to another word: KA-PE [HT9], that is undoubtedly a transaction term, and stands as contrasted to SA-RO2 on the same tablet. Note that KA-PA itself can form a single expression with SA-RA2 (as on HT102), but it never-ever joins up with A-DU (another common term alongside SA-RA2).

To understand the complementarity and mutual exclusivity of these transaction terms, we must make some assumptions on their meanings first. SA-RA2, one of the most common transaction terms on the Haghia Triada tablets could be cautiously translated as "supplies" (note that it almost always stands before a list of consumables, most typically GRA [wheat]). I chose the word "supplies" to avoid any explicit implications to incoming or outgoing transactions - that are often difficult or impossible to guess. As for A-DU, after a thorough study, I find the reading of John Younger (A-DU = "assessed") really enticing. Now, if KA-PA would mean something like "leftover", "remaining", we could now explain entire phrases: A-DU • SA-RA2 [HT99] = "assessed supplies", TE • A-DU [HT92, HT133] = "give (as) expected" KA-PA • SA-RA2 [HT102] = "remaining supplies", SA-RO2 = "supplied", in contrast to KA-PE = "of what remains". KA-PA can be used with a wide variety of goods, even people [HT94, HT105], in which case, they are counted by type (profession) and not by provenience. On HT102, KA-PA stands before a very substantial number of GRA: 976 units - that would be about 32,000 litres of wheat if measured by volume - likely the whole stockpile of an entire settlement. There is even a Classic Greek word: κάπηλος of prehellenic origins, meaning "local wholesale merchant" (i.e. who dealt in the surplus goods a community produced), that could possibly be connected with KA-PA / KA-PE.

It is also important to examine the dual 'PA3' syllables that start each sub-list. Since the tablet completely lacks word-dividers, these particles might form separate words. Unlike 'PA', the abbreviation 'PA3' (whose reading as a member of the P-series is only weakly supported in Linear B) is a well-attested transaction term (HT9, HT34, HT103, HT132). Its occurrance on HT103 in particular, suggests a reading like 'delivery'.

Tablet HT8 is also interesting because of a completely different reason: it features the rare sign Lin A *188 twice. While *188 also stands as a separate word (abbreviation of a name?) on several documents (HT15, HT56, HT103, HT123, HTWc3014, HTWb229), not just on HT8, here it also recurs as part of a longer word: SU-PU2-*188. This is particularly intruguing because of the phonological character of 'PU2'. That is quite a special syllabogram, as its use in words DA-PU2-RI-TO-JO (Lin B *daburinthoyo) and DU-PU2-RE (Lin A *duphre?) shows: unlike the ordinary 'PU', its consonant might have been at least partially voiced, possibly due to external triggers [clustering with thrills or nasals]. This realization may imply sign *188 being of the the N-series. Interestingly, the N-series has a very obvious hole in it in Linear A: the ancestor and Minoan counterpart of Linear B *42 ('NO') has not yet been identified. Now we have a plausible candidate - but this topic clearly deserves its own post, so I shall leave it to later. Nevertheless, a reading SU-PU2-NO (*suphnú) speaks for itself, and even resembles to the modern name of the island Siphnos - known to be an important economic center (thanks to its precious metal mines) of the Cyclades in the Bronze Age and later. Though it is also true that the naval distance between southern Crete and Siphnos is substantial, so a direct identification is questionable at best.

Now, let us turn to our attention to another piece of numeric riddles. Tablet HT103 offers an equally difficult puzzle as our previous one was. Although HT103 is slightly damaged at its right edge (rendering some signs only partially legible), it is preserved well enough to enable a clear reading without major reconstructions. The first sign on the header is abraded, but - if we can believe the reconstruction of J. Younger (that I also find plausible) - the first word was probably U-TA2. Note that a tablet written by the same scribal hand (HT26) features a very similarly shaped 'U' sign that we reconstructed here. U-TA2 would be a hapax term, albeit it resembles to both an alternative reading of KN10 (inital word: TA-NU-TA2-TI) and to the supposed Eteocretan term 'utat'. Potential tyrrhenian parallels (Etruscan *ut-/*uth- = "to deliver") would indicate a transaction term, having to do something with distribution of goods. Indeed, the header continues with the logogram 'NI' (figs) and a number of 40. Since there is no totalling term anywhere below (although we have KI-RA for missing units), and all the numerals on the tablet are considerably smaller than 40, it appears to be recording the act of distribution.

The key to understanding is provided by the obervation that practically all quantities recorded are multiples of 6.5: Number 13 (third line) is the double of this base portion, and the single unit mentioned in the last line also gives 1+5.5 = 6.5, if we add the missing 5.5. The tablet apparently records an attempt to distribute the initial 40 units of figs into 6 smaller, equal units. This gave a standard unit (with the qualifier DA-KU-SE-NE) of 6.5, and the double unit (qualifier: *188) of 13. Since 40 = 6 x 6.5 + 1, the remaining 1 unit of fruits is distributed as a portion , with the premise that 5.5 would be paid later. The initial segment of line two has broken off, but - judged from the inclination of signs - a syllabogram must have been there before the number, probably 'TI' (c.f. DA-KU-SE-NE-TI [HT104]). DA-KU-NA appears to be just another grammatic case of DA-KU-SE-NE, with a defective writing (*DA-KU-SA-NA) - this points to DA-KU-SE-NE being something like *takusne.

Now we have seen that - with ample effort - many of the tablets can be given a fairly meaningful reading. Unfortunately, I lack the time and resources to continue on this path and examine each tablet separately, but I promise to come up with other Cretan topics soon. Including the revision of some of my earlier theories.

Riddles in Linear A - Part I

2011-11-12T16:00:00.000-08:00

I am pleased to announce that I managed to make a further post on this little blog. In the recent months, I browsed through quite a few original Linear A tablets (I mean, the "original" photographs), in an attempt to make the classification of certain signs more systhematic. Given the paucity of my free time, that project is still ongoing. But in the meanwhile, I also came upon many documents, whose reading and interpretation is quite tricky: Sometimes even well-established scholars were fooled by these muddled tablets. So I decided to share some of these minute discoveries with you, while I keep on analysing the other tablets to get (hopefully) some major results.

Basically, there can be several problems with the reading of a Linear A document (I assumed that you are familiar enough with the Aegean syllabaries in order to be able to read it): First, the tablet can be physically damaged, or be rendered illegible by improper scribal work (erasures, corrections). But even if it is otherwise well readable, the compressed context (and hard-to-interpret words) can make reading a real nightmare. I decided to break this lengthy topic into two parts: so I shall leave the "logical games" for the next time.

To begin, let us take a look at the tablet HT6. This is a tablet with quite a mixed context: Side A lists a variety of commodities (probably foodstuffs: figs and other edible materials) linked to a few names, while the tablet clearly switches to a simple list (of one commodity) on side B. To be more precise, this change in context already starts on the first side, following the entry referring to goods associated to the name DA-QE-RA. All the further entries on side B thus must refer to either PI-TA (bread?) or NI (figs), due to the "continuity principle" (as established by J. Younger). Though we cannot determine the exact goods, it is certain that all the names mentioned are somehow connected to food supplies. A few entries are definitely references to towns. Unfortunately, it cannot be decided whether some of the names are personal ones or all refer to places; though they could also plausibly be a mixture of these two. Nevertheless, tablet HT6 shall be a good example to illustrate how damage (wear, abrasion, breaks and missing pieces) cause problems in reading.

On side B, the first two names are easy to make out, but problems start to mount from the third one onwards. This term (name) spells at first sight as MA-RI-?-I (reading suggested by Olivier, Godart & Younger). It is pretty hard to identify the third sign of this sequence. It looks faintly like a malformed 'I', although the Lin A *28 signs never have a downward-directed right stroke like this. Olivier and Godart tried to suggest 'RE' (this is also how they presented it on the GORILA's official facsimile), but the sad truth is, it is nowhere near *27 (RE) in shape. Because of these difficulties, John Younger did not even try to read this sign. I also suggest the dear reader to ponder a bit on the problem before looking at the solution.

The answer to this question is provided by a simple observation. The table is badly abraded at both of its right and left side on many spots. That's why the baseline of the 'RI' sign is missing. But the same abrasion also covers the lower left end of our mysterious sign. Only a very faint crack is left. Once we draw that small trace with full width, we get the answer. The "mystery sign" is nothing but an ordinary 'KE', a bit damaged, but still legible. One should also note that the 'I' sign is in fact not a plain Lin A *28, but - observing the strokes above its right extension - it is the sign what Godart and Olivier labelled as *28b. Based on its distinct usage pattern, and its undeniable similarity to Linear B *43 (I3 or AI), I would propose to read it as 'JI'. The difference between this and the ordinary 'I' might be negligible, but 'JI' would fit the junctional rules (E-I → E-J) a slightly bit better. These observations yield the reading MA-RI-KE-JI for this name: simply and clearly. Logically, it should be a name, possibly a personal name, being a hapax (though I am not immediately swayed by random parallels like Semitic *mlk = 'king').

But the true riddles just start here! Immedietaly after MA-RI-KE-JI, the text seem to end abruptly. However, the traces of a '1/2' numerical sign following the three clearly visible strokes warns us that the text is probably abraded, but the row is not empty. The faint traces on this part probably belong to two additional syllabary characters, that start the word readable in the next line. The abraded pieces of lines are themselves perfectly compatible with the reading KU-DO-NI. The rest of the phrase reads DA-MA. This is not a compound word: the word-separator dot is small, but clearly visible after KU-DO-NI (placed to the base of the sign, as on side A). While KU-DO-NI is clearly a place-name (= Lin B KU-DO-NI-JA, modern Khania), the meaning of DA-MA is less clear: nevertheless, it does resemble the stem of Linear A words DA-ME [HT86, HT95, HT120] and DA-MA-TE [libation vessel KY Za2]. The following word is equally tricky to read: it consists of merely two signs (the traces before it belong to an 'L2' fraction sign (number), possibly 2/15), but the first one is damaged. Following the traces on the abraded surface, a 'TE' sign would be the most reasonable reconstruction. This yields a name TE-KI, which is - again - a toponym (perhaps denoting the ancient Greek town of Tegea on western Crete, near Khania). The text continues with further putative tomponyms, such as SA-MA [HT10, HT52] and PA3-NI-NA (as on HT93, an adjectival form of PA3-NI [HT85, HT102]). The last two lines also show traces of erasures: the 'MA' sign of SA-MA was erased, and then re-written, similarly, before the PA3 of PA3-NI-NA, there are traces of an erased sign, probably KU, but it was later completely overwritten with numbers belonging to SA-MA.

Tablet HT85
Statement	Quantity
A-DU • 307+307 (women?) • VIR (people) • DA-RI-DA	12
PA3-NI	12
U-DWE-ZA	6
DA-SI-ZI	24
KU-DO-NI	5
TE-KE	3
DA-RE	4
KU-RO	66

KI (=KI-RO?) • KI-RA-JA • KI-RE-TA2	1
QE-KA	1
PA (=PA-I-TO?)	1
TE-TU	1
KA (=KA-NU-TI?)	1
DI (=DI-NA-U?)	1
ME-ZA	1
RE-DI-SE	1
WA-DU-NI-MI	1
MA-DI	1
QA-*310-I	1

To verify our corrected list, we should turn to other - much better preserved - toponym lists. The best counterpart could be HT85 (see the table above). Not only many of the terms seen on the second part of HT6 recur here, but their relative order and grouping is also similar. Here, KU-DO-NI is directly followed by TE-KE (=TE-KI), just like on HT6. These two terms also directly stand next to each other on HT13 - the tight association of the two places could be very elegantly explained by the geographic proximity of Khania (Kydonia) and Kissamos (Tegea). But this is not the only pair repeated here. Though a much more obscure term, WA-DU-NI-MI is also paired with RE-DI-SE (=RA-TI-SE?). While I have no idea of the identity of the former, the latter name could easily be a declined form of RA-DU [HT58, probably also on the toponym list HT122], the name for ancient Lato (Lin. B RA-TO), near modern Aghios Nikolaos. RA-TI-SE and RE-DI-SE could both be slightly erroneously written versions of *RA-DI-SE then (c.f. QA-RA2-WA [HT86] which is undoubtedly equal to QE-RA2-U [HT95] as the rest of the two lists are the same). Note that HT 85 also contains plenty of abbreviations. While the sole KI sign on the header of side B is probably an abbrevation for KI-RO (=missing), other single syllables likely stand for well-known places: PA = PA-I-TO (Phaistos), KA = KA-NU-TI (?) and DI = DI-NA-U (?). All these three re-occur on HT97, where two of the three are written out in full (save DI, which is probably DI-NA-U [as on the toponym list HT9]). This slacky habit of Minoan scribes to abbreviate commonly used names is unique to Linear A; Mycenaean Greek scribes using Linear B had more strict rules and names were never abbreviated to a single syllable.

Lists counting persons are just as common in Linear A as in B, but they attempt to be as compact as possible. The scribes were often so absorbed in this goal, that they also sacrificed clarity for shortness, leaving behind considerable ambiguity. In some cases, the context can still help to solve these issues: for example, what could a sign 'NI'(*30) mean? First, and foremost, it can designate a type of goods, namely 'figs'; but it can also abbreviate transaction terms and even names. Because of the context, we can almost be certain that it meant the fruits on tablets like HT6, but it is an abbreviated transaction term on HT88 and HT99 (in contrary to the opinion of J. Younger, these tablets almost certainly count people as shown by the consistently integer values and have nothing to do with figs).

But it is not just the wear of centuries that can cause troubles at reading. The slack of certain scribes is definitely a contributory factor. The tablet HT29 shall be a good example of this. This small clay piece if full of erasures, hastily-written, malformed signs in irregular lines. As the scribe tried to salvage a tablet by erasing its previous contents, he sometimes unconsciously re-used earlier, half-visible strokes. The result is a complex maze of lines, parts of half-erased and rewritten signs. There is no surprise why all scholars had problems when attempting to read this document. But we shall see soon, that some names written on this tablet are fortunately not unique and thereby reconstructible by comparing the sign-groups with those on other, better-looking documents.

When attempting a reading, we already run into difficulties right at the first line. Although the term RU-MA-TA can be read with some effort (this name is also seen on HT99), the upper right corner of the tablet is broken off, preventing us to identify any logogram describing the goods assessed. But the strictly integer numbers themselves already suggest that it may count people; the suspect is just reinforced when finding traces of an earlier, erased VIR sign just at the initial position. So we may relatively safely assume that the numbers refer to people (just as Schoep has suggested) - and as we shall see soon - many of the names (entries) are probably places.

While the fourth term on this list can be easily identified as PA-JA-RE (also found on HT8 and HT88) despite its last sign being missing, the second and third names are a real headache. As they are apparently hapaxes and both miss some signs (on the broken-off segment), they cannot be restored with any level of certainty. And we are also plagued by the fact that some of the visible signs are in fact re-used fragments of erased ones, frequently making them nearly unidentifiable. One of the possible readings of the second line is ?-DA?-QI?, with the 'DA' sign seemingly being a salvaged upper part of an erased *310 one. The last sign here is so malfomed we cannot be certain of its reading, either. I only put 'A' as the hypothetic missing initial syllable, because a word exists on the Khania tablets (KH92: A-DA-QI-RI) that faintly resembles this garbled one.

The third name is much better legible, but it still has at least one initial syllable missing (as judged from the size of the broken fragment). Fortunately, the erasures that make our life hard, now also offer some help. In most cases of tablets with visible erasures (as on HT86), the erased text contains the same or almost the same entries as the latter one. HT29 is no different in this regard. Actually, behind the syllabograms 'DI', 'JA' and 'I', we can regognize earlier traces of the same, hinting that this name was erased, but then the scribe re-wrote it to almost exactly the same spot. Careful examination also reveals that an additional sign was originally also written in this line, right before the other three: judged by its shape, it was possibly JE, so we may use this information to reconstruct this term as JE?-DI-JA-I (still a hapax, and hard to interpret).

From the fouth line, we have an easier job. Not that the signs were written with more clarity: The fourth word reads as either SA-?-RE or SA-?-SI at the first sight. The middle sign was interpreted as a somewhat misshapen *323 logogram by Godart and Olivier. But at a closer look, it rather resembles a hastily-written 'MA' sign (the 'cat head'), to which the sloppy scribe simply forgot to add the ears and eyes. This means that the word recorded here was probably SA-MA-RE, a declined version of the putative place-name SA-MA [HT10, HT52, also SA-MA-TI on HT39]. Again, the erasures reinforce our reading: traces of earlier, erased 'MA' and 'RE' signs are discernible somewhat right from the actual term (this also helps to make clear that the last sign was indeed 'RE', and not 'SI'.)

Immediately thereafter we can see another suspicious term. This was read as ?-KI-TA by J. Younger. Godart and Olivier even labelled the misshapen initial syllabogram with a novel identifier as *340. But this one really looks like the upper half of a well-known *306 sign - of which the lower half was accidentally erased by the scribe, when plowing over the next line to be obliterated. If so, the reading was originally intended to be *306-KI-TA or WO-KI-TA - perhaps unsurprisingly - another place-name. This time again, the traces of all 'WO', 'KI' and 'TA' are also visble under the erasure, shifted rightwards with two positions (partly under the next word).

The last two words appear to be hapaxes, and - as a consequence - difficult to ascertain. The logic of erasures - both A-RE-DA?-I and QA?-DU-MA-NE were re-written while shifting leftwards - still helps a bit. Since there is a nicely visible erased 'RE', and there was clearly an 'I' sign behind the 'DU', it is probable that the sign at the beginning of line 5 is a superimposed image of an earlier 'DA' (that the scribe failed to erase) and another one with a rounded top, possibly 'QA'. Note that originally there was another term after WO-KI-TA (the 'SI' is still visble under the 'RE' of A-RE-DA?-I), but it was later completely removed from the list after a revision. This way, most of the erased remnants of QA?-DU-MA-NE were not overwritten (the earlier 'MA' and the 'NE' can still be found with some effort).

Thus we have seen, that it is possible to read at least some of the names on this garbled tablet. But to decipher the true meaning behind these names, it is obligatory to look at the Zakros tablets. Interestingly, both SA-MA and PA-JA-RE recur on the the same list (ZA10), that lists donors of cheap wine (VINb). RU-MA-TA is also seen in the form RU-MA-TA-SE (declined variant, genitive?) on ZA20. The wide variety of goods per name, their consistent grouping and the considerable geographic distances between archives taken into account, these names are less likely to be persons (unless they are extremely common personal names, unlike even Linear B Greek ones), and much-much more likely to be places. This appears to be a striking difference between Linear A and B: Mycenaeans were more "individualistic", in the sense that their accounting also recorded the names of persons, while it mostly sufficed for Minoans to only state the place of origin or destination when speaking about groups of persons, taxes, gifts, supplies, or other types of deliveries.

Potential 'MO', 'JO' and 'WE' signs in Linear A - lessons learned from the latest Minoan clay tablets

2011-08-14T13:00:00.000-07:00

Instead of making any more wild theories about the meaning of certain Minoan phrases, I decided to turn back to the basics once again. After all, how can we understand words written in Linear A, if we cannot even be certain about their reading? The existence of many signs without any phonetic value assigned is especially annoying. The situation is definitely worse than in Linear B, partly because some Linear B signs do not even have a Linear A counterpart (ancestor) identified. Now, how can we reconcile this? It is very likely that at least some "asterisked numbers" do correspond to already-deciphered Linear B syllabograms. So, what I am going to present in the next series of posts is a new attempt to identify the phonetic values of the more common, yet-unreadable Linear A signs.

To achieve this goal, we have to browse through all the original tablets, over and over again, to find clues. The positional distribution of the signs in question (initial, medial or terminal) and the phonetic values of neighbouring signs offer a good deal of information. But this has to be evaluated within the bounds of the Minoan language, since we know it was radically different from Mycaenean Greek. Comparisons with Linear B sign-distributions do not help much, that was also noted by Packard. The graphic appearence and variation classes of syllabograms - on the other hand - do give us a chance to meaningfully compare Linear A signs with either Hieroglyphic or Linear B ones. The last one especially comes handy, since we may get a good phonetic value if we can find the correct assignment.

Fortunately, there are some spectacular Linear A documents that help us in our quest more than a thousand other tablets. In this post, I will be focusing upon the clay tablet KH11. Although it may appear as an oddball of a specimen at first, we shall see soon that these features are explainable with the tablet being in some sense "transitional" towards Linear B: both in style and in context!

You can see the facsimile of KH11 and the suggested reading of its entries on figure #1. Note that I have been playing with the values of fractional signs a lot, slightly altering some of the traditionally assigned numbers. Although nothing is set in stone yet, this is something that I plan to make a separate post later on. I will not mention the details here: everything comes at its own time.

The first entry of KH11 starts with the word A-DU-RE-ZA. It has two possible interpretations: first of all, it could be a pair of separate words: A-DU RE-ZA (transaction term + toponym). But it is more probable that the table refers to persons instead of places (due to the small quantity of goods mentioned). This could also happen if A-DU-RE-ZA (as a single word) was a personal name or title somehow derived from DU-RE-ZA (mentioned on KH20, also recurring on ZA10 and ZA20 in the form DU-RE-ZA-SE), another place-name. On KH11, every donor (person?) delivers an array of different goods, often with small, fractional quantities. The most important of them was marked with the logogram *303. Based on the context of other tablets (e.g. KH6, KH7) and the shape of the sign, it must have been an important foodstuff for humans and animals alike, most likely a type of grain: barley. Two common variants exist in Linear A: the bare *303 sign - that I labelled HOR (Latin hordeum = barley) - and "fractionalized" variants, for example HOR+1/4. The meaning of the latter is unclear, though the GRA sign (grain: likely wheat) also somes with similar fractional ligatures. Another type of goods was labelled with *306. This sign is mostly phonetical in Linear A, with the possible value WO (same as Lin B WO). But on the KH tablets, it also denotes a type of agricultural goods. It comes in integer quantities only, and *306 looks like an animal head, so I assigned it the reading donkey, ASI (Latin asinus = donkey). Other tablets from Khania (e.g KH 6) also list animals with portions of barely - usually, it cannot be decided whether the barely was a low-quality one, used as fodder, or intended for human consumption.

Although the sign Lin A *303 is slightly dissimilar in shape to the Linear B sign denoting barley, it still very closely resembles a purely phonetic sign: Linear B MO. Immediately in the second line of KH11, we also see a series of two *303 signs next to each other. This is almost impossible to explain as pure logograms. Godart & Olivier noted that one of these signs contains a tiny extra stroke, so they designated it as a new sign, *348. Nevertheless, its graphic image does not support the distinction. Also, why would one repeat the same type of goods from one donor three times over? It is way more sensible therefore, to read these *303 signs not as HOR, but with a phonetic value: MO. This yields a new name in the second line: MO-RO-MO (the middle sign should be RO instead of fraction B). This is the first time we see a genuine MO (= Lin B *15) in Linear A.

And the tablet just keeps giving surprises. In the third line, we can read another name, transliterated by J. Younger as A-TO-*349-TO-I.The penultimate sign is damaged, so we cannot meaningfully decide whether it was indeed TO or NA instead. But the one identified as *349 looks fairly similar to the Linear B JO sign: especially with its "wavy" shaft. It is generally dissimilar to anything other in Linear A, except perhaps the very peculiar TO sign on the vessel KN10 (that could also be a JO, by the way). So now we have another name with a lot of 'o' sounds in it, probably A-TO-JO-TO-I. Serious caution is adviced, though, before defining a new sign-class from a single occurrance. The Linear B JO sign is also possible to derive - by simplification - from other signs, most prominently Lin A *310. At the same time, *349 could also be a regular *301 sign, to which the scribe simply forgot to add a vertical stroke. This would support a reading A-TO-WE-TO-I instead (very putatively: *Αρτοϝενθοι from Ancient Greek αρτος, bread - see the discussion later).

The last full word on the tablet is equally interesting: It starts with an A, surely enough. The second sign is a hastely written SU (and probably not TA). The third sign - for some inexplicable reasons - was given a unique identifier (*350) by Godart: I am not sure why, because it looks like a good-enough PU sign for me. The last syllabogram of this word is the well-known *301 - in its "wavy" variant. It does not only look like Linear B WE, but also gives a meaningful reading this way: the word is thus A-SU-PU-WE - known from other Linear A tablets in different forms (A-SU-PU-WA on ARKH2 and A-SI-SU-PO-A on KH9). Judged by the context (no logogram follows it), it is probably a transaction term - I have no better idea.

The conclusion that *301 can in fact be read as WE also receives a nice reinforcement from another source: The inscribed vessel TY Zb4 shows a correcture *306 → *301. Although it was probably incorrect (the form *306-KI-TA or WO-KI-TA is known from other sources), the error was not particularly big if *301 was indeed WE. This also means that we can now finally read the first words of the libation formulae in full. Although A-TA-I-WE-WA-JA or TA-NA-I-WE-U-TI-NU are a bit unexpected due to the high frequency of semivowels, we have no real reason to dismiss this reading. It is also possible that one or more additional consonants were ommitted here. Just remember that clusters like *-rw- also get simplified to *-w- in Linear B (c.f. KO-WO from *korwos = boy). If one observes carefully, the shape of Lin A *301 also shows a clear evolution. The earlier (Middle Minoan) verson is still similar to its Hieroglyphic ancestor (the "adze"-figure), while the Late Minoan versions are gradually becoming more-and-more similar to a "dollar" character. They are also frequently mirrored all the time. Finally, the central shaft is ommitted, and we have the snake-like Linear B *75 = WE sign!

But how can we interpret all these unusual names on KH11? Their most prominent feature - the one that triggered the use of "rare signs" - is the high frequency of 'o' vowels. This is uncommon in Minoan contexts, but it is perfectly what we would expect if their bearers were Mycaenean Greeks. Indeed, this tablet (as all the Khania tablets) comes from the end of the Late Minoan Ib period (approx. 1425 BC). This was a time of great turmoil, war and destruction on Crete: many of the cities were burnt to the ground, never to be re-settled again. And even in those that remained inhabited, the subsequent appearence of Linear B inscriptions (in early Greek) points to a shift of power - to a centralized Mycaenean administration controlled by a Greek-speaking aristocracy. While the destruction on the eastern end of the island was severe at the end of LMIb, the transition was probably less violent in the west (note that Khania as well as other settlements remained inhabited without a major break). And it is perfectly possible that some Greek individuals were already present on the island in the LMI era, well before a major wave of continental Greeks reached and settled on Crete in the LMII period. Linear B itself is more-or-less a straight continuation of the (150 years earlier) late Linear A script, without any major changes to the phonetic values, ortography, or the shapes of the signs. This gives hope that - one nice day - the phonetic values behind even the most mysterious Linear A signs will be deciphered.

"My Lady Rhea"

2011-07-16T04:00:00.000-07:00

It happens every day. A celebrated scientist discovers something, makes up a daring theory and finds initial proof. Then the theory begins to spread to all corners of the world. More and more scientists support it. Younger generations may take it as an axiom. Everyone is happy; and then it is suddenly disproven. In my area of expertise: molecular biology, I have seen countless theories born, flourish and finally crumble to dust, even in our lab. And no one is immune to such fallacies. In fact, I would be overjoyed to get 1/10 of my experiments to actually see publication. Similarly, I would be very happy if I knew that just 10% of the things I stated in this blog would stand the test of time. But without preconceptions, no research can be truely successful; and they say no pain, no gain. So here am I again to share some bits of my research with you.

Eteocretan language is a difficult subject to study. Partly because there are very few inscriptions known, most of them are fragmentary, and both the vocabulary and grammar are quite exotic. The hardships of understanding even bits of it even prompted some scholars to reject any connections between Minoan (i.e. the language underlying Linear A) and Eteocretan. This was an utterly unwise idea: after all, where could Eteocretan stem from if not from the earlier, Pre-Greek inhabitants of the Aegean? And indeed, I keep stumbling upon more purely Minoan phrases in Eteocretan inscriptions, the more I look. The very provocative title I gave to this post is none other than the preliminary translation of the Eteocretan phrase TUPRMĒRIĒIA. I shall show in my current post that each and every part of the phrase Tupṛ mē-Riēya is of Minoan stock, and - what is more - clearly attested in Bronze-age Cretan scripts!

There are less than a dozen Eteocretan inscriptions, and none of them are complete. All of them come from the eastern half of Crete, from Dreros and Praisos. It is likely that Eteocretan was already a language in decline by the time these texts were composed, as many are bilingual in Greek. But the Greek halves of the Drerian inscriptions are actually a great help to understand (at least roughly) the meaning of these texts, even the Eteocretan parts. Although I am referring to these texts as being bilingual, this does not imply that the two halves are always word-by-word translations.

My attention was drawn to one of the Drerian inscriptions (#2). These texts are all written in an archaic Greek alphabet, and thus easily legible. Unfortunately, this small piece of stone is weathered and the letters are heavily damaged. Only one line of the Eteocretan text survived: this ends with the phrase TUPRMĒRIĒIA. We know that this is a complete Eteocretan word, because the inscription does contain word-dividers. Dreros #2 is actually a bilingual inscription, the lower half being composed in Doric Greek. The Greek part is also damaged, but still largely legible; according to van Effenterre, it is a religious oath. The Greek formula does not contain the name of any deity; yet that might be present in the Eteocretan text, since they are not necessarily strict translations of each other (the Eteocretan one looks much shorter). After doing some research and extensive comparisons with Minoan finds, I came to the conclusion that the word TUPRMĒRIĒIA might be this missing invocation.

Let us consider the first half of this phrase. We may separate the part Tupṛ - as we know from other examples, that Eteocretan allowed syllabic sonorants. The reason to do so is that there exists a similar word in Minoan libation formulae, traditionally transliterated as DU-PU2-RE. There are many ambiguities with its reading: the precise value of the Minoan D-series is disputed (*d? *t? *th? *dh?), and we know that RE can stand for both *-re and *-le. But we also know that PU2 certainly had a special value, as it stands for *phu or *bu in Linear B, but never for a simple *pu. It is also possible, that the sound it used to mark was partially voiced in Minoan as well, explaining its use in the word reconstructed as *duphre.

In his fundamental article about the Minoan language, the Portuguese scholar Miguel Valério made a crucial discovery about the phrase DU-PU2-RE. Several Anatolian languages used similar words: *tapar(riya)- meant 'to rule' in Luwian and taparnas (or dabarnas) was the title of Hittite kings. The latter also comes in a variant laparnas (labarnas): both the stem and its mutations are similar to the one observed in Greek λαβύρινθος (vs. Mycaenean DA-PU2-RI-TO-JO • PO-TI-NI-JA, referring to a sanctuary near Knossos). Since the Labyrinth is consistently associated with Crete, we may safely assume that this word entered the Mycaenean language as a loan-word form Minoan. Thus it is not just possible, but outright expected to see related stems in Minoan texts. Therefore Valério's explanation for the phrase DU-PU2-RE as a form closely related or identical to Anatolian *tapar- (or *dabar-) is likely correct.

There is also an account of ancient Greek authors on the temple of Zeus Labraundos in Caria, citing that λάβρυς denoted "double-axe" in the local language. I do not know if there is any connection between labrys and the modern middle-eastern (Persian, Indian) term for battle-axe: tabar, but to compare a word for 'ruler' with 'axe' could be a conflation of similarly-sounding words from the side of the Greeks. Yet this question is currently far from being solved.

Given the roots of DU-PU2-RE, Valério gave a translation 'lord', 'ruler' or 'master'. This raw translation may now be refined further. The phrase DU-PU2-RE is not an independent word: it forms a part of compound phrases like JA-DI-KI-TE-TE-DU-PU2-RE. In this word, the first half is a geographic term: Mount Dikte. But in Linear B, the term DI-KA-TA is used in a much more restricted sense: it refers to a particular sanctuary on Dikte (maybe near the cave of Psychro). So (J)A-DI-KI-TE-TE-DU-PU2-RE is more likely a religious title and not referring to a king. There is also clear evidence, that both A-DI-KI-TE-TE (e.g. there is the phrase A-DI-KI-TE-TE-?-KE-RE on PKZa11) and DU-PU2-RE (see PA-TA-DA-DU-PU2-RE on HTZb160, where PA-TA-DA is another place-name) can combine with other words. Hence there can be no doubt of their separate nature.

We also know that Minoan probably had no grammatical genders. They even used the same base logogram for men and women: this would have been impossible in Mycaenean, and indeed, Linear B has separate signs for women and men. But if there was indeed no gender distinction in Minoan, then why not read DU-PU2-RE as 'lady' or 'mistress'? And it might not be a reference to just any lady, but to a goddess. Those who were hunting for divine names in the Libation Formula can now rejoice: after all, JA-DI-KI-TE-TE-DU-PU2-RE (*i-Adiktete-Duphre) may now be read as 'that of the Lady from the Dikte'. If some titles (especially divine titles) were used in the same form for males and females alike, that could explain the confusion of Egyptian scribes, and why they referred to Minoan goddesses *Amaya and *Raziya as male gods in the Keftiu-incantations.

In correspondence with the above concept, all inscriptions that contain the term JA-DI-KI-TE-TE-DU-PU2-RE also present a chain of hapax legomena (names?) right afterwards it. This helps to explain the uncomfortable situation that the "Mistress of the Dikte" stands on a place in these formulae, which is normally occupied by toponyms (clearly donors and not recipients). But I still have to concede it to Glen Gordon, that these expressions only work if we allowed the recipient to take an *-e ending, normally expected for a donor in the original theory. Thus the expression A-PA-RA-NE • QA-ZI-RA-RE [HT96] probably has *Aplan as a recipient (but literally, it is: "of Aplan, from the chieftaindom"): only this proposition would allow to identify that name with the Greek theonym Ἀπόλλων (or Roman Apollo).

Staying by divine names, this is where the Phaistos Disc comes into sight. We cannot make out much yet of its very unique-styled Minoan inscription. But one thing seems probable: certain words that are marked with an additional wedge, seem to be names. One of such terms reads as RA2-*07 (the sign Pha *07 cannot be read with any certainty). It also returns in the form MA-RA2-*07, where *MA- seems to be a prefix element (it is seen on other words on the Disc and - albeit very rarely - in Hieroglyphics). This prefixed form is actually very similar to the second half of TUPRMĒRIĒIA: which is probably *mē-Riēya. The correspondence of Eteocretan *ē to Minoan *ā could be pretty regular, if its vowels developed similarly to early Greek ones. The core stem (Rya-*07 on the Disc and Rieya here) also displays a high similarity with the classic Greek theonym Rhea. Two things are worth noting: first of all, the Cretan forms have a consistent *ry- cluster in their stem, what the Greek version lacks. Second, we cannot make out the value of that missing Pha *07 sign that easily, as the contemporary Egyptian rendering of this name: R-ṯ3-jj (perhaps *Ratsiya) warns us of a potential stop consonant in the original stem. This was probably lenitioned out and lost in later stages of the Minoan language, but might still be seen on Middle Minoan relics. I am not going into irresponsible guessings here, but the value of Pha *07 could be either 'TA', 'TI' or even 'SI'.

Prefixes are frequently seen in Linear A and seem to be an intergral part of the Minoan language. These might also be clitics or simply, irregularly-written short particles. Nevertheless, they are often difficult to interpret. Because prefixes combine freely with suffixes (e.g. locative, elative or ablative cases), any theory that seeks to explain these as a marker of just another regular case (say, dative) runs into a serious trouble. Based on extant languages that use both prefixes and suffixes at the same time on nouns (e.g. the Mesoamerican Nahuatl language, or certain Caucasian languages), a separation of roles is expected: if suffixes express directionalty and location, it is probable that prefixes would instead be pronominal in nature.

This is also what the study of potentially related languages hints at. While Minoan Linear A shows prefixes *i- (that looks like a generic deictic / connector) and *a- (that seems to refer to persons only), Etruscan has third person pronouns in the forms in (inanimate version, 'it') and an (animate version,'he'/'she'). Even so, the reading of rare prefixes, like *ma- remains uncertain. But if all prefix-like elements are indeed pronouns (which is a big assumption), then *ma- could plausibly be a first person possessive pronoun ('my') in an enclitic form. Note that verbs take personal markings as suffixes (e.g. KA-NI-JA-MI [CRZf1] or KA-NI-JA-SI [PKZa12] - both verbal forms of KA-NA [HT23], 'gift'), not as prefixes. As with all novel decipherment attempts, the reading of Tupṛ mē-Riēya remains unconfirmed: we still need more insight, especially into the nature of prefix elements before we can either confirm or reject this explanation.

Update:
I realized that I was not paying enough attention to a particular detail. Even if we posit a form *dabrwintha as ancestral to λαβύρινθος, we still have to count with two different, but related Cretan stems: *daphr- and *duphr-. While this was not impossible in Minoan (e.g. *qazil vs. *qizil), it adds an unnecessary level of complexity to the problem. By the same virtue, we may also suppose that these two stems were unrelated to each other. Note that other explanations also exist for *duphr-: for example, Glen Gordon has equated the Eteocretan tupr with the Etruscan word θuφ - which he proposed to read as "oath". Although I cannot say that the meaning of θuφ is certain to any extent, it is still insteresting to observe that θuφ also - very characteristically - stands as an epithet to the sky-god Tinia in one of his many roles ("Tin θuf").

Those "bloody" Minoans...

2011-07-05T14:00:00.000-07:00

For my next post, we are going to discuss yet another popular topic: the forms and possible meaning of word A-SA-SA-RA-ME. It is also time for me to get my hand dirty, since I have never seen so many ill-fitting translations of Minoan phrases that was given for this poor little word. Now is the time to try and find better explanation(s).

Up to date most (all?) theories aspire to read (J)A-SA-SA-RA-ME as some sort of divine name. Apart from some (phonologically and semantically) really implausible explanations, there are two main problems with this theory. First of all, the term (J)A-SA-SA-RA-ME is very common: found on almost all objects of ritual context: on libation tables, on sacrificial vessels, on a statue and even on a silver pin, a total of at least 16 times. A little bit too common, if you ask me. Given the highly polytheistic nature of almost all bronze-age religions (as also evidenced by both Linear A and B tablets), this is not what we would expect if it were a theonym. The only religious term in Linear B that could match this high frequency would be PO-TI-NI-JA. This is, however, not a proper name, but a title ('lady', 'mistress') appended to the names of most if not all the goddesses invoked.

The other problem is the baffling word-formation observed on the stone vessel KNZa10, where a derived case: JA-SA-SA-RA-MA-NA can be read. The *-na ending seen here is suspiciously similar to the one seen on words expressing ethnic origin (Phraisona = 'from Praisos' in Eteocretan or PA3-NI-NA = 'from PA3-NI' in Linear A) and on innumerable Pre-Greek place-names (mostly hellenized to *-nos). This could be explained as a 'pertinentive adjective', also found (in the same form) in other Aegean languages, such as Etruscan. Such a derived form is not what we would expect if (J)A-SA-SA-RA-ME were a proper name. After all, the Greek priests would have given offerings to Zeus (or perhaps even of Zeus), but probably not Zeusian offerings. But it does not exclude a reading as a more generic term (even as an epithet). I am yet to see examples of a language that prefers to cite the very names of divinites in an adjectival form when speaking about sacrifices. If you have any good examples, I would appreciate if you could share them with me.

To this end, I looked up the word isḫassaras in the Etymological Dictionary of the Hittite Inherited Lexicon (here is a link for the online pdf version). This is the so-far best match in any other language, based on its form and meaning - if we stick with the original 'theonymy' theory. Isḫassara- is a compound stem, made up from isḫa- = 'lord' and the feminizing suffix -sara-, thus meaning 'lady'. None of its parts have a particularly good Indo-European etymology. But to derive A-SA-SA-RA-ME from this word, we have to conjecture a formative (*-ma). Does isḫassara- admit further derivations in Hittite? Much to my surprise, it does: we even have an adjective isḫassarwant- = 'lordly'. This could also potentially make our first theory work: after all, the sacrifices offered on the stone altars could have been 'lordly', 'noble' or 'divine' in a sense of either the donor (official), the circumstance (feast) or the recipient (divinity). To get this, we have to conjecture a chain of derivative suffixes on the stem of JA-SA-SA-RA-MA-NA (*-m(a)-na), not mentioning the pronominal prefix element *i- my readers are likely already familiar with.

The fact that a Minoan word can admit multiple formatives in a long chain is not an isolated phenomenon. Let us consider the word-formation in I-PI-NA-MI-NA-TE, a word seen on the sacrificial stone-vessel APZa2. This single word is enough to illustrate
the polysynthetic tendency of the Minoan language. The base stem appears to be *ip(i). Let's say (as a simple assumption - based on earlier considerations) that *ip meant 'blood'. Then *ipna would mean 'bloody' (adjective in *-na), *ipnama would be 'bloodletting' (*-ma ending: expressing action?), thus *ipnaməna 'bloodletting cup' (the same *-na formative again). and finally *ipnamənate(n) = 'from (this) bloodletting cup': a regular elative (suffix *-(a)te(n)). I wrote *-te(n) instead of just *-te, to connect this ending with the Classic Greek elative case in -θεν and the Hurrian ablative ending *-tan, as they could be related forms (due to a linguistic areal effect). Also, to explain the *-i- (*-ə-?) vowel, we have to keep in mind that many of the Minoan suffixes appear to intrude into the stem they fit on, deleting or re-colouring (i.e. *a→*i) any stem-vowels they collide with.

It is also possible that the -i- (*-ə-?) vowel was only inserted into the word I-PI-NA-MI-NA to make the *-mn- cluster easily pronounceable. In a number of cases, a (helper?) -i- vowel is seen, that has been deleted in others: the most famous example could be KU-NI-SU (= Knossos?): here, the methathesis is already seen in the Linear B version: KO-NO-SO (due to the spelling rules, this cannot be any other form, just Knossos). That is only possible if KU-NI-SU was also pronounced as *Kunəsu and even as *Kunsu in real life.

Before discarding this (highly hypothetic) derivation, one should also look at some Hittite grammar-books for parallels: the Anatolian stem esḫar- (= 'blood') is derivatized in a comparable way : although the formatives themselves are different, the result is fairly similar. Thus isḫarnumae- actually means 'to make bloody'. In Luwian, the related word: asḫarnummai- may translate similarly: 'be covered in blood'.

And thus we have arrived to the point to discuss a second theory about the meaning of A-SA-SA-RA-ME. It will be more in-line with the contemporary Minoan customs, but probably less pleasing to a faint-hearted reader. This possible explanation would be to compare A-SA-SA-RA-ME with the hieroglyphic Luwian word asḫarmis (plural: a-sa-ḫa+ra-mi-sa) = 'offering', 'sacrifice' (or similar). Hittitologists tend to connect this word with Luwian asḫar- = 'blood', thus *asḫar-m-is- originally meaning 'bloody sacrifice'. Whatever its orginal etymology was, it was used in a bit more generic sense in the Karkamiš inscriptions, since at least one of its mentions (see the figure) also involves sacrifice of bread, not just animals. Given the number of phrases in Minoan with possible Anatolian cognates, we should not be surprised to see yet another one added to the list. While the gemination of SA syllables is definitely problematic in Minoan (we must assume a development *-asḫa- → *-asaḫa- → *-asasa- upon borrowing - as Minoan might not have had the consonant ḫ) and its stem-ending is different, a generic meaning 'sacrifice' would fit exceptionally well with *A-SA-SA-RA-M-. Should this identification be true, A-SA-SA-RA-ME could mean 'of sacrifice' and conversely A-SA-SA-RA-MA-NA 'sacrificial'. This could easily explain the universal use of these terms in religious contexts.

The fact that Minoans practiced animal sacrifices regularly, is well-evidenced by archeological finds in and around many sanctuaries. The public altar found in the courtyard of Gournia could have served a smilar purpose as Ian Swindale has suggested (and it might be true to the site of Mallia as well). The spectacular Haghia Triada sacrophagus also depicts such a scene on one of its sides (see figure): Here, the priestess - dressed in a ceremonial robe and a crown with feathers - collects the blood of the sacrificed cow into a conical vessel, quite similar to the inscribed stone cup APZa2. The blood is presumed as having been poured onto the altar-stone by the same three figures, as shown on the opposite side of the sacrophagus. The slaughter of animals was just a small part of religious feasts. The meat was likely roasted or cooked and was offered as a communal meal for all participants (gathered outside the temple - one thing the large squares in the Minoan city-centres were exceptionally good for). Ceremonies of this sort were commonplace in Classic Greece, where they lasted for multiple days, and encompassed processions, sacred chants and drama sessions (in theatre), sports competitions, etc. These festivities also appear to be very similar in core to the (pagan) Old English Blót.

There is also a "dark side" of Minoan customs we should not ommit the mention of. The deep discordance of Middle Minoan arcaeological finds (when animal sacrifice was common), and the Linear B archives of Knossos, that clearly avoids any mentions of bloody sacrifices, cries out for an answer. Because regular animal sacrifice was mentioned at Pylos, this must have been a specifically Cretan trend. One cannot dismiss the deduction that the avoidance of bloody rites was a kind of "rebound", in response to the morally repugnant practice of human sacrifice on Crete, rarely, but definitely seen in both Middle and Late Minoan archaelogical contexts. As in Pylos, this kind of action was likely a "last resort": only executed in times of great calamities. If there is any historical basis of Greek myths, in particular the legend of the Minotaur, we may assume that it were the early Greeks who put an end to the Minoans' unsavoury willingness to sacrifice young boys and girls to their gods if their outlooks on war were grim. But as it was just a far-flung extension of the annual, usual religious ceremonies involving animal slaughter and feasting, the Greek rulers might have opted to suppress these customs altogether. Though they probably did not die out, as the sacrificial scenes on the Haghia Triada sacrophagus suggest - this marvellous piece of Cretan art was clearly made under the late Mycaenean era (ca. 1370-1320 BC).

'Governor' in Minoan - the origins of Greek Βασιλεύς

2011-06-27T16:00:00.000-07:00

Hello again, dear readers! To keep the interest in this little blog, I have decided to leave the topic of toponyms for a while, and cruise into foreign waters. One thing the classification of Linear A terms was exceptionally good for - to get those words, which are (with high probability) not toponyms. But it is not chaff that remained in our hands after gleaning out the place-names. Rather, it is a handful of gems. We shall see, that some of these terms turn out to be administrative titles, that - by finding their original phonetic values - can be identified with Mycaenean and even Modern Greek words!

One term in question traditionally reads as QA-*118, and has a clearly related word in the form QI-*118. Although these terms are mentioned all across the island (Haghia Triada, Khania, Archanes, Zakros), they never occur on place-name lists. Instead, they look a lot like titles, especially QI-*118, that typically stands alongside hapax legomena (one-time terms, highly likely personal names).

But how do these terms read? To get an idea, we have to go back to one of the earlier posts, where I suggested the Lin A *118 / Lin B *83 sign to be read with a value ZI (based on the identity of place-names DA-SI-*118 / DA-*83-JA). Plugging this value into the cited titles yields readings QA-ZI and QI-ZI. This is nice, but we are not done yet: There are still a few mentions of derived cases from QA-ZI - with some strange extensions. They had to be set apart from the common *i- prefix that likely denotes a deictic or connector ('that', 'which', 'what') - frequently seen on initial words or in longer phrases.

On HT70 we can read a form QA-*118-[*]: the sign on the place of the asterisk could equally have been SA or RE (undecidable, since a breakage line runs straight through it). On the other hand, HT96 clearly gives a form QA-*118-RA-RE. Here the sudden occurrance of an -R- after QA-ZI implies that the stem word ended with a consonant (*-r or *-l), simply ommitted due to the Linear A writing conventions. It is only seen here because of the addition of the *-(a)le suffix onto the stem: that case-ending is supported by a number of other Minoan words (e.g. compare JA-MI-DA-RE [HT122, toponym on a list] with A-MI-DA-U [ZA10, the same toponym on another list]).

This is the point when one would suddenly feel enlightned: After all, the form QA-ZI-R is almost exactly the same as the Mycaenean (Linear B) QA-SI-RE-U, meaning 'village chieftain' or 'governor'. Actually, it is also the same stem what the Greek word for 'king': βασιλεύς (or modern Greek βασιλιάς) shows! The Pre-Greek origin of basileus / QA-SI-RE-U was already suggested by many linguists, yet no one was able to pin-point the origins of the stem. Now we have a plausible ancestor, for the first time!

It has to be mentioned though, that there are a lot of phonological ambiguities regarding both QA-SI-RE-U and QA-ZI. The Z-series probably expressed affricates (*ts), however, this is not a 100% proven fact. The interpretation of the Q-series is even more difficult: while they probably stand for *kw or *gw in the Mycaenean texts, no one can be sure of their Minoan values: this could theoretically be *kw, *gw, *g, *ḫw or even *ḫ. Therefore I will henceforth render these terms in my article with their traditional values (e.g. *qasileus instead of *gwasileus and *qazil instead of any other speculative value).

Going back to the Linear A tablets, the lists clearly support the important role of *qazil: for example, on HT96, more than 40 units of grain are noted (approx. 1300 litres, if measured by volume: a high quantity for a person compared to other tablets) as being donated by the *qazil. The first term in the sequence A-PA-RA-NE • QA-ZI-RA-RE specifies the circumstance or the recipient of this donation, and may possibly be connected with the theonym Apollon (who might have received gifts from the *qazil). HT131 also reports a considerable quantity (58 units) of grain as paid by the QA-ZI. On ARKH2 (see figure), a particularly concise list can be found: the first two entries probably refer to inhabitants of a place *Sidata, that returns in the second line in the form A-SI-DA-TO-I. It is speculative, but based on the form of toponyms found on jars (e.g. A-[WO]-KI-TA-A vs. WO-KI-TA or A-TU-RI-SI-TI vs. TU-RU-SA) it could denote an ethnic in a grammatically strange way (by the addition of an *a- prefix ('who'?) and a locative or similar suffix simulateously). It is the 3rd line where we see a combination of a personal name and the title QI-ZI.

One thing remains problematic, though: In linear B, we have the terms QA-SI-RE-U (*qasileus, 'governor') and QA-SI-RE-WI-JA (*qasilewiya, 'governance'), while Linear A shows the forms QA-ZI (*qazil) and QI-ZI (*qizil). The variation of the Linear A forms looks pretty regular and they are clearly not dialectal variants (e.g. both forms are attested from Khania, compare KH10 with KH88), just like their Linear B parallels. Now, which one is which? The troblesome question of assignment is fortunately eased by the context the terms are mentioned at. In Linear B, QA-SI-RE-U would normally attract a nominative case, if mentioned together with the name of the official (which is rare), while QA-SI-RE-WI-JA typically stands alongside personal names in genitives (as the example from Knossos: SE-TO-I-JA • SU-KE-RE-O • QA-SI-RE-WI-JA [As(2)1516] shows).

In Linear A, QA-ZI mostly stands alone, without a name (on all mentions at HT). Only a single tablet from Khania [KH10] mentions a longer statement, namely: I-PA-SA-JA • QA-ZI • A-KI-PI-E-TE. While I-PA-SA-JA could be an adjectival term of PA-SE - a word common at Haghia Triada (with the *i- prefix and a *-ja suffix added, resulting in a phrase 'that(the)-[PA-SE]-ian') - it is unlikely that this would refer to a place. Yet it could easily parallel the names standing in genitive as seen in Linear B. At the same time, the hapax term A-KI-PI-E-TE could be a toponym by the virtue of its elative *-(a)te suffix. On the other hand, the phrase QI-ZI regularly (always) stands alongside personal names of various endings, as another tablet-header from Khania [KH88] illustrates: QA-NU-MA • QI-ZI. Since there is no trace of any grammatical ending on those names, it is tempting to believe that QI-ZI was the title itself (= QA-SI-RE-U), while QA-ZI refers to the office (= QA-SI-RE-WI-JA). This is also what the Greek terms would suggest; so the person who led a *qazil was simply called *qasileus.

Our identification also has far-reaching ramifications regarding the origins of the Greek suffix *-εύς. Here, the opinion of the scholars is still deeply divided: some cling to it being a genuine Greek grammatical element, while others (especially Beekes) proposed it to be a loaned structure. But we now see that - while the stem of words in *-εύς might be of foreign origin - this suffix appears to be a normal part of the Myceaenean Greek (but not of the Minoan) language.

A very interesting parallel to the word βασιλεύς could be the stem of the name Ὀδυσσεύς. Although Classic Greek may also offer (a somewhat artificial) etymology for Odysseus, it is widely believed to be a Pre-Greek loanword. The theories on its origins have not yet reached a conclusive result. As for me, I find it interesting to compare the name Ὀδυσσεύς with the prehellenic place-name *Udweza - found in Linear A as U-DE-ZA or U-DWE-ZA (there were likely multiple towns by this name across the Aegean). The *-εύς ending could have been added by the Achaian Greeks, then. Yet it is nothing but a weak parallel - because frankly, we know nothing of the true meaning of *Udweza, and thus cannot fit it with the usual 'agentive' meaning of *-εύς. I can only hope that more examples of hellenized Minoan words will be uncovered in the future, to enlighten us in these matters.

Place-names on Cretan sealstones - A key to the decipherment of Minoan Hieroglyphics?

2011-06-18T10:00:00.000-07:00

There is one last post I would like to append to my long series on bronze-age Cretan place-names. This one will encompass some fairly new research into the oldest relics of Minoan writing. I am struggling to make it simple, so I hope you will find it interesting even without being a professional in ancient writing systems.

In my previous post, I mentioned that some words found on Cretan hieroglyphic seals can be interpreted as place-names. I also made a number of assumptions when reading toponyms in Linear A. For example, one of the place-names was reconstructed there as *306-KI-TA, from barely two occurrences of the name - both texts were damaged, and they were showing derived cases only. This would have left this toponym highly tentative - until now.

While browsing the database for Cretan hieroglyphic seals, to either confirm or dismiss the idea about reading place-names on sealstones, I came across specimen CHIC302. This single seal presents a word WO-KI-TA - a toponym in its "base" case, just as it was predicted from Linear A! To get this reading, some very simple rules have to be kept in mind: The sealstone is actually a multi-faceted bar. It was drilled in the middle, in order to be worn on a necklace by the owner. When used to "sign" a document, the bar was rotated on a flat layer of clay (by an indefinite number of times), to give a continuous impression. Therefore the sign-groups on each facet are not independent from each other. On the contrary: they give a coherent text from the start until the end, with many of the words "overflowing" from one side to another. There are no word-divisors to help us, just small "start signs" to emphasize the direction of reading. In most cases, the inscriptions turn out to be boustrophedons: The signs are arranged in the most economic way possible, and their direction reverses (alternates) each line.

On the cited sealstone (CHIC302), there is only one facet that has a start sign on it. Therefore it is concieveable that reading has to be started there. While the introductory term is found on certain other seals with longer text, we do not have any hint on its meaning. On the other hand, the second side clearly presents a hapax: a one-time word, suggesting that this is a personal name. The immediately following term consists of three signs, and it is reasonably common on other seals as well. Although the value of the middle sign is uncertain, a potential reading could be JA-RA-RE. In some seals, it returns as JA-RA only (basic case?). I labelled it secondary title, to reflect the fact that it is not an obligatory component of any sealstone, and found only on a fraction of them - but there, it can also substitute a personal name. Next comes the term WO-KI-TA (split between two facets) - this is clearly a place-name, based on Linear A parallels, and could be an early reference to Lyttos. The last two signs make up an incredibly common word - found on most seals. This is what I call primary title. Despite the fancy name, I have no idea of its precise reading or meaning: it could have designated an impersonal entity as well ("polity", "kingdom", "province", etc.)

Perhaps it is useful to make a de-tour from the topic, and examine the Eteocretan material for parallels. Unfortunately, Eteocretan inscriptions are few and far between, and most of them are pretty fragmentary. Yet one of the Praisian stone slabs offers us a particularly interesting insight to the sequence seen on CHIC302. On the second line of the stone, the following sequence can be read (in Ionic letters): ?δο??ιαραλαφραισοιιναι. Unfortunately there is no word separation; yet - if we follow van Effenterre's considerations - we can be almost sure that the word *inai was separate. This phrase is also seen on a bilingual Drerian inscription, where it seems to parallel the Doric Greek verb εϝαδε = "(it) pleased", "(it was) decided", "(it) came to pass that". If so, it is most plausible that it be preceded by a name or a title - or even a series of them. That phrase could have been either *?doph? iarala Phraisoi (this is the most straightforward one) or *?doph? iaral Aphraisoi (this is what Linear A parallels suggest - c.f. SI-DA-TE vs. A-SI-DA-TO-I, both on ARKH2). In either case, the term *iaral(a) could correspond to our "secondary title" JA-RA-RE. Note that there is not a single occurrance with an initial A-, so the J- initial was probably part of the stem, and not an attached prefix particle. That would make it similar to the Greek word ἱερός (='holy'), despite the fact that ἱερός has a good Indo-European etymology: It is thought to stem from PIE *(e)is-əro = 'exalted one', making any connections to the Minoan title *yara-(a)le very dubious.

CHIC302 is not the only seal that features toponyms. There are at least a dozen seals with comparably long inscriptions. But the scarcity of signs with easily identifiable Linear A counterparts severely limits our reading capability. Four other seals exist that feature the term KI-TA-NA or its derivatives. CHIC295 has a fairly similar composition of names and titles as we have seen before. The text is also a boustrophedon - this is highlighted by the "start signs", featured in every line. The only interesting feature of this seal is the presence of not one, but two primary titles. Conversely, the second title seems to be declined - as it possesses both a prefix (the MA- prefix seen on the Phaistos Disc) and a suffix (perhaps -SE or -RI). However, I can offer no guide on whatever these might mean.

Some caution is yet to be exercised; in spite of the plausibility of these readings. I have intentionally selected seals that have a relatively clear composition and direction of reading. Many of the seals are not so easily cracked: they are full of artistic ligatures, complicated circular arrangements of signs, and decorative placeholders - that might look like signs - while they are in fact nullities - fancy decorations only. Sometimes they are even inserted in the middle of a line - making the job of the reader really hard.

This problem also applies to sealstone CHIC260: a nice triangle-based prism with rather clear figures. The reading of the first line is however, dubious: it depends on whether we regard the simple, circular drill as a sign (Hiero *73, probably QE, giving the name JA-QE-RA), or a nullity, in which case the remaining signs form a "secondary title" JA-RA. In the second and the third line, an already familiar term is found: these signs read KI-TA-NA-SI, a declined form of KI-TA-NA, similar to what is seen in Linear A on the pithos PEZb3: KI-TA-NA-SI-JA-SE. Finally, the last two signs give the same "primary title" as seen on all our previous examples. We can see that in this case, reading is linear: this is due to the mathematical impossibility to make an infinite but regular boustrophedon from an odd base number of sides on the prism to be rotated.

No matter how many sealstones exist in the museums of the world (CHIC260 and CHIC302 can be seen in life at the Metropolitan Museum, New York, while CHIC295 resides on Crete, in the Iraklio Museum), the find-spots of specimens are rarely known. This is because they are valuable, and can be looted rather easily from tombs. Therefore we do not know where CHIC302 hails from: but it could have been plundered off Kastelli hill (the site of ancient Lyktos). Out of the four seals which feature KI-TA-NA, only two has a known provenience: CHIC238 comes from Mochlos and CHIC310 was found near Sitia. Looking at the map where these places lie shows a spectacular overlap with Linear A inscriptions containing KI-TA-NA: all these spots concentrate in a well defined area of easternmost Crete. While the vessels tell only little of history and geography (as they are traded freely), the presence of sealstones with the same city-name over a wider area paints a more definite picture on the political landscape of eastern Crete. It could easily imply that the towns at Mochlos and Sitia - and perhaps Palaikastro, Praisos and Makryghialos as well - fell under the same single authority. Given the impressive size of its city-center ("palace"), that central authority could not have been other than the polity of Zakros.

Based upon this realization, I slightly amended the map of Prof. Metaxia Tsipopoulou: the spread of references to KI-TA-NA implies that Eastern Crete was a politically unified entity, not a collection of rivalling city-states as previously assumed. While Zakros was deserted after the LMIb period - making it a ghost-town in the Mycaenean era, it was not completely erased from memory. For example, the Linear B tablet Am821 clearly refers to a person as hailing from KI-TA-NE-TO • SU-RI-MO. The latter name is known to be a place lying on the easternmost end of the island, together with U-TA-NO: Thus *Surimos could have been the same as Palaikastro (it was a powerful settlement in the LMIII era), and *Utanos the neighbouring Itanos. So it could be that Mycaenean Greeks still referred to the Eastern Lasithi province as KI-TA-NE-TO, despite the earlier demise of its name-giving capital city at Zakros.

A new map of Middle Minoan Crete - Assessing the place-names on vessels inscribed with Linear A

2011-06-05T15:00:00.000-07:00

Greetings to all my readers once again. In the previous series of posts, we have seen ample examples of place-names on the Linear A tablets. But miscellaneous objects inscribed in Linear A were not yet discussed. As we shall see, Cretan vessels - both religious and profane vases - will turn out to be a real treasure trove of Minoan toponyms. And since they were found all across the island, they can be used to map out where these places were actually located!

There are a number of reasons why jars or amphores would be inscribed. The most practical reason is that it makes them easier to administer, just think about trade! This is the very reason why so many vases were found from the Mycaenean era, containing in scriptions in Linear B. Kim Raymoure has a nice collection of such jars-texts on her website. These texts are typically short, consisting almost exlcusively of names: anthroponyms (personal names), toponyms (place-names) or a combination of both, with some titles mixed in. In case only a single word is inscribed, it is most frequently a name of a town. Obviously, they describe the provenience of the vessel or the producer of its contents. Finding such jars on one place inscribed with the name of another is a clear indicator of trade relationships; and can be used to map out ancient trade routes.

Religious vases and altar-stones were inscribed for different reasons. Given that most ancient (and modern) temples acquired their prosperity and material wealth through donations, many objects that are inscribed contain the name of their donors. The more important sanctuaries could amass a respectable amount of goods through the centuries or millennia. It is enough to take a look at the ruins of the Oracle at Delphi; where most of the ruins enclosed within the temenos wall belong to treasuries from various polities. Athens erected a separate building for them, so did Sparta, Argos, Thebes and Corinth. Even smaller polities, like Siphnos or Sicyon had their very own treasury constructed, and the sanctuary received items from as far as Knidos, the opposite end of the Aegean Sea. Obviously, the "attraction radius" of a sanctuary was proportional to its imporance: minor temples might have received donations only from their immediate surroundings. Given this tradition of state (or polity) gifts, finding toponyms on materwork Minoan vessels that once served as libation cups or portable altar-stones (the so-called libation tables) is the least surprising discovery.

First of all, take a look at the stone libation vessel found at Apodoulou (slightly north-west from Phaistos). This cup has a number of interesting phrases on it (see figure). The key word is I-PI-NA-MA, that is repeated in the lower line as I-PI-NA-MI-NA-TE (restored reading). But it is a toponym that is most intesting. One of the words very clearly reads I-KU-PA3-NA-TU-NA-TE (the first sign has only its corner visible). This very name returns as KU-PA3-NA-TU (without the *i- prefix and the *-ate suffix) on Haghia Triada tablets HT47 and HT119. The latter tablet probably lists people by places (it was not included in my previous lists due to the ambiguous topic). It is very unlikely that the name would be independent of KU-PA3-NU, another putative place-name: rather, it just seems to be a regular variant. On the tablets, KU-PA3-NU very frequently groups with genuine western Cretan names (e.g. KU-DO-NI); this could mean if KU-PA3-NU and KU-PA3-NA-TU are one and the same (or two, directly next to each other), they should definitely lie west of Phaistos, probably in west-central Crete.

References to a place SU-KI-RI-TA are encountered on vases found at Phaistos and Haghia Triada. This time we have an easier job: SU-KI-RI-TA is not only commonly mentioned in Linear B at Knossos (when it was apparently a local province capital of some sort), but the place is extant: it is none else than Classical Sybrita, modern Syvritos. Its location south-west of the Idaian range can explain the distribution of its references reasonably well.

Turning to the Linear B documents, apart from SU-KI-RI-TA and PA-I-TO, there is a third place that is mentioned as having its very own QA-SI-RE-WI-JA (local chieftaindom): SE-TO-I-JA. Despite the obvious similarity with the name of modern Sitia (ancient Séteia), this identification is not necessarily straightforward or correct. SE-TO-I-JA never groups with eastern Cretan places on the Knossos tablets, and in Linear A, it is mentioned only on a libation table found at Prassas, next to Knossos. A second, doubtful mention could be on the libation table found in the Psychro cave (PS Za 2), where a word [?-?-?]-JA-TI was restored as SE-TO-I-JA-TI by Gareth Owens, based on the length of the missing fragment and the rarity of other place-names in Linear A ending with -JA. Nevertheless, his identification of SE-TO-I-JA with Archanes is questionable: Why would a town so close to Knossos be a local province capital? Judged by the considerable distance of Sybrita (westwards) and Phaistos (southwards) from Knossos, it is more plausible that SE-TO-I-JA was a key city on eastern Crete, perhaps lying at Mallia or even further to the east. These local centres are seldom mentioned on Linear B place-name lists, making their localization difficult by groupings alone. Therefore I do not yet discard the original hypothesis of placing SE-TO-I-JA to Sitia (i.e. the Minoan site of Petras, near Sitia).

On a mundane amphore from Tylissos, another interesting term can be read. The text consists of a single word: A-[*]-KI-TA-A: The sign originally standing at position * was probably *306 (it is still partly visible), before it was erased and changed to *301. Because we already have a putative toponym from the Haghia Triada tablet HT122 in the form [?]-*306-KI-TA2, the correcture of the scribe was likely erroneous. While the reading of Lin A *306 is officially "unknown", it very closely corresponds to Linear B sign *42, that is, WO. Such a phonetic value is not unlikely in Linear A, either, because semivowels, including approximants are commonly seen in word-initial positions. Yet even if the stem word was indeed WO-KI-TA, it is hard to identify it with any Cretan place. Well, unless "Luke" is a "wookie" [StarWars pun intended], in which case *Wúkita could be Mycaenean Lukitos (Lin B RU-KI-TO), modern Lyttos. Unfortunately, while the change of laterals into approximants is common in all languages of the world, I have no idea if the reverse process could ever happen. But at least at some rare borrowings, the initial *w- can change over to other consonants, as the example of the Behistun inscriptions show: the Old Persian name Wishtashpa (= Greek Hystaspes, the father of Great King Darius I) is repeated in the form Mishtashba in the Elamite text. (Use of the same cuneiform sytem makes a scribal error extremely unlikely.) Therefore I do not discard this theory, that gets further support from the Knossos archives: Lyktos is probably the most commonly mentioned place on all tablets. It likely also had strong trade connections with Tylissos, as these places are frequently mentioned together. This could easily explain why excavations have discovered a vase at Tylissos, imported from Lyktos. And at least on a single tablet, Lyktos is also listed together with Daos (perhaps Haghia Triada itself). But even without direct identification, the distribution of places where *306-KI-TA was mentioned would place *Wúkita somewhere into central Crete, close enough to Lyktos anyway.

Speaking about Haghia Triada, it is an interesting fact that none of the place-names mentioned on the HT tablets can be equated with the town itself. From the Linear B material we know however, that Phaistos did have a sister-town called Daos (DA-WO, almost always paired with PA-I-TO). Yet by sheer luck, there is a single fragment of a libation vessel found at Knossos (KN Za 10, see figure), that contains a severely damaged series of signs; the term DA-WA-[SI?] is still readable. If interpreted correctly (I am uncertain if putting an "arbitrary" divisor to the broken off segment was right), that could mean that it was *Dawa, that is Daos (i.e. Haghia Triada) that donated this stone plate to the temple of Knossos and the offerings it once held to please the gods.

The original Minoan name of Tylissos (Linear B TU-RI-SO) is similarly difficult to find out. In this case, the documents supply us with not one, but two candidates. One of them is DU-RE-ZA, a toponym on the clay tablets found at Khania and Zakros; the other one is a certain TU-RU-SA mentioned on a vessel at Kophinas and also at Knossos (in the form of A-TU-RI-SI-TI). I have no idea whether *Duletsa or *Tursa is a better match for Tylissos: I leave it to the reader to decide which one looks like a better candidate.

The site of the mountain-sanctuary of Syme also bestowed us a number of probable toponyms. Out of these many, the term PA3-NI stands out. This place is also frequently mentioned at Haghia Triada, as a donor of specialized agricultural goods (such as figs, several types of grain, malt, etc.). The occurrance of this term at Syme (one time securely on SY Za4, and possibly another time on SY Za7) hints that this was a place at mid-eastern Crete. Perhaps it is not an overtly bold step to search for PA3-NI in the Hierapetra region. A large settlement at that time: Gournia is definitely a good candidate. It is also worth to note that PA3-NI is very frequently paired with DI-RI-NA (*Drina) on the Haghia Triada tablets. Eerily enough, there is a small town called Prina roughly 15kms west from the excavation site of Gournia, but I am not sure if that town's name is ancient.

Some of the terms provisionally transliterated by John Younger (whom I cannot thank enough for providing on-line access to the original images) need slight corrections. One of the terms, now read as JA-PA-RA-JA-NA-SE is especially interesting, as it seems to recall the same stem as the famous historical polity Praisos has. The town of Praisos has at least 4000 years of history: Several middle and late minoan ruins were excavated in the region, at Zou and at Praisos itself. Later into the classical era, Praisos was one of the last strongholds of Eteocretans and their poorly understood language. Nevertheless, the term *A-PA-RA-JA (*Apraya) looks like an un-derived original version (i.e. without the *-(i)ssos ending), but it is suffixed similarly to the Eteocretan ethnic term Phraisona.

Two eastern cretan locations: Petras and Palaikastro supply us with references to a place called *KI-TA-NA. Because this very term also appears on a number of hieroglyphic seals (e.g. from Mochlos and Sitia), it must have been a place of paramount importance. There is one more-or-less obvious candidate on the eastern end of Crete: the palatial site of Zakros. This toponym is not seen anywhere in the Linear B archives, which is explained well by the fact that the town of Zakros and many other places lay in ruins and were completely uninhabited by that time. Note that the name of Palaikastro (Greek: "Old Castle") is not ancient, either, but I was unable to find any reliable reference to that in Linear A materials (yet it is likely that the town is mentioned in Linear B). In contrast to that, the name of another mid-eastern Cretan town: Polychna (perhaps modern Vryses, near Mallia) returns as PU-RE-KA-NA on one of the Hieroglyphic seal impressions found at Knossos. The name *Pulekna (which I initially incorrectly assumed to be a personal name) shows a very nice correspondence with Polychna, the latter one seems to be a hellenized version (as *pule- is meaningless in Greek, but *poly- would mean "many"). Simiar warpings can be found in the names Aptera, earlier Aptawa, Linear B A-PA-TA-WA (πτερος = "wing") and Hierapetra, previously Hierapythna (πετρα = "stone"). These un-systematic changes testament the process how certain, originally non-Greek names became established in Hellenic dialects. But the very same fact makes their reconstruction difficult. Yet we have seen it is not impossible, fortunately for us.

As a special gift, I made a supplementary figure - a map to show all places we have talked about at once. Although I did not discuss that before, it also displays the potential location of KU-DA (HT122), likely the same as classic Kytaion (Lin B KU-TA-I-TO ?), as well as DA-RE (potentially Tarra, on south-western Crete).

What do the Minoan Linear A tablets tell us about Cretan geography? - Part II

2011-05-17T16:00:00.000-07:00

As planned, I shall continue with our discussion of known and putative toponyms in Linear A. As we have seen it before, these place-names are not just mentioned haphazardly, but are clearly grouped on the tablets, for example - by geographic proximity. So the overall situation is similar to what is seen on Linear B documents, particularly the Pylos and Knossos archives.

Unfortunately, many of the Linear A tablets are damaged, broken off, abraded or simply fragmentary. This very fact makes it difficult to read an entire tablet from its start to the end, and even more difficult, to understand the precise context of listings. Yet while individual names are difficult to restore, terms that recur repeatedly again and again are much easier to guess at. For example, it does not take heavy imagination to reconstruct the word [?-?]-TI-JO as PA-I-TI-JO (*Phaistios = 'of Phaistos') on Linear B tablet As1516.

A similar method can also be applied to certain Linear A tablets. A heavily fragmented tablet from Phaistos (PH31) dealing with flocks of animals was already partly restored by John Younger. It defintitely made his job easier that most of the names seem to be toponyms that very frequently recur on other tablets from the neighbouring Haghia Triada. In my current post, I shall attempt a similar reconstruction of entries on Haghia Triada tablet HT122.

Tablet PH 31 (reconstructed)
Statement	Item	Quantity
?	CAPf (nanny-goat)	2
	OVISf (sheep/ewe)	1
?-DU-RI	CAPm (billy-goat)	1
TU-JU-MA	CAPf (nanny-goat)	1
PA-TA-NE	CAPm (billy-goat)	1
	CAPf (nanny-goat)	5
TE-RI	OVISm (sheep/ram)	1
	OVISf (sheep/ewe)	1
RI-RU-MA-TI	OVISm SI+AU+RE	1
A-MI-DA-O	OVISm (sheep/ram)	1
?	SI+AU+RE (young?)	1
QA-QA-RU	CAPm+KU (? goat)	1
MA-DI	OVISm (sheep/ram)	1
	OVISf (sheep/ewe)	1
	OVISm (sheep/ram)	1
KU-PA3-NU	SI+AU+RE (young?)	1
PA-TA-DA	OVISm (sheep/ram)	1
KU-RO	CAPm+KU (? goat)	1
	OVISm (sheep/ram)	5
	OVISf (sheep/ewe)	3
	CAPm (billy-goat)	2
	CAPf (nanny-goat)	8

Tablet HT122 is one of those rare Linear A finds that list people instead of agricultural goods. (Such a theme is commonly seen in Linear B.) Moreover, a majority of entries on both sides of HT122 contain reference to multiple men or women. This is very difficult to explain other than assuming a list of towns under the control of the Phaistos polity, each one contributing to the personnel serving the kingdom. Sadly, the header of side A (that seems to be the starting point of this list) is largely broken off, so we cannot learn the purpose of gathering these people. Many of its entries were also obliterated when the tablet broke into pieces. Luckily, some of the names can still be restored, and we shall see very soon how.

At the beginning of row 3, two terms were rendered largely illegible. But unlike the completely missing entry in the preceding row, small traces of the lower halves of signs are still clearly visible. Therefore we can be certain that whatever signs word PA-?-? contained at positions ?, they all had a long, straight vertical line at their lower end. Signs with this property are not that common: Only 20 syllabograms: A, I, U, DA, DI, ME, MU, NA, NI, PA, PO, RE, RO, RU, SA, SE, SI, TE, TO and ZA have this property. We also know - from the context - that the missing name should have been a toponym. This restriction leaves only one possible reconstruction: the missing term is none other than PA-I-TO, the town of Phaistos!

And we are not done yet! Substitution of the term PA-I-TO - together with the numerals following it - leaves a space for only one sign to precede the ?-DI ending of the next word. This time, the context of other place-name listing tablets helps us out: One of the more commonly seen term listed alongside with PA-I-TO is the putative toponym MA-DI. That would definitely fit here as well. One can even notice that the corner of the left ear of the 'cat-head' sign MA is still visible on the neighbouring fragment - a further nice bit of confirmation for the correctness of substitution.

Some of the numeral values pertaining to the damaged entries can also be guessed at. We know that the sum of individual values was 31 (apart from KU-DA, that is not added to KU-RO, but instead carried over to side B and directly added to PO-TO-KU-RO). The numeral following PA-I-TO is completely missing, but we can still see two strokes following the completely obliterated name directly above it. That name itself was likely 3 syllabograms long (e.g. KU-DO-NI or RI-RU-MA), but cannot be restored just based on this property. Though we know that it contributed to the sum with 2+x persons. Now, if PA-I-TO sent y, then the equation x+y=10 must be satisfied. From the symmetric position of the two visible strokes, the numeral of the missing entry should have been even (odd numerals are mostly arranged in a way that strokes are not placed directly above each other). So - for example - if PA-I-TO gave 6 servants, then the unknown town must have given 4. Or reversed. Anyway, a numeral higher or equal to 8 is unlikely, compared with other values (it would not even fit the narrow space between PA-I-TO and MA-DI).

Further down the tablet - in line 7 - there is another name largely obliterated by abrasion and fragmentation. Only the second sign is legible. Out of the first sign, only a single, barely visible oblique stroke remains. This makes our guess at ?-DU rather difficult. Based on the shape and peculiar direction of that single stroke, a RA sign could nicely fit in there. That would yield a reading of RA-DU, that is, the town of Lato, on east-central Crete (mentioned as RA-TO in Linear B). The same name is also found on tablet HT58 , starting with QE-TI RA-DU (despite the lack of word-dividers, we can be almost certain that word QE-TI was separate, as it is on the header of tablet HT7). The only problem with this interpretation is the fact that the ancient city of Lato (next to modern Aghios Nikolaos) lies much closer to the sites of Mallia and Knossos, than to Phaistos - making its status as tributary to the latter less plausible.

Tablet HT122 (side B) - restored
Statement	Item	Quantity
JE-DI •	*346 • VIR (people)	40?
A?-*306-KI-TA2		7
TA-NA-TI?		10?
A-RA-JU U-DE-ZA		2
QA-QA-RU		2
DI		2
DA-RE		2
KU-RO		65
PO-TO-KU-RO		97

The other side of the same tablet is - fortunately - much more complete. There is only one entry that is partly missing in line 2. Judged from the broken TA syllabogram at its start and considering its length, the name was probably TA-NA-TI - known from quite a few Linear A tablets. The only really interesting feature of side B is the large discrepancy of numbers at individual entries (always less than 10) and the whopping 65 after KU-RO. Even if we suppose that TA-NA-TI sent at least 10 men, on the end of the first line (following JE-DI) there should have been a numeral of 40. Otherwise the names seem to be wildly varied: sometimes abbreviated into a single syllable (DI), sometimes complimented with additional information. A-RA-JU U-DE-ZA looks like a precise reference to another U-DE-ZA town, near A-RA-JU. Similar geographical references are found on other Linear A tablets (e.g HT10: KU-NI-SU • SA-MA) as well as in Linear B (e.g. KO-NO-SO • TE-PE-JA on L641). It is tempting to see it as an attempt to separate towns with identical names, as a modern example of the German towns by the name Frankfurt shows (officially referred to as Frankfurt am Main and Frankfurt an der Oder).

What have we learnt today? We have used our knowledge to successfully restore a tablet dealing with some sort of workforce assignment. This is just an illustration of what deeper understanding of Linear A tablets can give us. If we further our research into toponyms, we can definitely do even more. In the next post, we shall examine another source of evidence: libation tables and inscibed jars, to further us in our goal: to be able to draw a true map (with the names of towns in place) of Minoan Crete!

What do the Minoan Linear A tablets tell us about Cretan geography? - Part I

2011-05-01T09:01:00.000-07:00

Time has come to continue our discussion about place-names found in Minoan Linear A contexts. As I mentioned before, one of the gravest problems of identifying toponyms on the Minoan tablets is their meager overlap with place-names known from Mycenaean Linear B - or to be more precise - the Knossos Linear B archive. Taking a look at the lists I posted previously, and a list of Linear B localties (for example, the concise list of Hart [Mnemosyne, 1965]) it becomes apparent that there are almost no exact matches (except PA-I-TO or SE-TO-I-JA). The number of words that have a similar stem to the Mycenaean ones is slightly higher, but at best, these comprise only about 30% of the putative Linear A toponyms (and even less of the known Mycenaean town-names).

How can we reconcile this obvious problem? Well, there are three possible explanations, and later we shall see that all three does play a definite role in explaining the discrepancies between Linear A and B. First of all, the languages of the two scripts are clearly different: the Linear A tablets record a not-yet-well-understood extinct Aegean language termed Minoan, while the language of Linear B materials is an archaic version of Greek. Here comes the next difference: Between the last Linear A tablets, and the earliest Linear B tablets at Knossos, there is a time gap of at least 150 years! There is ample evidence of wars, bloodshed and towns being completely destroyed during this 'undocumented' period, that led to the establishment of the Mycenaean kingdom of Crete, with the capital of Knossos. Thus the settlement structure might not have been the same around 1300 BC as several hundred years before. There is also a third problem, namely that most of the known Linear A tablets (roughly half of the corpus) were found at Haghia Triada - that is, at the Phaistos polity, while the overwhelming majority of Linear B tablets come from Knossos. The tendency of the Cretan Linear B tablets to prominently feature places close to Knossos was already noted by researchers in the 1960s. But Haghia Triada is next to Phaistos and nowhere near Knossos, hence we would expect those places to be featured, that were important for Phaistos, not those in the vicinity of Knossos.

Still, with all these possible explanations, a lingering sense of discomfort remains: Was the identification of these Linear A terms as place-names correct? Or these were just some randomly selected words from obscure lists? How can we ascertain our identifications, if we cannot find these names on the Linear B tablets?

The proof that the previously listed terms in fact very nicely correspond to Cretan localties comes from an unexpected source. We shall take a closer look at the Haghia Triada tablet no. 13 (see figure). In fact this is the most commonly shown tablet in books, because of its nice shape, clarity and readibility. Now we shall read - and interpret - it, word by word. The first sign-group of the header: KA-U-DE-TA is the most obscure term of the tablet. It could either be a name of a month (as common in Linear B headers referring to collection of taxes), or some broader geographic term (more on this later). It is followed by the logogram of wine. The text term, TE is an (abbreviated) transaction term, quite common on Linear A tablets. It probably translates as give(s), pay(s) or payment. Thereafter come six names (with numbers), all pertaining to places.

There is only a single name that can be immediately identified with an extant town. On the fourth entry of the tablet, KU-DO-NI is the same as modern Khania, classic Kydonia (Lin. B KU-DO-NI-JA). The immediately preceding third entry, TE-KI recalls the name of another Cretan town from the classic era: Tegea - which once stood on Western Crete, in the vicinity of modern Kissamos. These two locations do not even fall far from each other.

The second entry is a bit more elusive: TE-TU resembles the name of the classical Tityros peninsula, modern Cape Rodopou. Not far from Khania, the place is completely uninhabited today. But from ancient authors, we know that a town once stood there. It was commonly referred to as Diktynnaion - being a principal site of worship to goddess Britomartis. The very first entry: RE-ZA looks like a Minoan rendering of the name of ancient Lissos, whose ruins are found near modern Sougia, a bit southwards from the other three locations. Up to date, no Minoan towns were identified in that area, but in the light of this identification, it might be a site worthwhile to examine.

The sixth entry refers to I-DU-NE-SI, with all likelyhood, a minute entity: Its contributions in wine are negligible, and the name never recurs on any other tablet. Hence we may never learn where it lies. Unlike this hapax, the name in the fifth entry: DA-SI-*118 is found on many other tablets at Haghia Triada. Although the name does not obviously resemble any modern town or geographical entity on Crete, it closely corresponds to a Linear B toponym: DA-*83-JA. The Linear B sign *83 looks almost the same as Linear A *118, hinting at their identity. Since the distribution of vowels in the surrounding syllables strongly suggests that it was an I-series sign, I tentatively assigned *118 / *83 the value ZI. Keep in mind that the Z-series probably represented affricates (*ts, thus ME-ZA-NA near Pylos = *Metsana, later Messene); this phonetic value could very nicely explain the discordance of the Linear A and Linear B forms (*Dasitsi→*Dastsi→*Datsiya). Unfortunately, DA-ZI-JA only rarely co-occurs with other place-names in Linear B texts (the only example is F670, where RU-KI-TO and O-NA-JO are also mentioned). This does not enable us to localize it: it could have been anywhere in the area from Rethymno to Arkalochori. The only thing we know is that it was a settlement of reasonably large size and importance.

The close proximity of the places identifiable on HT13 (see map) is astonishing. All the semi-regular phonetic and grammatic correspondences (i.e. *e vowels frequently changed over to *i, Minoan words ending in *-e / *-i receiving *-ya endings in Greek, -ZA endings corresponding to the famous Pre-Greek -ssos ones, etc.) also hint at the correctness of reading. This is simply too good to be true! Are indedeed all the previously collected terms places? And can they really be identified on today's greatly changed Cretan landscape? This is a highly exciting topic, and I look forward to continue our exploration in my next post.

Gleaning Cretan place-names from Linear A tablets

2011-04-22T16:00:00.000-07:00

After a lengthy absence, I have returned once again to share you some novel pieces of research. About four months ago, I started am ambitious project aimed at classifying most of the terms, especially names occurring in the Linear A corpus. My chief aim was to separate place-names from personal names and (at least approximately) annotate most of the words. But how could one determine the meaning of the Minoan terms by any certainty, given the small size (less than a thousand complete words) of the corpus?

Fortunately, the tablets themselves offer the key. The enduring scribal tradition, that also dictated the form of Linear B tablets, had born centuries earlier: despite being in a different language, and much more compressed, Linear A tablets were built around essentially the same principles as their late Linear B children. Most of the tablets record items - typically agricultural goods - collected as tax, marked by the name of their donors. But there are other topics as well: Just like in Linear B, certain Linear A tablets record the workforce at the disposal of the kingdom. These people-listing tablets come in three main varieties. Some of them list people by their place of origin, containing city-names as entries. Others list people by their gender, age or profession. And, last but not least, some Knossos Linear B tablets count people individually, by name.

It is relatively easy to pin-point toponyms in Linear B texts - even if the people mentioned have more than one qualifier - because of the very characteristic Greek adjectives in -JO or -JA or the dedicated allative (-DE) and locative cases. The numbers and other terms can also help to identify the listing principles: If the commodity is 'VIR' (men) and all numerals are '1', then the terms listed at each entry are most commonly personal names. If the tablet lists multiple 'VIR' per entry, then the terms are most commonly place-names. In some rare cases, there are higher than one 'VIR' quantities listed besides terms that describe professions, rather than places; in the latter case, terms are frequently ligatured or abbreviated.

Although Linear A tablets are much shorter, typically containing single-term entries in all contexts (on tablets dealing with taxes or payments as well as those assessing the workforce available), we can still use the above principles to identify their precise context. Most improtantly, we can identify a number of tablets with multiple 'VIR' entries, counting more than one human subject/term. It is utterly tempting to believe that at least some of these tablets deal with places of provenience. If we would be able to distinguish which ones, we would be able to draw a map of Minoan Crete!

My first table shows expressions that appear to be place-names, using the principle above. Interestingly, some of these terms also admit a nice interpretation as places, when compared with known Linear B toponyms. Examples include city names like PA-I-TO = Phaistos or KU-DO-NI = Kydonia / Khania (KU-DO-NI-JA in Lin B).

There is still one powerful tool to identify the meaning of entries on the Cretan clay tablets: this is overall context. Since most of the tablets are just simple lists, if we can ascertain the meaning of neighbouring entries, we can also have a good guess at those not yet identified. Thus if we identified some terms as place-names on a tablet dealing with taxes or workforce, there would be a very good chance, that the remaining, unidentified entries are also toponyms - and not personal names or profession-groups.

In my next collection, I listed the terms (names) that co-occur with those on Table #1. Unfortunately, I had to ommit many "absolute hapaxes" (single names with unique form, without any recognizable similarity to others), otherwise the table would have been too long. I also intentionally left out three further terms (KA-PA, KA-RU and A-KA-RU). These have the nasty tendency of frequntly occupying the initial position of tablet-headers, thus they are very likely transaction terms, not proper places. The remaining list still contains plenty of intriguing terms - many of them showing semi-regular variations (declensional forms?), that might be interpreted as case endings (locatives, elatives, allatives) or adjectives (ethnics).

One might have noticed, that most of my examples come from the Haghia Triada archive. That is because the fragmentary nature of most other archives does not enable us to conduct true contextual analyses. In absence of any other clue, we may still identify some toponyms, merely by comparing them to Linear B or Classic Era place-names known from Crete. On my last table, the the results of such a comparison are listed (only those terms are displayed, that have not been mentioned on previous lists).

Although the last list is the least reliable, it does feature most of the terms we would expect to be featured: the names of the holy mountains, and (although tentatively), names of many large townships. What is surprising, though, is the meager overlap between Linear A and Linear B terms, and the fact that most identifiable place-names on the Haghia Triada tablets refer to Western Cretan localties. We shall look into these matters to a much greater depth in the following posts!

The most peculiar Minoan sign ever seen

2010-12-05T08:30:00.000-08:00

I would like to present a short post here, on a rather petty, but nevertheless interesting topic. As I was conducting a rather fruitful discussion with Kim Raymoure about the orgins of several Linear A and B signs, I realized that the evolution of Minoan signs is rarely discussed by professional scholars, and it is something that needs to be explored in detail. To make a tiny contribution, I will share some of my not-so-recent discoveries with you, that apparently no one has proposed or published before. So here goes a small discussion about Linear A sign *301, Hiero *46 and their images.

It was several years ago, when - in an attempt to make sense of some Minoan seals - I stumbled upon a Hieroglyphic version of Lin A *301. It is an easy thing to identify (and has been known for at least a decade), because this sign is so peculiar, and characteristic to the Cretan scripts. A strange, heavily gnarled object, with a straight line piercing it on one end. CHIC (Olivier et al.) terms this sign (*46) as 'adze'. Initially, I also believed it to be some kind of a tool (hack, rake), but was unable to explain either its strangely-shaped "handle", or the thickness of its "upper part". Fortunately, the Hieroglyphic signs do give a clue about the object it depicts: In some cases, the sign also has a strange "rayed disc" under the main bulk. Although frequently ommitted, its consistent recurrence in Hieroglyphic texts show this detail clearly belongs to the sign itself, and not a ligature.

The same is true to the Lin A *301, that it sometimes comes as a variant: *606 (*301 with an open circle below). In contrary to the opinion of Godart and his colleagues, this is not a ligature (*301+*311), either - because "sign *311" does never occur alone, and the composition is exactly the same as the "Hie *46 with disc" variant. We are left to conclude that this "disc" or "circle" is in fact a commonly-ommitted detail of the original image. In most cases, it is not connected to the main bulk, but if you drew a line to connect the two, then it may suddenly become clear what the sign depicts!

To make a long story short, this is what you would get: a human figure, bending towards and grabbing a pole. From its pose, it could either be an acrobat (in a somersault) or a captive or a slave, chained to a pole, bending forward in a submissive pose. The "rayed disc" turns out to be his head! Now, this interpretation can nicely explain the thickness of the upper part as well: because this is a human torso. And the "handle" is gnarled, just because it represents legs. I shall also direct the attention of my readers to the fact that the Phaistos Disc also has a sign (Pha *04) that depicts a 'captive' or 'slave'. The only difference is, that in this instance, the man stands upright and his hands are tied behind him, and not in front. One could argue that the disc is always separated from the main bulk, so the man is "decapitated"; Yet I find the probability small, that Minoans would have depicted an image of 'gore', while none of the Old World's writing systems did anything similar (The Mayas, with their dreaded customs are naturally taken out of the equation). Although the shape of Hiero *46 does resemble the Egyptian setep (a ritual tool, used in the opening of mouth ceremony, but not in everyday life), it does not match an adze well - not even the bronze-age variants, as far as I know (please, correct me if I am mistaken).

The phonetic value of this sign is equally problematic as its image. Although it does not have any clear, direct Linear B counterpart, the sign is relatively common in Linear A. Although much of its occurrences likely come from the same words and constructions repeated over-and-over, like A-TA-I-*301-WA-JA. Interestingly, in Hieroglyphics, many of its occurrences come from a single word, either: *46-*44 (*44 being the 'trowel'-sign, with unknown value). This does little to help us decipher its reading. From careful examination of the phonetic values of following signs, one could get to the conclusion that the most probable vowel-value of Lin A *301 is u. Because the only simple Cu-sign that has not been yet identified in Lin A / Lin B is ZU (and readings like A-I-ZU would indeed make sense) this value could be suggested from one point of view. On the other hand, sign Lin A *301 is often mirrored with a vertical axis, and it only takes a mere 90 degrees clockwise rotation from such an image to get a shape identical to the Linear B JO sign (*36) - not yet identified in Linear A. Yet the latter theory would contradict the fact that Lin A *301 is very often followed by signs beginning with w- (WA or U [=*wu]), where O-series signs seem to attract pure vowels (compare A-SU-PU-WA [ARKH2] with A-SI-SU-PO-A [KH9]). This leaves the reading of Lin A *301 unexplained as of now.

Linear A *301 was also used as a stand-alone sign on the Haghia Triada tablets. It is so frequent (over 100 occurrances) that many scolars were tempted to read the sign as a logogram. But because of the given interpretation of its graphic image, I seriously doubt that Lin A *301 would have been used as a true logogram (i.e. the image of the object cited). In cases it was used for a commodity, it was very likely an abbreviation of the commodity's name, and not an actual pictorial description. Somehow, I doubt that they would have stored men in wooden boxes down the temple cellar. Or - if we stick with the original adze-theory - hundreds of the same tool, in one house...

Update: After doing some in-depth research on the cited Egyptian item, I found that it it was also called the Adze of Upuaut. It was not just a ceremonial item, but supposedly a model of a real-life one. Seems like this tool of ancient Egypt was dissimilar to the adzes of other ages and civilizations. Given the close interconnectedness of Minoan and Egyptian civilizations, it could explain the shape of both Hiero *46 and Lin A *301. If the "rayed circle" were to be interpreted as a pile of wood-chips, that could give a solution to our riddle.

Commodities on Linear A tablets - Part II

2010-11-16T13:30:00.000-08:00

I am returning to a topic, the continuation of which was long overdue. It is about the item-names featured on Linear A accounting tablets. In a previous post, I analysed a few tablets from Haghia Triada just to show that commodities can be featured both in a logogrammatic and textual form on the same tablet. Yet, in most cases, they do not mix.

It appears that the Cretan scribes had special rules when it came to writing about items of trade. Whenever writing names, they tended to use as few ligatures as they could, writing out names either fully, or abbreviating them with their first syllable. However, when it came to the writing of commodities, they used ligatures as heavily as possible. They drew the picture of the more complicated items, and added syllabary signs to them (most likely abbreviations) detailing their qualities. Although we know very little of the Minoan language, therefore we cannot "read" these qualities, many Linear B parallels suggest that they must have been clear to a bronze-age Cretan scribe. For example (these are just random examples), PA+sheep could have meant 'old sheep' (παλαιός), PE+sheep+masc 'ram from the last year' (περυσινϝό), etc. in Mycenean accounting texts. The Knossos Linear B tablets are especially prone to use such abbreviations, compared to the much more verbose Pylos tablets.

But sometimes the items are not drawn at all: their name is written out fully in ligatures of otherwise phonetic signs: This way, ME+RI stood for 'honey' (μέλι), KA+PO for 'fruit' (καρπός), KA+NA+KO meant 'saffron' (κνάκος), TU+RO2 'cheese' (τυρός) and A+RE+PA 'ointment' (αλειφά). This way of expression was especially useful for goods whose image would have been excessively hard to draw on a clay tablet. Most commonly, the ligatured signs denoting a commodity are to be read in a downwards-up direction, while the qualifiers are added beside the commodity logogram. But this rule is never strict: sometimes the size and appearence of the signs can dictate alternative arrangements. It should not be forgotten, too, that people could also be regarded as "items" on accounting tablets. Therefore the names of different types of men and women, professions, etc. can also be represented in ligatures in those cases.

Tablet HT23 - Side A
Statement	Item	Quantity
KA-NA •	CYP (barley?)	1/3
	*308 (=?)	1/16
	OLE+NE (oil type)	1/16
	OLE+TU (oil type)	1/16
	OLE+RI (oil type)	1/16
	*550 (RA+JA+RU?)	1/16
	VINa (wine)	10
	*508 (QA+TA+RE?)	10
	*509 (QA+TA+RE+PU?)	10
	E (=?)	17
	QI-RI-TU-QA	1/16
	SA-SA-ME	1/16
	*530 (ME+SI)	10
	KO-RU	1

To represent all three ways of writing commodities on a single tablet, take a look at tablet HT 23 (shown above). The header KA-NA is reminiscent of the term U-NA-KA-NA-SI seen on the libation tables in various forms, and likely means 'gift' or 'offering'. This view is reinforced by the rather small quantities of various goods mentioned on this tablet. The commodities themselves appear to be exclusively agricultural products - yet quite a specialized assortment. Unfortunately, we cannot plausibly decipher most of the rare ligatures, like *550 (RA+JA+RU?) or *508 (QA+TA+RE?). But the term SA-SA-ME is almost certainly sesame seed (σησάμη, SA-SA-MA in Linear B), thus QI-RI-TU-QA must also denote another type of seasoning plant or spice - as suggested by the comparably small quantities of both goods. The term KO-RU also reminds us of coriander, written as KO-RI-JA-DA-NA (κορίαδνα) on Linear B tablets. This assembly of goods somewhat resembles the ingredients traditionally used to prepare κυκεών, an ancient Greek beverage frequently drunk on religious feasts.

The cited tablet is one of the luckier finds, where we at least stand a chance of identifying some of the referenced goods. Many other tablets are hopelessly haunted by the fact that we do not know the names Minoans used for their objects of everyday life. For example, we can at least suspect that the term MA+RU [HT 24] actually stands for wool, as Linear B also used almost exactly the same sign to denote wool (probably a lingature for the Minoan word denoting 'wool' - related to the Classic Greek term μαλλός). But frankly, I have no idea of the meaning of terms like ME+SI(+KI) or KA+JA, appearing on the very same tablet HT 24. For the purpose of nothing more than a teaser, I collected a nice assortment of item-names in pure ligatures. You can see them on the table below:

Last but not least, there is a very important class of items I did not mention until this point. As in Linear B, some Linear A tablets also mention vases, clay or metal vessels as items of trade. While the terms mentioned in Linear B remind us of Classic Greek (e.g. A-PO-RE-WE = αμφορήϝες, TI-RI-PO-DE = τρίποδες), the Linear A terms are more mysterious. They only admit a clear interpretation in a limited number of cases. Such a single case is tablet HT 38, where the phrase DA-RO-PA (*talopa or *talúpa) recalls both Greek τολύπη = 'lump of clay' and Hittite taluppa = 'clay'. The reading is quite plausible, as it is followed by the image of a chalice - supposedly made of clay. On the same tablet, a different item has the name A+KA, that reminds us of Greek ασκός = 'wine-skin', made either of pumpkins, leather or clay. Another tablet [HT39] also presents image of an askos-like vessel with a sign 'A' written on it.

Sadly, this ease of reading does not apply to tablet HT31 - one of the most spectacular Linear A accouting tablets. It not only lists different vessel types, but also adds terms to each image (logogram). For example, a conical cup carries the term QA-PA3, a handled krater goes by the name KA-RO-PA3 and a pithoid amphore is labelled SU-PU. Not a single term is easy to interpret, not even SU-PA3-RA and PA-TA-QE that denote simple, mundane vases. Apart from the faint similarity between PA-TA-QE and the Greco-Roman patera (open dish) or patané (pan), there is no plausible explanation based on Mycenean Greek. This is quite surprising, as many vessel names are "technical wanderworts" that are notoriously easily and commonly borrowed from one language to another. For example, the English words vase, urn, chalice, cup, pan and jar all go back to Latin vasa, urna, calix, cupa, Greek patané and Arabic jarrah. Even in Mycenean Greek, A-PO-RE-WE (amphores) and TI-RI-PO-DE (tripods) and U-DO-RO (hydroi) were authentic Greek in origin, but several other terms were clearly not, such as DI-PA (depas) or KU-RU-SU-PA3 (probably pronounced as *khrusupha).

In the light of this fact, it is strange to see that almost none of the non-Indo-European Greek vessel names are found in the Linear A corpus. On the other hand, the names SU-PU and SU-PA3-RA show some resemblance to the Semitic stem *spl- = 'cup', 'vessel' (c.f. Biblical ספל, sepel). If this observation is not just random coincidence, it is possible that we are dealing with a loanword from the Middle East. Borrowing of agricultural terms, plant names as well as technical terms from the more civilized areas of the ancient world is proven in quite a large number of cases (e.g. in most European languages, the word for the metal 'copper' might have come from the Sumerian term kubar, 'bronze', mediated through the Aegean), so a Semitic loan would not be suprising at all. The only mystery that remains: why did the Greeks not take any of these terms over?

Apart from the pure chance of all names gone lost, there is also a possiblility that we are dealing not exactly with vessel-names, but rather, the description of their properties (e.g. earthen or metal, painted or bare, with or without glaze, etc.). At least some vessel-types clearly have descriptors referring to their material, volume, contents, or other qualities, instead of type. This is also suggested by the similarity of SU-PA3-RA (*suphara? *suppala?) to Hittite stem suppai- = 'pure', 'brilliant', 'sacred' (Hittite suppiahh- = 'to (ritually) purify', also suppistuwara- = 'ornamented' (e.g. cup), even the supposedly Minoan s3-b-w-j-7-3-jj-d3-3 ='may it purge' found in one of the famous Keftiu-incantations). Or the resemblance of KA-RO-PA3 (*kalopha? *kalúppa?) to Greek καλυπτώ 'to cover' (Greek καλυβή = 'cover', 'shelter', Greek κέλυφος = 'sheath', 'case' or Hittite kaluppa- = 'undergarment', 'petticoat') - although these are definitely not the most convincing parallels I have ever seen. Much more research is needed before we can tell with any certainty what these terms might mean.

Major graphic overhaul

2010-11-01T09:49:00.000-07:00

I decided to update my little blog's minimalistic appearence. I am still experimenting with the new template and its look: so if anything looks out of bounds or does not display correctly, just grab the 'comments' button, and give some feedback!

In the meantime, I was also preparing my future posts. Some of the titles planned for the near future: "Commodities on Linear A tablets, part II", "Classifying the names on the Haghia Triada Tablets", "What does Linear A tell us about Cretan geography?" and "Anatolian loans in Minoan". Stay tuned!

Tracking the evolution of the 'KA' and 'QE' signs of Minoan Hieroglyphic and Linear scripts

2010-10-17T14:00:00.000-07:00

I am returning to the more technical problems surrounding the Minoan scripts. What I intend to do at this occasion is, to show you how the signs of the Minoan writing systems can be traced from its origins until the very end of Linear Minoan scripts. Finding the Hieroglyphic counterpart of a Linear A sign is not the simplest business. Anyone who ever tried to read a Minoan Hieroglyphic inscription can testify this. I will try out a new method today: one employing the symmetry-based classification of signs. We shall see it later, that this reductionalist approach is in fact quite useful. The case of two Linear A and B signs: KA (Lin AB *77) and QE (Lin AB *78) will nicely illustrate the way Linear A signs can be traced back to Hieroglyphics - and also the problems associated with this approach.

The Linear AB sign KA has long been noted for its similarity to a wheel in its shape (for example, see the Anatolian hieroglyph Ana *292 for 'wheel' - with the phonetic value hari). Its Minoan value also seemed similar to the Luwian word 'to rotate' (kalutiya). Yet there was a major problem with this approach: despite the considerably high frequency of KA signs seen in Linear A documents (among the five most common phonetic signs on the Haghia Triada tablets), no one was ever able to discern even a single wheel-like Hieroglyphic figure. So this is where the original theory fails: whatever object the Minoan KA sign depicts, is definitely not a wheel.

How can we solve this problem? If - disregarding the actual object - we only sought for signs that have a similar symmetry (i.e. at least two mirror axes), we may get six signs as a result. These are shown on the table below. Apart from a fair collection of "rectangular" signs (*39, *63, *65, *66), that could never have evolved into the circular QE or KA syllabograms, we get two good hits: One of them is a simple circle (Hie *73) - either open or filled. This one is fairly rare (CHIC230, MA113, MA119, MA120, KN69), but likely a phonetic sign. Since it co-occurs with the 'sieve' sign Hie *47 on MA113, it is clearly not a mere variant of the latter (more about it later). The next one is the very common 'cross pommée' (Hie *70) sign. Although the 'cross' sign is closer to the Linear A KA sign than any other of the above ones, we have to keep in mind, that KA and QE are not the only Linear A signs of this high symmetry. In fact, there are no less than nine phonetic signs in Linear A and B, that can have more than one symmetry axes. Some of them even have rotational symmetries. The syllabogram RO (Lin AB *02) also admits multiple mirror axes, and matches the 'cross' sign in shape almost perfectly. Unlike all the other signs of the o-series, RO is also reasonably common in Linear A (within the top five on the Haghia Triada tablets). So it is certainly not a bad match for the Hiero 'cross pommée' (Hie *70).

Once we made the identification above, the values of the remaining signs are constrained. The problem of assignments is this: there is only one valid solution. If you made an error early on, it is often only realized in the end: namely, you will have signs that you were unable to assign at all. For this very purpose, I do not attempt the full asignment of Linear A signs to Hiero ones. All I try to do is find the best matches first, thereby minimalizing the chance of an early mismatch, and the collapse of the entire attempt.

Since we had nine signs identified in Linear A or B with multiple symmetry axes (RO, PA, *47, NU, PA3, JA, KA, QE, SWI), and we found only six appropriate matches among Hieroglyphics, we clearly need some intuition. We know from the evolution of several writing systems that signs frequently increase their symmetry class (i.e. they become more symmetric) as time passes. This stems from the all-permeating human tendency of regularizing things around us. The reverse can also happen: this is how the round Linear A KA sign "opened up" in Cypro-Minoan and became the arrow-like Cypriot KA sign. Given these tendencies, any sign that had only a single axis of symmetry, could have easily evolved into one with multiple axes. In the context of Hieroglyphics, there is a sign that could actually well match both KA and QE if we allowed a graphic reduction: this is the already-mentioned 'sieve' (Hie *47) sign.

Is the 'sieve' sign (Hie *47) KA or rather QE? Alone from its shape, it is impossible to decide. However, we do have a powerful help on our hand: the pictogram-like syllabary of the Phaistos Disc. Although different from the traditional Hieroglyphics, the disc does present us one clearly discernible 'cake'-like sign (Pha *12). While matching with Lin A QE almost perfectly in shape, it is clearly not a sieve. On the other hand, the disc also has another sign (Pha *17), that looks like a Rugby-ball with handles. That is exactly how a (handled) sieve would look if we viewed it from aside. From this point on, the identifications KA = 'sieve' and QE = 'cake' are rather straightforward. As I mentioned early in this post, there is also a somewhat cake-like 'full circle' sign in Minoan Hieroglyphics (Hie *73). It is much rarer than the 'sieve' sign, but the QE sign is also much rarer in Linear A, than the KA one (30 vs. 117 occurrances on the HT tablets). This last note essentially closes the circle. Or at least so I hope.

For those who still disbelieve these identifications, I suggest to read (or rather, parse through) the Linear A tablet HT6. It is the only case where sign QE is used as a logogram: and from the context of the tablet, it must refer to some foodstuff. Given that it stands alongside the term PI-TA (pita = Aramaic for 'bread'), I strongly feel that the 'cake'-sign actually meant 'bread'. It should not be forgotten that there exists a sign (Ana *181) within Anatolian Hieroglyphics that looks similar to the Linear A QE sign and the same as Phaistos Disc sign *12. It is actually the Luwian logogram for 'bread'!

If we add our newly-gained insight to our previous knowledge, we are now able to read further Hieroglyphic documents. The Hieroglyphic seal (CHIC No. 166) I show above, will be our next objective. The reading of the signs is very likely PU-RE-KA-NA, and this seems to be a Minoan proper name (probably *Pulekna).

Thoughts, notes, additions? If you can offer an alternative assignment of the cited signs, feel free to share it, I would love to see it, to either confirm or contest the one I showed you here!

Goddess Eileithyia and her snakes

2010-09-29T13:10:00.000-07:00

My next post is going to be a shorther one, without that heavy linguistics stuff - if possible. All I intend to put together are a few facts about the names and attributes of some Minoan divinities, and the way their cult survived into the classical era.

Eileithyia - the goddess of childbirth and labour - is perhaps the best known Greek goddess of certainly Minoan origin. Her cult was quite widespread in the classical Hellas, with temples found in all the major cities of Greece: Athens, Megara, Korinthos, Argos, Mycenae, Sparta, Olympia etc. But her most holy sanctuary was a sacred cave near Amnissos. This tradition is quite unusual when compared to other divinities, and undoubtedly a continuation of the Minoan cave-sanctuaries. A high number of similar underground sanctuaries existed on Crete in the classical period: such as the Dictaian (Psychro) cave or the cave of Mount Ida (Psiloritis). Though these likely served other deities as well (e.g. Rhea), some subterranean sites are known to be associated exclusively with Eileithyia: such as the cave of Inatos. It seems that the Minoans firmly associated caves with childbirth, so divinities with the appropriate portfolio were primarily worshipped there. Some of these goddesses might have possessed healing abilities as well, judged by bronze leg and the human figurines found in the Diktaian and the Idaian caves. Both of the latter caves were famed as being the alleged birthplace of Zeus, thus also associated with his mother, Rhea. If we believe the Egyptians, Raziya (=classical Rhea) was also associated with healing, alongside with the mountain-goddess Amaya (=classical Maia).

The 2nd century AD author Pausanias gives us a description of the cult of Eileithyia at Mount Kronios, Olympia. From him, we know that the priestesses of Eilyeithyia had to live in chastity, as virgins - an interesting association with the goddess of childbith. The main gifts offered to the deity were honey-cakes and incense - reminiscent of the gifts customary in the Mycenean era, as recorded by the Knossos Linear B tablets. Pausanias also relates a story about how a woman appeared before the army of Arkadians, holding a child in her hands. But as soon as she placed the child onto the ground, he changed into a terrifying snake, chasing the entire hostile army away. Then it simply burrowed into the ground and disappeared. That was the story explaining the foundation of this sanctuary of Eileithyia and her child (titled Sosipolis, saviour of the of the city).

The latter tale also points to an interesting thing: somehow Eileithyia was also associated with snakes. This is when Minoan figurines depicting a goddess with prominent breasts, holding two snakes into the air come to the mind. It seems to be a genuinely Minoan concept, to associate snakes with childbirth. Although in Classical Greece, snakes were associated with life-force, even with healing (e.g. as the attribute of Asclepios), but not with procreation. To understand this strange Cretan association, we have to know a bit more of the snakes themselves!

For quite some time, snakes were identified as a chtonic symbol in Minoan iconography. For example, the female figurines with the characteristic triad of animals: snakes, cats and doves are thought to sybolize the goddess' omnipotence over three domains (underworld + earth + heavens). But this is not the only explanation, and not the best explanation of the association of a snake with a newborn child. I do not know how many of you are a fan of zoology, to know: many snake-species, like addlers, are fairly unique among reptiles with the ability of being viviparious. That is, they do not lay their eggs, but give birth to new little snakes after a certain gestation period - much like us, mammals. Members of the family Viperidae (the addlers), that show such characteristics, are among the most common snakes in the Mediterranean. Thus anyone who had noticed their viviparity could have made an association between snake reproduction and the human one. The argument is tempting, but there is a slight problem: The most famous snake-symbol of Greece: the staff of Asclepios (and perhaps the Caduceus, the staff of Hermes, too) depicts the non-poisonous Colubrid snake Elaphe longissima, which is actually oviparous. This makes me rethink the theory.

Now let us turn our attention to the origins of the name Eileithyia. It has been long suggested because of the characteristics of her cult, that the worship of the goddess is of Minoan origin. Fortunately enough, the Linear A and B tablets enable us to reconstruct the full evolution of her name. The earliest record of the cult of Eileithyia is the Linear A tablet KH5. The goddess is named there as A-RA-U-DA (*Alauta), and worshipped at WI-NA-DU (*Winatu = Inatos) directly corresponding to the goddess E-RE-U-TI-JA (*Eleutia) mentioned on the Linear B tablets from Knossos. From the Mycenean name, the classic Greek terms Eileithyia, Eleithya, Eiléthyia, Eleuthya (Ionic) , Eleusia (Laconian doric), Eleiuthya (Cretan doric), and Eileitheia (Northwestern Greek) were born - from one of them comes Latin Ilithia. The origin of the name seems to be Indo-European: The name Alauta does match with the PIE stem *h1leudh- = 'free': the same stem that underlies Greek eleutheros = 'free', Latin liber = 'free', German Leute, literally 'free people', even the non-IE Etruscan lautni = 'freedman'. As I expressed it before, the theonym is likely a loan-word from an unspecified Anatolian language (not necessarily Luwian - many of the Anatolian-Minoan borrowings seem to predate the diffusion of Luwian dialects onto the Aegean shore). That explains the first step of evolution: *H1(e)leudh-a to Alauta. While the Myceneans barely changed the name of the goddess they took the cult over of, It is not the easiest to explain the later Greek variants. While the lengthening of -e- poses no problem (remember: -ει- is not necessarily diphtongal!), the methathesis of -υθ- to -θυ- is more problematic. Also, do not forget the addition of aspiration, as a novelty. I think the best explanation is a re-analysis of the stem by later Greeks, and its contamination with the Greek word ἐλεύθερος and its hypothetic ancient verbal form *ἐλευθώ, explaining an evolution Alauta → Eleutia → *Eleuthwia → *Elethuia → Eileithyia. The funny thing is that the Greek re-analysis was mostly correct: they added aspiration back to a stem that originally possessed it in PIE.

I would also like to use the current post to debunk some incorrect hypotheses regarding the Minoan divinities. From time-to-time I have seen mentions of an alleged Linear A term, KU-PA3-PA3. Some sought to identify this term with the Lycian goddess Cybele. But the sad truth is, the cited word was only found on a single Linear A tablet, HT88. Recently, Kiminoa (who also maintains a neat blog on Linear A) helped me to clarify that KU-PA3-PA3 on HT88 is a misreading, for the correct word is KU-PA3-NU, a place-name (perhaps related to Cyrba = Hierapetra) frequently mentioned on other Haghia Triada tablets as well. So better dismiss the hypothesis that Cybele was a Minoan goddess. It does not fit the (Minoan-inspired) Greek mythology, either. It is much more plausible to believe that the position of 'overmother' was held by a familar figure: Rhea, and not some obscure Anatolian divinity otherwise unknown to the marority of the Greek word.

An elegant explanation for the lack of R-L distinction in Linear A and B

2010-09-12T08:45:00.001-07:00

I am now going back to one of the problems that have long plagued the research on ancient Aegean languages: namely, the baffling lack of r/l distinction in all Minoan writing systems. The only exception, Cypriot, was born outside Crete. Although I initially proposed the possibility that the Minoan language inherently lacked r/l distinction, like Egyptian (as some extant languages, e.g. Japanese also do), the sheer number of Minoan loan-words present in Greek, with good examples for both r (e.g. Rhethymnon, Rhadamanthys, Rhea) and l (Lyktos, lyre, lily, etc.) sounds, have shaken my theory. All other Aegean-born languages, such as Etruscan or Eteocypriot do have both l and r, and so do all Anatolian languages. Also, Eteocretan - a likely descendant of Minoan - apparently did possess both laterals (e.g. isalabre, *isal-awr-e [goat-cheese]) and trills (e.g. the common word irer). This is not consistent with my original theory, so I gradually decided to give it up entirely.

Recently, while I was collecting material and doing research for my future posts, a brilliant new idea came to my mind. In all Anatolian tongues, a word-initial r- never happens (it is forbidden), thus there are no initial Rv-type syllables either. What if Minoan was similar in that regard? All Minoan writing systems are believed to be largely acrophonic, right? Now what if a particular sound is forbidden in initial positions? That is where you need a work-around to the situation. The Cretan solution: without giving up the acrophonic character of the script, use the L-series signs as a substitution for Rv type syllables! Really simple, no?

Before going into details, we should return to the Egyptian script once more. Many experts of Egyptian linguistic history would immediately quarrel with my above view, because of two proven facts: 1) Egyptian also lacked an r/l distinction, and 2) The Middle-Kingdom Egyptian hieroglyphic system was the eventual basis of the Minoan script. But we have to keep in mind a number of facts: First, Minoan Hieroglyphs are not a simple copy of the Egyptian system. Apart from the fact that the objects depicted are different, and that the system is now a pure (open) syllabary, there are also many new phonetic values represented: for example, pure vowels. Minoans did not simply copy-paste the Egyptian system, like Mycenean Greeks did with Linear A. So the percieved similarities between the two are probably a non-issue. Second, we know pretty well from ancient authors, that Eteocretan language was confined to the eastern half of Crete: eastwards from the Knossos-Phaistos line. This is exactly where most relics of Minoan culture were found, also including the overwhelming majority of Linear A tablets. Thus even if the Western Cretan dialects were slightly different (the indigenous people were referred to with a different name. the Kydones). they would have had but a small impact on the development of the Minoan writing system. On a geographic territory as tiny as Eastern Crete, dialectal differences should have been negligible in the Middle Minoan era, as culture was otherwise very similar. And the uniformity of the Linear A records seems to testify this. Thus if Eteocretan was a descendant of Minoan, the latter should have had a good r/l distinction as well.

I have been studying the Anatolian-Aegean connections a lot lately. As you likely know all too well, both the Aegean and the (Indo-European) Anatolian languages were subject to an areal effect, from the early Bronze Age onwards. Not only the phonological characters have become similar, words and even complete grammatical structures were also exchanged. Though it is in my intention to write a complete post about the Anatolian loans in Minoan, I can cite a few examples beforehand. For example, take the Minoan theonym Alauta (A-RA-U-DA = classic Greek Eileithyia). Her name is undoubtedly derived from the Proto-Indo-European stem *h1leudh- ='free'. The meaning of the name makes perfect sense, since Eileithyia was mostly worshipped by pregnant women, in hope of an easy childbirth and less complications and labour. However, the name Alauta already shows developments specifically pointing to an Anatolian language as the donor of this phrase: These include the disappearence of initial h1 laryngeals with the consequential a-colouring of initial vowels (h1e->a), and the de-aspiration of stops with a subsequent conversion to a simple, voiceless stop (dh->d->t).

Phonetics could be borrowed too. The "Aegean" languages had many peculiar characteristics, largely shared with their Anatolian neighbours: For example, there was either no (Etruscan, Lemnian) or very little (Minoan, Hittite, Luwian) distinction between o and u vowels. Neither Minoan, nor Cypriot or Etruscan had any distinction between voiced or voiceless consonants: this is reflected by the lack of voiced consonants in writing. On the other hand, they certainly (Etruscan) or probably (Minoan) possessed a second series of consonants, not distinguished by voicing, but rather stress or aspiration. Linear A also used an additional series of stops - either stressed or (even more likely) aspirated. Thus the difference between -say- PA and PA3 syllables was that of *pa and *pha (or *ppa), while DA and TA likely represented *ta and *tha (or *tta). Of course, simple stops were likely commonly pronounced as voiced, while stressed stops were certainly voiceless (this explains the evolution of *ta and *tha/*tta sign-values to Linear B DA and TA), but voicing was originally not phonemic. Cuneiform Hittite also had this strange feature: it rejected the distinction between the original voiced and voiceless syllables: instead, a contrast system based on single/doubled consonants was used. This keeps hittitologists in uncertainty even up to this day: Did Hittite have a voiced-voiceless distinction at all? Although simple consonants mostly correspond to PIE voiced consonants (and conversely, the double ones are expected to be voiceless), the phonemic character of sounds is disputed. The problem is, there is no trace of voiced-voiceless distinction in Luwian Hieroglyphs either. It is certain,that even if Hittite did retain voiced-voiceless contrasting to some degree, it must have borrowed the Akkadian cuneiform script (and perhaps the Hieroglyphs, too) via a local substrate language that had no such contrasting at all, instead having lenis (simple) and fortis (double) consonants.

Recently I wondered if some phonological features also went in the opposite way. We know all too well, that in Hittite or Luwian, no initial r- sounds were allowed. This was a restriction inherited from Proto-Indo-European, and the ancient Anatolian languages preserved it faithfully. Although the Aegean languages were not Indo-European by any means, but - as many examples show - were subject to heavy IE, particularly Anatolian influence. What if some borrowed this feature too? If so, that would provide a brilliant answer to the question why the Minoan scripts had no separate signs for Rv-type syllables. Because it was an acrophonic system, it simply could not build any signs for syllables forbidden in initial positions!

Conforming the mentioned theory, members of the Linear A and B R-series all appear to be standing for L+vowel syllables. There are at least two, separate lines of evidence for this. The first one employs the Hieroglyphic counterparts of Linear A signs, and the meaning of their images. There are at least two signs in the R-series with a good etymology. The RE-sign, depicting sea lily flowers, possibly stands for an acrophonic abbreviation of *(a)leri ='lily' (disregarding my previous concerns about the conflicting origins of RE and RA3). The RU-sign, on the other hand, originally depicted a lyre, getting its phonetic value from *lura = 'lyre'. Though the stem-words are not attested in (the mainly accounting) Minoan texts, they very likely originate from or were transmitted via Crete, whence they were borrowed into a number of Mediterranian languages, such as Greek and Latin.

The next line of evidence comes from the evolution of Linear Minoan syllabaries: namely the way Cypro-Minoan and Cypriot Linear C were derived from Linear A. Interestingly, the Cypriot scripts do have a distinction between r and l consonants: they present a different series for each. However, if one looks at the way the signs were drawn, will quickly realize that it is the R-series that is novel. Most of the L-series signs are actually taken over from the Linear A R-series without a major design change. This is a further confirmation about the "true" phonetic value of Linear AB R-series signs.

At this point one could ask if Minoan scribes could not have found a simpler solution for this problem. Why did they not relax their rules for sign-generation, allowing a word with v1cv2- initial structure to be the basis of a cv2 sign? It is the most rational solution one could find to their problem. The Luwian Hieroglyphic script - that was less stringently acrophonic than Minoan - also made widespread use of mid-stem open syllables. Indeed, some evidence does suggest that Minoans used such workarounds, too: The Linear A and Hieroglyphic PI sign undoubtedly depicts a bee. However, the pi syllable is rather rare as a word-initial in Linear A (it is a rare sign altogether), and possible cognates (Latin apis = 'bee') suggest that the corresponding word also started with a vowel in Minoan (*api? *ipi?). With this example in mind, it somewhat harder to explain why the scribes did not create any Rv signs. Clearly, the mere lack of initial r- is not a good enough answer on its own.

This is not to say, that an r-sound was not allowed word-initially when in clusters. The solution to the above question probably lies in the way trills behaved in Minoan word-radicals. Unlike Hittite or Luwian, that admit a number (although a restricted number) of words with v1Rv2- initial structure, most Minoan words (reconstructed from Mycenean loan-words) seem to present the trills as part of a consonantal cluster (e.g. v1Rcv2). Minoan loan-words in Greek that begin with r- can mostly be traced back to stems with such initial consonantal clusters. For example, Rhadamanthys might continue *Artamantha, rhodon (= rose) *wrata or *urta. Words like rhétiné (O-RA2-DI-NE = resin) and the divine name Rhea (RA2-T?) actually stand with RA2 = rya in Minoan records, implying a consonantal cluster in the word-radical. Ariadné might have been as well *Aryatna. If true, this would have made it impossible for the scribes to find a suitable word with a word-initial pure v1Rv2- structure, because there were probably too few or maybe none.

A further, elegant proof for the existence of initial v1Rcv2- clusters we find in the Minoan sign RA2 = *rya. It clearly depicts a stream or small river. We know from Hittite, that the word-stem for 'to flow' (and also 'river') was arsa-. The Hittite word is derived from an IE stem *h1ers- = 'to flow', also attested in Sanscrit as arśa-. But we should not stop here. This is not the first time we see perfectly IE stems in purely Aegean context (a good example is PO-TO-KU-RO in Linear A from the IE stem *pot- = 'powerful') If we allowed a hypothetic "Proto-Aegean" language to borrow the same *arsa (to flow), that would nicely admit a Minoan word *arya = 'stream' (by lenition). Our theory can also explain a previously shunned connection: the phonetic value of the corresponding Linear C sign. Although it is clear, even to an untrained eye that the Cypriot ZO sign is almost identical in design to the Linear AB RA2 sign, no one has ever been able to give a consistent derivation of the Linear C value. Now we have one: If the Cypriot word for 'stream' was something like *azzo (by assibilation from *arsa), it would be more than meaningful to suggest a correction of phonetic value of the "river-sign" from rya to zo. And this is not the only case when such Cretan-Cypriot lingustic discordances have triggered a slight sign-value correction: For another good example, see the article of Miguel Valerio discussing the identity of the Linear A DU sign with the Linear C SU one. Unfortunately, we cannot establish such a nice etymology for the Linear AB RO2 = ryo sign, as we cannot determine the object it depicts. All I can say at the moment its that it likely also represents a "true" r-sound, like its RA2 counerpart (given that it alternates with the former in Linear A texts).

Given these problems with the Minoan syllabaries, it is no surprise that the scribes used both the L- and Ry- signs indiscriminately, for both r and l sounds. The L-series was probably used as a shorthand solution in place of open syllables with r-. While in the earliest Hieroglyphic documents, the scribes likely also experimented with the use of Ry- signs (e.g. RA2) at this position, the latter eventually remained constrained to the clusters ry- or ly-. And so was the clumsy Linear B ortography born.

Pre-Greek place-names of the Aegean

2010-08-21T16:00:00.001-07:00

In my next post, I shall briefly tackle an interesting and very popular approach to the research of ancient Aegean languages. It is all about the faint traces a language can leave after millenia of its disappearence: the toponyms or place-names. Thanks to the conservative nature of our species, while conquests, migrations or cultural assimilation may swap the ethnic composition of entire regions, names of towns, mountains or rivers often survive without any major change. For example, while the overwhelming majority of Turkey now speaks an altaic language, towns and villages of Anatolia preserve their names from the Byzantine era, some of them even have original Hittite names - only in a slightly changed form.

The fact that a large portion of toponyms in ancient Hellas were actually of non-Greek origin, has already drawn attention in the beginning of the 20 century. Professors Blegen and Hailey have published their milestone article in 1928, analysing a large number of ancient toponyms in and around Greece. They come to the conclusion that there is a surprising homogeneity among toponyms found in Greece and western Turkey, pointing to an unexpected lingustic union in these regions predating the "coming of Greeks". They have also found intriguing patterns in the way these names were formed. The most typical and common ones were place-names ending in either -nthos/-ntha or -(s)sos/-(s)sa. Other scholars later expanded their lists and confirmed their findings. What I shall do now is show a good collection of these toponyms on maps, to give you an approximate picture of their geographical distribution. It took me a good deal of time to comply. My main sources were Blegen & Hailey (JSTOR, 1928), the neat list of Best & de Vries & Brill (Book title: Thracians and Myceneans, 1989), the Barrington Atlas (published in 2000), and many other minor articles. I admit I may not be the best in calculating geographic coordinates: if you encounter any major error or can give me further examples I could put on my map, let me have them. I welcome any comments, as always.

First of all, let us analyse the first class: Names ending in -nos/-na are among the most commonly seen in southern Hellas and western Asia Minor, also on the Cyclades and Crete. These are the most overlooked ones, too: Despite their "ordinary look", most of them do not possess any meaningful Greek (or even Indo-European) ethymology. On the other hand, they perfectly fit the pattern we would expect from adjectives in some ancient languages of Aegean origin. The suffix -na is well-attested in Etruscan, and also found in Eteocretan (Φραισονα = "Praisian", from the town of Praisos). Conforming this pattern, many names falling into this category have no vowels inserted between the stem and the *-na suffix. This is quite an un-Indo-European feature, yet perfectly explicable by a once-widespread "Aegean" presence in the area, from what Eteocretan, Eteocypriot, Lemnian and Etruscan are just meager, relictual remains. It should not be forgotten that there does exist a similar (perhaps very distantly related) Indo-European formative *-en-, but the IE languages tend to preserve that -e- vowel.

Toponyms ending in -nos/-na are widespread all around the Aegean, also found on Cyprus and even in Eastern Anatolia. Yet the latter ones are generally thought to be from Hurrian and Hattic but not Aegean origin. Originally, most of them did not end in -na. This is demonstratable in quite a few cases, e.g. Tyana comes from Tuwanuwa and Adana from Adaniya. On the other hand, there is a surprisingly high concentration of originally *-na-type names on Crete, some of them already mentioned in Linear B sources (e.g. Itanos as U-TA-NO). Thus there can be little doubt about the close relationship between the language of Minoan Crete and those "Aegean" languages once spoken in Mainland Greece and Western Anatolia - only evidenced by their toponyms.

To the second major class of toponyms belong names ending in either -nthos/-ntha (Mainland Greece, Cyclades, Crete) or -ndos/-nda (Ionia, Lydia, Rhodes, Lycia). This type is slighly less common in Greece than the others, yet I managed to glean a sufficient number of examples to show that their geographical distribution is no different from the other "Pre-Greek" place-names. In Western Anatolia (especially in Lycia) on the other hand, they are the most typical toponyms. Apart from these main versions, there is also a variant in -nza/-nzos seen in Eastern Anatolia. Some Greek toponyms end in normal -s in their nominative case, only showing the -nth- stem in oblique cases (e.g. Tiryns [gen: Tirynthos]). Heteroclites were absolutely typical in Ancient Greek, adoption of this feature on non-Greek terms shows how perfectly these names were assimilated into early Greek.

When trying to interpret the meaning of this suffix, we encounter unexpected difficulties. Mycenean Greek had no such formative; and it was not used by Etruscan, either. But from the analysis of loan-words entering early Greek (e.g. Labyrinthos, etc), it is obvious that this suffix must have been existing, and still productive in Minoan. Fortunately it also existed in ancient Anatolian languages, like Hittite and Luwian, whence we can find out the exact meaning. Interestingly enough, Hittite presents us not only one, but two classes of such endings. One of them, the -wand- formative has a general possessive sense of meaning (e.g. esharwands = 'bloody' from eshar = 'blood'). This one is perfectly explainable from an IE *-went- suffix, sporadically also seen in Mycenean Greek (e.g. O-DA-TWE-TA = οδόνταϝέντα (odontawenta) = 'teethed'). The other ending is the fairly common -and- formative, carrying a 'collective' sense of meaning (e.g. udneyands = 'all lands' from udne = 'land'). It was also used as an "agentive", when forming subjects from neuter nouns. The same structure is also seen in the Luwian "collective plural": For example, the word dawi = 'eye' admits a normal plural dawa meaning 'eyes'. But when speaking about eyes of different individuals, the correct plural form is dawanda. Although some linguists seek to derive the latter formative with the Proto-IE *-ent- present participle, the collective meaning is hardly explainable. It is a more reasonable explanation that this is non-IE loan structure.

Conforming this duality, a high number of Greek toponyms actually has an ending in -u-, i.e. -ynthos. The rest most commonly ends with -i-, as -inthos. These would conform to the -wanda and -anda endings of Anatolian toponyms. What is strange, the -ynthos type toponyms are also found on places, where no early IE presence could be expected, such as Crete. And when we remove the -ynthos ending, we get stems practically meaningless in Greek. We are left with the conclusion that some ancient, supposedly non-IE languages used these formatives, and while the *-(i)ntha ending might be orginally Aegean, they might have borrowed the *-wuntha (-ynthos) version from some early Indo-European language, perhaps an Anatolian one.

Last, but not least, there is the group of toponyms ending in either -ssos/-ssa or simply -sos/-sa. This is the most populous class by far. In a geographic sense, it also extends further than any other type. Many examples can be gleaned from outside the Aegean, such as Naissos (present day Niš, Serbia), Orgyssos (in Illyria) or Arabissos (in the Taurus mountains, eastern Turkey). One cannot exclude the possibility of either the Greek colonists spreading "usual" place-names of Hellas, or simple hellenization of local toponyms, no matter how meaningless these were for Greek speakers. Though the Thracian names in -dessa do not seem to belong here (I did not put them on the map either), we can also see variants in -ttos/-tta, conforming the Ionic Greek dialects.

Almost all the languages originating in the region have had a version of this formative: The -(i)śa suffix was used by Etruscans as a patronymic. In Anatolian languages, the related genitival adjectives were highly popular: the -assa type endings even superseded normal genitives in Luwian. We only have fragmentary evidence from Minoan, but it looks promising: Linear A names ending in I-ZA (*-itsa) likely belong to this class. According to some opinions, this suffix was not only used by substratum languages, but also had an effect on the development of Mycenean Greek: its endings were sometimes morphed into faintly similar structures, i.e. μελισσα (*melitia) = 'bee' from μελι = 'honey' or ϝανασσα (*wanaktia) = 'queen' from ϝαναξ = 'king'. Nevertheless, it is hard to track the origins of this suffix, because Proto-Indo-European also had a very similar form of singular genitive (variously reconstructed as *-(o)s, *-oso or *-osyo) and related adjectives. Only one thing is certain: these formatives almost invariantly express a possessive sense of meaning. The same should be expected from the cited toponyms.

Of course, some names can come in more than one version. Apart from spelling variants (i.e. Kérinthos [Boiotia] is almost certainly the same name as Korinthos [Isthmos]), there are some regular changes as well. Most common are pairs with and without a formative. Harald Haarmann gives a nice collection of them in his publication (2007): Alos (Thessaly) vs. Alinda (Caria), Bargos (Illyria) vs. Bargasa (Caria), Kyrba (Crete) vs. Kyrbasa (Caria), Leba (Macedonia) vs. Lebinthos (Caria), Oinoe (Attica) vs. Oenoanda (Lycia), Passa (Thrace) vs. Passanda (Caria), Prinos (Argolid) vs. Prinassos (Caria), Sardos (Illyria) vs. Sardessos (Troad) and Tegea (Arcadia) vs. Tegessos (Cyprus). Stems with more than one ending - though less common - also exist, e.g. Alyssos (Arcadia) vs. Aloanda (Lycia) or Parnes [gen:Parnethos] (Attica) vs. Parnassos (Boiotia).

A single place can also have more than one name: e.g. the Dirphys mountain in Euboia is also referred to as Dirphossos, and the township in Laconia by the name Kardamylessos is also called Kardamylé. In Hittite sources, some even more intriguing variations exist. The land of Caria is not only referred to as Karkiya, but also as Karkissa. One could argue that the different names were used by different languages spoken in the region, i.e. the Indo-European Hittites may have preferred the form Karkiya, while some indigenous Aegean tribes (the Karkas?) may have stuck with the form Karkissa. Such a "partial translation" of names can also explain the puzzling evolution of some toponyms. For example, it was always problematic for linguists to derive the Greek name of Troy, Ilion from the Hittite Wilusa. But the name Wilusa strongly looks Hattic: the -sa ending seems to be the same as that in Hattu-sa. If so, One could easily imagine a variant of the name in a more Indo-European form *Wiliya (that was not recorded in Hittite sources). From the latter, the Greek name Ilion would come simply and rather straightforwardly.

Lastly, it should be mentioned that some of these names (especially the longer ones) also enable us to reconstruct some more complex word-formations of Aegean tongues. For example, there is the group of names ending not just in *-na, but in *-sarna (Phalasarna, Alasarna, Halisarna, etc.). Since the stem *sar- has a meaning 'upwards', 'high', 'great', etc. in all Anatolian languages (also do not forget the Etruscan words śar = numeral '10' and srenc = 'mural' or the Philistine seren = 'prince') it is reasonable to translate these place-names as '-burg' or '-castle'. Just remember that the germanic word burg or borough (or Greek pyrgos) also comes from an IE stem (*bhregh-) meaning 'high'.

'Mother' in Minoan? - Aegean words for motherhood and childbirth

2010-07-26T16:26:00.000-07:00

My next post will be an illustration of the difficulties one faces when doing an in-depth research of Aegean languages. It also nicely illustrates how revarding it can be if we not only collect the tiny shards diligently, but also try to re-assemble the vase from them (Let us hope hope what I fitted, belongs to the same vase, and not some artificial hybrid abomination, though).

The Lemnos stele is perhaps the most famous Aegean relic ever found: sole testament to a now-extinct language once spoken on the island and beyond. The most striking feature of Lemnian language is its close relation to Etruscan: like some "missing link" in paleontology, this is the ultimate proof of the latter one's origins in the Aegean region. Despite the clear affinity of the overwhelming majority of Lemnian phrases to Etruscan ones, there are quite a few ones on the stele that fiercely resist translation. One of these phrases is the enigmatic 'Zeronaith ewistho'. It is clearly a stand-alone phrase, as it is repated (in different context) on the other side as 'ewistho Zeronaith'. I have capitalized the term 'Zeronaith' because of one simple reason: its *-ith ending would normally indicate a locative case, so Zerona was likely a township or village of some sort. It is also mentioned in the phrase 'wanalasial Zeronai Morinail' - as pertaining to the city of Myrina, capital of Lemnos. The *-o ending (corresponding to Etruscan *-u ) on the other word is clearly a marker of past participle. But what could a phrase "ewisth-ed at Zerona" mean?

I am not the first one to ponder over the meaning of the cited expression. Others have already suggested that it might refer to some honorary title. Though I am heavily doubting that. The stele already features one word suspicious of detailing a title or magistrate of some sort: maraz. It seems to be unrelated to the Etruscan *mur- = 'to die' term. So "maraz maw sialhweiz awiz" does not refer to how long Holaie lived, but rather his rank at his death. The word maw is not a numeral as repeatedly and wrongly assumed, but an unknown adjective to maraz (if related to Hittite muwa = 'powerful', could it have been "grand judge"?). Thus the last sentence on the stele: "Ziwai awiz sialhwiz, marazm awiz aomai" should mean something like: "died sixty years old, became maraz a year before" or something similar (-m is a verbal conjunction, just like in Etruscan). Interestingly enough, in the Lycian language, the word maraza meant 'judge' or 'arbitrator' (thanks to prof Melchert's Lycian dictionary). Looks like a clear borrowing or shared vocabulary there.

This way we clearly diminished the possibility that ewistho Zeronaith refers to a title. Then what could it mean? It was so important that it was repeated twice, just like the age of Holaie. This gives a fairly logical guess at its meaning: "born in Zerona"! That would remain nothing more than an elegant theory if we had gotten no help from other Aegean sources. This is what I attempt to do in the current post: gleaning bits of evidence from other Aegean languages, namely Eteocypriot and Minoan. Unfortunately, no help avails from Etruscan.

In the other corner of the Aegean region (though geographically outside it), similarly mysterious inscriptions have yielded evidence of the Eteocretan language, once spoken in and around the city of Amathous on classical Cyprus. One of the Eteocpriot inscriptions yield an interesting phrase, worth to examine. The gravestone inscription I am speating of, is the following:

TU A-LI-RA-NI O-I-TE TU-SU TA-LE-JA PA-KU-KE A-NO-TI TA-SO-TI A-PU-E-MA O-I-TE A-LI-RA-NI MA-NA A-SO-NA TU-KA I-MI-NO-NA A-JA-I A-KO-? A-NA TA-SO A-SO-NA TU-KA I-MI-NO-NA TU-MI-RA O-I-TE I-MI-KA-NI O-I-TE TA-KO E-NE-MI-NA O-I-TE TA-RA-WO E-NE-MI-NA ?-KA-LA-WA-TI-KE MU-SO-TI

This text presents a rich inventory of pronouns and other terms, but it is the word O-I-TE that interests us at this moment. In terms of occurrances, this is the only Eteocretan text that contains this word. Its surprisingly high frequency spurred some scholars to believe that this was a conjunction of some sort. Nevertheless, I tried substituting that meaning into the text and all I got was a fairly meaningless and overstrained structure. A conjunction should divide words and sentences of equal and symmetric structure, not completely different ones. And be featured in a fixed order within a sentence. Therefore I believe O-I-TE is actually a noun or adjective added on (as an explanation) to a number of phrases within the text: e.g. A-LI-RA-NI. In the row before the last, it is added on to a number of words that seem to be either nouns or adjectives (because of the *-na ending, a well-known Aegean formative). The sequence TU-MI-RA I-MI-KA-NI PU E-NE-MI-NA PA-NA-MO is also featured in a different inscription. [PU seems to be a pronoun, a counterpart to TU, perhaps in a sense that/what or something like that. Interestingly, it was written as an enclitic, fused to the following word.] It seems like, therefore that we have an expanded phrase here, with a high emphasis on the phrase O-I-TE.

What could this have been? It was already suggested by some that - because it is added on to the phrase A-LI-RA-NI that seems to be a name, that it expresses some sort title or familial relationship. It has been proposed that its meaning might have been 'mother', nevertheless, it is a word quite dissimilar to the Etruscan ati. Even if it is unrelated to the Etruscan word for 'mother', it displays a certain degree of similarity to the term ewistho. There are at least three important things to observe with oite:

First, the Cypriot Syllabary system has a separate sign for WI (and used by Eteocretan in word-initial position as well), so O-I- is not an approximation for *wi-. Instead, this unusual diphtong (for an Aegean language) might have evolved from something like *aui-. Second, there is no distinction between 't' and 'th' in the Cypriot script (even if it might have existed in Linear A), so we must assume Eteocyprot has lost the Proto-Aegean aspirated consonants. This way, we can suppose a general development *th -> *t in Eteocypriot, that had already happened in the Bronze age (As far as I can judge, the Cypro-Minoan script had no signs for aspirated consonants at all, those inherited from Linear A were lost quite early, already in the middle of the 2nd millenium BC). Lastly, the Cypriot syllabary differs slightly from Linear A and B in terms of orthography. Not only word-terminal consonants are written out in Cypriot syllabary (with a helper vowel -e), but consonantal clusters with sybillants are also resolved (those with nasals are simplified still). For example, the word άριστος = 'noble' is written as A-RI-TO in Linear B, but A-RI-SI-TO-SE in Cypriot Linear C. This way we can be pretty sure that there was no -s- within the phrase O-I-TE (otherwise it would have been O-I-SE-TE). The cited observations enable us to reconstruct a putative original form of oite as *awithe. As for the explanation for the lack of -s- or an "s mobile", see later.

Some Minoan finds may also reinforce our theory about the meaning of the above-mentioned words. If we look at the Phaistos Disc, our eyes can meet a pretty interesting sign: Pha *06, a sign obviously depicting a woman of some sort. The interesting thing is, that - unlike most depictions of women in Minoan art - this one looks rather stocky. This fact was for long used by those disbelieving the Cretan origins of the disc, as an argument. While I can confirm the fact that the shape of this woman is a bit unusual for the depiction of "ordinary" women in Crete, it is neither of foreign origin, nor accidentally crudely designed. What if it was intentionally drawn this way? Well, pregnant women, they do have an oversized belly. And could we imagine a more elegant way of expressing the term 'mother' in hieroglyphs, than drawing an image of a pregnant woman?

The other interesting thing in the mentioned sign is its phonetic value. Since its shape is pretty special, but the sign is otherwise common on the disc, it very likely corresponds to a well-known Linear A sign. From the very few signs that can plausibely derived from a "woman-shape", only E and WI match reasonanably well. Together with (the much less probable matches) DE and KE, these are about the only signs, that could possibly be derived from such a special shape. Now, the value 'E' can be quickly excluded, based on the junctions with other signs: QE-E or I-E are practically impossible in Linear A (should have been -e- and -i-je-). This leaves us with the value WI as the most probable one. Indeed, it is not impossible to derive the (slightly asymmetric, pyramid-shaped) WI sign of Linear A and B from an image depicting a woman. The sign is otherwise pretty rare in Linear A (practically missing from the Hieroglyphic corpus), but does occur word-initially in some phrases, e.g. WI-TE-RO [HT25], WI-NA-DU [KH5] or WI-TE-JA-MU [PL Zf1].

At this point, we could settle with the fact that the word for woman (or a particular type of women, say 'mother') probably began with wi- in the Minoan language. But the story does not end here. By sheer luck, it seems that we have even more on the Phaistos Disc. It is interesting to observe that the words that begin with Pha *06 also, almost invariably continue with signs certainly (Pha *35 = 'TE') or putatively (Pha *18 [TI? TU?]) belonging to the T-series (th+vowel?) of Minoan syllabaries. Thus it is possible that the entire word WI-T(E) (supposedly 'child-bearer', thus 'mother') is written out on the disc, in various compound phrases. As many scholars suggest that what the disc features is a hymn or prayer, it would make much of a sense when referring to female deities. While there are a gret number of different "wedged" terms on that document, none of them were identified with a theonym so far. But one cannot resist the lure of the thought, that the most common one, *45-*07 stands for the original Minoan name of great goddess Razija (sign *45 undoubtedly corresponds to Lin AB RA2). And indeed - what epithet could fit better for titaness Rhea, who gave birth to almost the entire pantheon of Olympic gods, than 'mother'?

At this point, it is obligatory to look at the inventory of other language families, that might have existed in that region. Interestingly, one of the Proto-Indo-European phrases reconstructed, h₁euhdhr (= 'udder') does show a high similarity to ewistho and the rest. An 'h' could have easily evolved to 's' in some languages and disappeared in the rest. Although it invariably refers to privy parts of female animals, and never human ones in IE languages, in a lingustic group only marginally related to Proto-IE, one can easily imagine a shift of meaning. And that could have led straight to the words we see here. It can perhaps be compared to what we see in some modern languages, e.g. in Spanish mamá means mother, formed in an analogue to mama = breast. It is also interesting to see that a semi-related stem of proto-IE: udero-, normally meaning 'belly' or 'gut', evolved to words like ὑστέρα (Greek) and uterus (Latin), specifically meaning 'womb' in languages of the Mediterranean. Although it is hard to track the origins of medical terms (because the ancients were no masters of human anatomy), cross-contamination of word stems seems like an attractive explanation. Since these words do have a similar form to our reconstructed Aegean phrases, relating to motherhood and childbirth, it is tempting to see an Aegean (Minoan and perhaps Etruscan) influence over the meaning of this stem, shifting it from 'intestines' to 'uterus'.

More Minoan signet rings - Tales of Goddesses, Heroes and Myths

2010-07-01T10:40:00.000-07:00

As I promised before, I will present a new series of Minoan signet-rings, just to leave you enough riddles to ponder on. This time, I will not refrain myself from posting images of signs even I have no idea about how to read properly. Just recline and enjoy the pictures.

In the first place, I would like to introduce the image I left out of my previous post. This beautiful, though somewhat crude ring from Mochlos supports us with a further image from the "divine romance" series we have seen before. This time the female figure (goddess) is sitting on a boat, carrying a stem of Ferula plant with her. Above the figure, a series of tiny objects is carved into the metal surface. They exactly repeat the word seen on one of the previous rings, this time in a more proper order: PI-PI-DO-NA.

On the next seal, we can observe yet another scene of the "divine romance" story we have seen in our previous post. Our favourite character, the "god with the bush" is attempting to entice a different woman - with perhaps less success. The object the female figure is grasping for, is the famous "sacral knot". A recurring theme in minoan iconography, this "sacral knot"(named by Evans) is not much of a rope, but a shoulderpad worn exclusively by females of high importance. This symmetric/double object must be distingusihed from the simple (asymmetric, single) neck-ties shown as worn by both male and female commoners. Adorned with two large appendices resembling feathery wings, if such piece of clothing existed in real life, it must have been impressive. Like some "angel feather wings", it is depicted as worn by goddesses or high priestesses only. In one case, we see a trinity of female figures, but only the central (and tallest) woman wears these shoulderpads. If the object is a divine attribute only (Like the staff and shoes of Hermes, for example), could this have been something similar to the "sheddable" wings of varkyries in Nordic mythology? I have no idea, but it seems like an interesting parallel (see the legend of Wayland).

If we look at the series of objects above the head of the goddess, we can immediately recognize a few signs. The first one of the series looks like a peculiarly modified double-axe (or 'A' sign). After that, the two following signs show a certain relationship to one of the inscriptions we have seen before. On an earlier seal, we have seen a name ?-NI (above the cyring/sleeping goddess), now we have a variant ?-NE. The character I marked with ? is the same on the two inscriptions, resembling either a cypress-tree (Pha *13, reading quite uncertain) or a twig (Pha *35, Hie *25, Lin AB *04 reading: 'TE'). The last sign is undoubtedly a one-handled vessel (Pha *20, Hie *52-53), corresponding to the 'NE' sign (*24) in Linear A and B.
As I told before, the 'A' sign (Pha *21, Hie *42, Lin AB *08) may occupy a special position. It does not necessarily form part of the name: it could denote something different. If we look at it closely enough, we can realize a strange modification of the sign: the two diagonal lines (with ends). It could have been an artistic modification (like the "rays" on the Phaistos disc version of sign 'A'), or something unexpected: a ligature!

In Linear B, no names were ever written with ligatures, and conversely, all ligatures observed in Linear A denote different types of goods and wares, but never names. Yet Minoan Hieroglyphic sealstones sometimes do feature ligatures - probably due to the artistic design - in words that cannot stand for anything other, but names. If this sign is indeed a ligature, then what could be the other sign added on to the double-axe? One sign immediately gives itself: the 'SA' or 'linen' sign (Pha *22, Hie *19, Lin AB *31). With branches always drawn upwards in Linear scripts, but frequently downwards in Hieroglyphics (and on the Phaistos Disc), it is a credible one: not only because of its shape, but because Hieroglyphic seals also feature the term (word, name?) 'A-SA'. This element is also found in a number of Aegean word-stems, dealing with ritualistic contexts: for example, A-SO-NA or A-SA-SA-RA-ME. If so, the term can only mean one thing: 'god(dess)', apparently a cognate to the Etruscan ais = 'divinity' (if the latter is not of IE origin). Its use would be quite plausible on a seal depicting mythical characters, especially when standing alongside their names. Another theoretic possibility is a ligature A+RE (which is even better based on the shape of the Hiero 'lily' or 'RE' sign (Pha *39, Hie *31, Lin AB *27), if turned upside down), but it would make perhaps less sense to read (A+RE-TE?-NE). That would enable to read and indentify the mentioned names as *Theni [Themis] and *Arthne [Artemis], but I feel this is overly contrived at this stage. Better not walk this path until we find objects with texts easier to read.

There are plenty of other seals - offering us at least a slight glimpse into the rich world of now-lost Minoan myths. I am not boasting: The next two images feature scenes of stories similar to that of the classic Greek heroes. On the upper seal, we can see a proud man raising to the domain of divines. On one side, a goddess is throning between two mighty birds (undoubtedly a divine attribute of some sort), on the other side, a god is tending to a mythical bush. Unfortunately for all of us, the inscription on this newly-found seal (from Poros Irakliou, published after 2000) is rather badly preserved. Running above the head of the protagonist, it more than likely records his name - but rendered almost unreadable by the wear of ages. A loss to religious history on a high scale, I am afraid.

The seal below the previous one features a very different story: in that case, the male protagonist is seen as surrounded by three females. Playful as they look, they resemble the nymphs of classic Greek myths. The one on the left displays an unmistakable attempt of seduction towards the protagonist, without him even noticing it. The rightmost one also leans towards him in a flirting pose. The female at the centre is however, aiming at the male figure with her arrows, in a hostile manner. The moment the seal is capturing is when the hero disarms the hunting goddess or nymph, by grasping the bow held in her hand. The inscription (or inscriptions) above the head of figures is crudely cut, and in a bad shape,and do not enable a solid transliteration. I wish we could learn the name of characters involved in the story, but that wish might remain unfulfilled forever.

For an appropriate ending, I present a few more enigmatic seal impressions found on Crete. One of these is the famous "Master Seal" found at Khania. Contrary to the popular belief, it most likely depicts the protector-deity of the city, and not a king. On the right and left side of the figure towering over the Minoan town, at least two, heavily damaged characters can be recognized. The rightmost one was almost obliterated (that is why it is missing from the "retouched" image), but was probably a cow-head characher (missing from Phaistos Disc, Hie *12, Lin AB *23 = MU). The leftmost character is slightly better preserved, but its value is unrecognizable due to the damage suffered. The semicircular string of points above the figure does not belong to the inscription: it is the depiction of the sun, so typical of Minoan iconography (and found on many other seals, too). It is concieveable that more signs were present on the original sealing, but this is all what was left. Needless to say, I cannot make out anything meaningful of the two surviving signs.

The sealing I show as last presents yet another grave problem - of quite different nature. This time, the signs can be seen as crystal-clear carvings above the head of a female figure (perhaps a goddess).It is also clear that they are not simple artistic decorations, but form part of an inscription - a single name. The problem is, that at least two of the four signs on the Haghia Triada sealing do not admit a good reading, they are so dissimilar to anything seen on other Hieroglyphic or Linear A documents. While the insects could have been bees (contrary to the opinion of Evans, the Minoan writing systems did not have any sign depicting butterflies), there is no good explanation for the cape-like third and the snake-like fourth sign. They could have been rare alternative signs in the Hiero system (in which case the chance of decipherment is exceedingly low), or otherwise well-known signs in the Linear system, whose Hieroglyphic counterparts were not yet identified. In the latter case, we still stand a chence to decipher this name - one day perhaps, but not now.

Exploring the patterns on the (in)famous Phaistos Disc

2010-06-15T10:01:00.000-07:00

Here I am again, back to blogging after a brief pause - the FIFA football (soccer) world championship can really make one attach to the TV screens - even if your own country's team is not playing...
For everyone's favour, I am returning to the Phaistos Disc. This is an all-time hot topic of fame-hungry amateur would-be decipherers and pseudo-linguists, so I promise to be as cautious and methodical as possible. We have to maintain a strictly scientific appproach even when half of the world love to think otherwise. Just to make clear: my objective here is not to "read" the disc word-by-word, but to understand a bit more of its structure, and thereby - so I hope - reveal something of its true meaning.

After a brief look at the disc, it becomes clear that the text recorded here is strikingly repetitive. Not only words are repeated, but entire phrases, even complete sentences. As problematic these repetitions in interpretation might be, they enable us to reconstruct the sentence-boundaries on the disc. The rules are quite simple: Whenever a complete phrase starts to repeat, it is at the start of a new sentence. Pertial repetitions may hint at parts of a compound sentence. With this method, we can get a structured version of the disc's contents (see the next figure below):

The disc actually contains two almost equally long texts. The texts occupy the shape of two snakes, and seem to be continuous from one side to the other. Though side A was historically considered to be the initial one by Evans, just looking at the repetitions of words (the first invocation on side B overflows to side A) suggests that the first side where the text starts is actually side B. The structure of the text is quite unique: After one or two long sentences (that I labelled introduction) a strongly repetitive part starts, perhaps 3 or 4 sentences long. The rich use of many special terms, conjunctions and pronouns in these repetitive parts inspired me to call them invocations (more on that later). This overall pattern is repeated two times - once on side B and once on side A. If we use a technique similar to what bioinformatics call "sequence alignment", the structure of the disc is even more easier to oversee:

This structural grouping reveals plenty of interesting features. First of all, there are the words marked with a 'wedge'. Markings of this sort were common in contemporary writing systems, for example, in Cuneiform Hittite, wedges ("Glossenkeil") were used for foreign words, like modern-day single or double quotes. In Egyptian, the ring-like cartouche marks were used to emphasize personal names, just like a capitalization. The only question: what was the objective of the scribe when putting these markups on the disc to stress certain words? It is obvious that the markings are associated to certain words and stems, but not specific positions in a sentence, so they are not phonetic or 'rhythmic' marks. Some words can apparently loose their marking if their grammatical case changes. This makes the phenomenon similar to certain modern languages, that capitalize proper names in writing, but not their adjectival or other derivatives. (English is a bad example, but the ortography of my native language, Hungarian, behaves exacly that way.)

The hint that these markings could signify proper names comes from the other corner of the Aegean. The Enkomi Cylinder, the longest Cypro-Minoan document discovered so far, shows a slightly similar feature. Though word-divisors (•) are commonly used on Linear A documents to divide words, they quite often divide phrases only, with individual words written continuously together. A similar dot can be encountered on the Enkomi Cylinder, but strictly and exclusively after certain phrases. The dots do not divide words in this case: rather, they are markups for some important terms, very likely names (for example, TA-LA-KA and SA-RA-NI, the latter being suspiciously similar to the Philistine term for 'prince', seren). This leaves us to ponder if the wedges on the disc are actually appropriately modified word-divisor dots, featured only after names. So the markups are likely equivalents of the Egyptian cartouche - used to stress proper names or any other important term, object or title that can be interpreted as a name.

Our second most important revelation is that the words on the disc show both prefix and suffix elements. As I expressed it in many posts before, the 'prefixes' are typically of a pronominal nature in Linear A, in fact attached particles and not grammatic prefixes. On the other hand, the disc also yields a number of suffixes, some of which we are already familiar with: like the -TE suffix (*-(a)the), used in the context of place-names in Linear A (as a type of locative or elative case). Its counterpair, the -QE suffix is fully novel. Judged by their consistent contrasting, I would suggest a locative-like sense of meaning to the -QE suffix as well. It is pure speculation, but the difference of meaning between -TE and -QE could have been based on something simple, like distance contrasting (-TE pointing afar and -QE pointing near). This would explain why the -QE suffix is never encountered on administrative tablets. But no matter how enticing, we clearly need to understand the text better before drawing such conclusions. Alternatively, this suffix could also mark an adjectival derivative or a different case.

The prefix-like pronominal elements are certainly the most interesting features of the text, not only because of their frequency, but also their uniqueness. No Linear A text has ever yielded particles I-QE-, MA- or SA-. Their use here can perfectly be explained by a change in context: While the tablets are strictly accounting texts, the Phaistos Disc is of a very different nature. This is hinted at by the similarity of the MA- and SA- particles (possessive pronouns?) to the well-attested Linear A verbal endings in -MI (1st person sing.) and -SI (3rd person sing.). The I-QE- prefix I already analysed in a previous post: it seems to be a simple conjunction (...and...), too redundant to be featured in the tablets' compressed context. Although likely derived from a deictic *i-, it carries the meaning 'and' instead. Such shifts in meaning are not uncommon in languages: for example, there is the Hittite conjunction nu-, literally meaning 'now', but typically used in the sense of 'and'. Another strange parallel between Minoan and Hittite we find here is the (stylistically perhaps bad) habit to frequently start new sentences with a conjunction ('and') in otherwise fully coherent texts.

The cited prefix elements can easily be read because of the fairly unique 'cat head' (MA) and 'linen' (SA) signs of Linear A. Others are trickier: for example, there is the bell-shaped sign Pha *07. It is undoubtedly a prefix-like element too, but not that easy to read. We can approach it from several direction. If we took a pure statistical (position and frequency) approach, we would get the best parallel in Linear AB *57 = JA. This is what Thorsten Timm already suggested, but there is a problem: the shape of Lin AB JA sign is so different from Pha *07, that a direct derivation is impossible. On the other hand, if we sought for similarly shaped signs in Linear A, we could get the sign Lin AB *37 = TI as the best match: and that is also a reasonably good match based on the terminal-heavy distribution of Pha *07. Linear A sign *41 = SI has a similar distribution too, but a somewhat dissimilar shape. But there is still a minor problem with this approach: Hieroglyphics have no bell-shaped signs at all. To overcome this problem, we can apply a third approach: searching for signs (in Hieroglyphics) that depict the same object as Pha *07. As the most probable object it could be is a female breast, the Hiero sign *34 (depicting a pair of breasts), clearly corresponding to Lin AB *59 = TA offers itself as a viable parallel. Now there is a different problem: the disc does have a sign (Pha *14) similar to Lin AB TA in shape, but obviously not depicting a pair of breasts!

To sum up, it seems that the disc contains first person references as well as numerous instances of proper names and phrases never seen on the tablets. I have a growing feeling that it is fitting to see the Phaistos Disc as an early example of poetry, a hymn very likely serving a religious purpose (as hinted at by the snake-shape, an attribute of a certain Minoan goddess). Religious hymns and prayers very often combine a rigidly repetitive structure with a high frequency of first and second person pronouns. As a simple example, let me cite the Lord's Prayer (Anglican/Catholic traditional version, the pronouns are highlighted in bold):

Our father who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name,
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done
as on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead not us into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, and the power
and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Kafkania Pebble - testament to the strangest of religious practices?

2010-06-06T15:05:00.000-07:00

In this post, I will turn our attention to one of the more peculiar pieces of inscribed objects found at the Aegean. The object I speak of is not a tablet, not a vessel, not an idol, and not even a ring. It is a tiny piece of rock-chunk: the so-called Kafkania Pebble.

Discovered on the Greek mainland, near the small township of Kafkania (or more precisely, Kafkonia, Καύκωνία in modern Greek), a few miles from the site of ancient Olympia (Αρχαία Ολυμπία) in 1994, it immedietely received much attention. Because it is likely the oldest known inscription in Linear B (tentatively dated to the 17th century BC), what it got was not just attention, but also the scrutiny, and even the scorn of scholars. Many believed - just because of the circumstances the pebble was found - that it cannot be genuine. The inscription - while relatively easily legible - also resisted attempts of easy decipherment. Some sources (I do not want to cite the book) claimed that "no one has ever seen a Linear B document with a ridiculous radiant axe symbol" or that "it likely featured the name of its discoverers". But the case is unlike that of the fake Psychro tablet. Those who disparaged it should first take a look at the Idol of Monte Morrone and contemplate a bit on Linear A and Cypro-Minoan inscriptions. My mission is clear: what I attempt is to convince every reader who would have doubted its authenticity to understand the true background of this fascinating find!

Relatively recently, I came across a video on youtube, made from the presentation of Colin Renfrew on his excavations. Renfrew and his team spent a good deal of work excavating Cycladic sites: his most important discovery was a peak-sanctuary at the island of Keros. What they discovered was truely amazing: they have not only uncovered a temple, where the solid bedrock was somehow an object of worship - other, even stranger habits of Early Bronze-Age Cycladic people began to surface. Next to the temple (at Kavos), they discovered sacricial deposits containing fragments from hundreds if not thousands of marble statuettes. When examined, the sacrificed objects turned out to be originating from all around the Aegean, including the Greek mainland. The temple was built atop the tiny rocky island of Daskaliou, yet the stones that once fomed its walls were not local, but all imported; and - against any sense or rational reason - from a considerable distance. What is more, a huge quantity of small, round rock-chunks - that is, pebbles - were found at the site, most of them gathered nicely in a special round room. When examined, they turned out to be all of a foreign origin. Even Renfrew contemplated at this point, if the pebbles (that were all of a "standard" shape and size) were brought to the temple by visiting pilgrims as an act of worship.

This sort of ritual gift is still in use by some cults of modern era, although not for temples, but for graves. Take the example of Jewish burial customs. It is believed that by bringing a stone to the grave, one can contribute to it so the memory of the fallen shall remain ethernal. It does not takes much imagination to believe the same practice existed in some places of the Aegean, but not in the context of graves, rather in that of the sacred peak-sanctuaries.

Bringing pebbles to a sacntuary was a habit not limitied to the Cyclades. Most Minoan peak-sanctuaries contain a considerable quantity of pebbles (very likely of foreign origin), supposedly brought to the temple by followers visiting the shrine. Finding nice, rounded pebbles in a high mountaneous area, along with pottery shards, clay figurines and burnt ash are the main hallmarks archaeologists identify these hilltop shrines by. Up to date, at least 25 such sites were confirmed on Crete alone, and the number continues to grow.

Although the details of Kafkania site or the circumstances the pebble was found in are are hard to come across, and even detailed publications on the matter tend to be short and uninformative, the data I was able to glean seems to point to the fact that the Agrilitses Mound the pebble was found at, is a genuine peak-sanctuary, or a more generic sanctuary. It was apparently still in use in the Mycenean (Late Helladic) era. If so, then the conclusion seems clear: this pebble was the same as many thousand others, brought to the peak-sanctuaries by devout pilgrims. Just one difference: the man who brought this gift was a literate individual. He also wrought a tiny text into the pebble, in addition to the double-axe symbol.

Let us look at the artifact itself! First of all, the most prominent feature of the pebble is the huge double-axe symbol (compared to the syllabary signs). It is unlikely to be part of the script itself, but it still yields important clues on the nature of the artefact and the text. On the contemporary Crete (and likely also on the Mainland), the double-axes were a religious symbol: found on altars, paintings and carvings, even on jewellery depicting divinities. Because of this frequent usage, it is most probable that double-axes were not associated to a specific deity - rather, they seem to indicate a far more general concept: the presence of a god or divine power. It is also important to realize that the double-axe symbol was also part of the syllabary (Hieroglyphics as well as Linear A, even featured on the Phaistos Disc), with a phonetic value 'A'. I will present evidence here that it is not entirely beyond reason to suppose the double-axe symbols were (literally) an abbreviation to the Minoan word for 'god', 'divinity'. As for the "rays", there is nothing special about them: even the Minoan artists tend to draw surreal representations of the axe (e.g. two axes are often embedded within each other).

As for the text carved onto this tiny piece of stone, trouble is imminent: due to erosion of the surface, many symbols are damaged or barely visible. The only obvious observation is that we have 6 or 7 signs on one side (in two rows) and two further ones, below the double-axe with rays. The most widely accepted reading is (following Godart): A-SO-NA QO-RO-QA and the reverse: QA-JO. It is interesting to see both the QO and the JO signs so typical of Linear B, but lacking from Linear A. Having studied the shape of these signs, I can confirm that their reading is correct: the shape of QO is identical to those on other Linear B documents, though the JO appears slightly different, somewhat archaic.

Unfortunately, some signs can only be read with doubt: the NA in the end of the first line is sometimes interpreted as DI (though I could not discern the sidestrokes characteristic of DI at all). Between the first and the second line, right before them there is a deep scratch - I am uncertain if it belonged to a (damaged, Linear A-like) RI sign continuing the first line, but (based upon the spacing) this is unlikely. In the second line, the secodn sign could also be KA (perhaps there is a circle around the strokes), but phonologically RO is much better (QO-KA-QA would be peculiar, if pronounceable at all). The last sign is barely visible, but was perhaps QA.

What does the text mean? This is the point when specialistst of Mycenean Greek and Linear B inscriptions begin to scratch their head. While QO-RO-QA could have been a proper name in Mycenan Greek (a lot of other names ending in -QA were found at Knossos and Pylos), the others do not admit a good meaning. Especially problematic is the phrase A-SO-NA. But if we look at it from a different perspective, taking all the Aegean scripts into consideration, not only Linear B, we might be able to get help. Because at Cyprus, on one of the Amathousian gravestones, the word A-SO-NA recurs, in a slightly different context: A-SO-NA • TU-KA • I-MI-NO-NA (a phase recurring twice in a longer text).

As for the meaning of A-SO-NA - if we looked outside of Greek as well - the Etruscan word aisuna (='divine') would offer itself as a viable parallel. Looking at the cited Eteocretan text, the meaning 'divine' can be fitted well with the context, if we equated TU-KA with Greek Tyche = Fortune (as a divinity, personification of luck). This way, the inscription would become: "I-MI-NO-NA [adj = of I-MI-N(O)] (blessed?) by divine Fortune".

Now, if we go back to the pebble, and plug this meaning in, we might be able to get a good reading of the text. Despite the fact that it features a Greek-like name QO-RO-QA (a theonym?), it uses the adjective A-SO-NA, and not I-JE-RO (hieros) that would be expected from a native Mycenean Greek speaker. Thus, while the shrine might have been that of a genuine Greek divinity, the person who left this pebble apparently spoke a different language. In the light of this revelation, we may also re-interpret QA-JO as a derivation of some Non-Greek Aegean verb. Endings of this kind (-o) are relatively common in Minoan words attested in Linear A (e.g. KI-RO), where they likely represent past participles (e.g. KI-RO = 'missed', KI-RI-SI = 'is missing'). Although this is nothing more than a wild theory (as we know no verb with QA- stem in Linear A), but it was nevertheless, worth considering. Alternatively (since it is on the reverse), the term QA-JO may not continue the text on the other side - it may be a simple epithet of the divinity, or even an abbreviation - who knows?

Mythical figures on Cretan jewellery

2010-05-30T06:00:00.001-07:00

In this post, I would like to share a recent discovery of mine. While searching for materials on the Minoan religion, I stumbled across a number of golden rings, with intricate design and figures despite their tiny size. The real discovery is that they are not only inscribed in a script similar to the Minoan Hieroglyphs, but they may also admit a good reading in some cases, likely representing divine names!

Let us look at our first example! On the signet-ring above, four large human figures can be discerned, all female, intricately dressed, with a background likely that of a countryside. Yet some details do not fit the picture. For example, what is an eye doing in the background? One could accept a cypress-tree and a river or an eagle as part of a countryside, but body-parts are certainly odd. This leaves us with the conclusions, that the tiny objects encircling the central figure are not simple decorations - rather, they are part of a script!

First of all, we must know that both depiction of mythological scenes, and inscribing the names of the figures beside them was an extremely common practice in Classic Greece. This way we really should not be surprised to find something similar in Minoan and Mycenean material. And this is exactly the case here.

Back to the seal we first examined, we shall now attempt to transliterate the signs into Minoan Hieroglyphic, so that we can read at least parts of it. In closer examination, it seems that the signs are very similar to those seen on the Phaistos Disc. This reinforces our previous concept, that the syllabary seen on the disc, is nothing but a festive version of the same Minoan system, that can take both picture-like (Hieroglyphics) or simplistic (Linear A) forms.

In total, we can discern about five signs: two on the left of the central figure, and three on the right. The first sign looks like a 'snake with wings'. Since we are not in Central America, we must assume it is a modification of the 'flying bird' sign, that has the value KU in Linear A. Immediately following that, we see a small female figure. Since it is much smaller than the protagonist figures of the scene, and poorly detailed, I assume it is part of the script, and not a true figure. While I could not discern any figure in Hieroglyphics that would correspond to a female figurine, the Phaistos Disc offers a good parallel: the 'pregnant woman' sign (Pha *06, possible Linear A counterparts include KE, DE, E or WI). On the right of the main figure (probably a goddess), the uppermost sign depicts a cypress-tree, very similar to the Phaistos disc *13 sign (probably corresponding to Hiero sign *68), but the phonetic value cannot be determined due to a lack of established Linear A counterpart (very tentatively, it could be PA, PA3 or even DI). The next sign is somewhat strangely-shaped (with a blob on its top), but - since it seems to depict a creek or stream - I assume it is the same as Phaistos Disc sign *45, Hiero *69, and Linear AB *76, all with the reading RA2 (=*rya?). The last sign is the least problematic. Though missing from the attested Phaistos sign-set, it is clearly the same as Hiero *05 and Linear A *79, possibly with a reading DO (or perhaps DWA). Although due to all these uncertainties, we are unable to actually read the word(s), it can be safely concluded that the script represents the name of the figure, very likely a goddess. Alternatively, since we have two group of signs, it can be two names for two divine figures - one for the central one and one for the rightmost one - clearly distinct from the two 'followers' on the left (raising their hands in adoration).

This seal is by far not the only one we have. On the spectacular series of seals you can see above, we can see scenes of a different story: a sort of a divine romance. The protagonist is a female figure, undoubtedly a goddess, who appears as being seduced by a male figure (almost certainly a god), with the help of giant fennel (Ferula sp.) branches. Why am I drawing this conclusion? First of all, the upmost seal shows a depiction of love prototypical to later Greek art: there is a tiny figure floating in-between the two main ones. In Classic Greek art, this exactly how they depict Eros (the personification of 'love', 'passion' or 'romance') between the characters involved (see the beautiful statue of Aphrodite and Pan from Delos below). The other argument is less direct; and it involves exploring the connotations of Ferula plants.

Perhaps the most famous plant of the Ferula genus was the silphium of antiquity. An asafoetida-like smelly resin product of a now extinct species once native to Cyrene - silphium was not only a highly priced spice of ancient Greece and Rome, but also an aphrodisiac. While - according to modern pharmacological research - it probably held no actual aphrodisiac properties, it was likely a reasonably effective anticoncipient and abortifacient, as many other members of the Ferula genus are (even if extracts from species like Ferula jaeschkeana are less effective than today's pills). We do not know if silphium was already produced in the Minoan era. But the fact that one of the standard equipment of the bacchants, the so-called Thyrsus (see the picture later below) was a sceptre fabricated from giant fennel (Ferula communis) branches, seems to underline that such connotations of Ferula species were widespread early in the antiquity. It has even been suggested, that the modern 'heart symbol' (a universal modern logogram for 'love') does not derive from the shape of crocodile-heart, but rather the shape of the twin silphium seeds, so typical of the Apiaceae family of plants.

Apart from the two protagonists, a number of other figures are also carved on these rings. Some of them may depict the sequence of events in this unknown myth, while others may depict additional characters. This may especially be true to the 'crying female' on the second seal's right side, and the 'kneeling male' on the left of the last seal. Now that we have examined the scene, it is time to turn our attention to the signs present beside one character or another. Most importantly, on the second seal, our eye can meet a long, almost vertical sequence of four signs (I disregard the 'scratch' above the crouching male figure's head, as I could not find any Minoan signs even faintly similar to it). The upmost character in this slightly semicircular inscription is undoubtedly an 'eye' character (perhaps DO). Immediately below this one, we can see a nicely-depicted column. Though it does not follow any of the Minoan writing traditions, we can relatively safely identify it as a 'column' or NA sign. The two lower signs are more problematic. Each of them depicts a flying insect, though from different angles. Unfortunately, we do not know whether the two lower signs are just artistic variants of each other, or genuinely different. There is only one sign in the Hiero signset (*20), that would depict a flying insect, and that features a bee. A bee-like sign (Pha *34) is also present on the Phaistos Disc. Because Linear A has only one insect-type sign, and that is actually a bee, too, I took the courage to identify both these signs as PI.

If we read these signs together from up to down, they would give a sequence DO-NA-PI-PI, which is pronounceable, but unknown from any other source. However, if we interpreted this sequence as forming a bit deformed full circle running around the goddess, then - breaking it in the middle - we can get the word PI-PI-DO-NA - which is fairy similar to the Linear B theonym PI-PI-TU-NA. Is this reading correct? Is it indeed goddess Pipituna whose story these seals show? I admit, I do not know. It took too much force to mould this name into a meaningful one. But circular inscriptions are fairly common on seals (perhaps even more common than linear ones), so it is not impossible, though intuitively not the best solution. Another seal I will not be showing here (due to the lack of space) features the same goddess, carrying a Ferula bush on her ship, but there the signs of the (semicircular) inscription are in the order NA-DO-PI-PI (and the two 'bee' signs appear more similar to Lin AB *39 = PI). This fact lends some credence to the freedom of reading I applied here.

Otherwise, the theonym Pipituna is a perfectly Aegean name of a non-Greek type, with a formative suffix *-(o)na (or *-(u)na). Names or titles of the same type are pretty common in Aegean sources, like A-MA-TU-NA (a theonym at Pylos, perhaps meaning 'Amathousian', from the town Amathous on Cyprus), phraisona ('Praisian', found on one of the Eteocretan inscriptions from Praisos) or Diktynna ('Diktaian', an epithet of Cretan goddess Britomartis). These does not imply that Pipituna is derived from a geographic name, because other words are also attested with the same formative, like Eteocypriot A-SO-NA (likely meaning 'godly' - compare with Etruscan aisuna = 'divine'), that has nothing to do with places.

On the third seal, again, there is more than meets the eye. Right above the rightmost figure (the female perhaps sleeping or crying) two signs are present that show unmistakable similarity to those on the Phaistos Disc. The first of these is the Cypress-like Pha *13, whose reading is very uncertain, the second one is the 'double-twig' Pha *36, identical to the Lin AB *24, with a value of NI. It is not beyond reason, that this short word is actually the name of the figure (possibly another goddess) depicted on the scene.

Other seals also exist that show mysterious unidentified objects, that might turn out to be phonetic signs. But it is more common on jewels to show only one character: and the most common character is a simple double-axe (sign A in the syllabary). You can see it on the beautiful signet-ring shown above: it features a scene where two females (followers?) visit a goddess, seated under a huge, tree-like Ferula bush, holding a bunch of poppies in her hand (just like the followers). The double-axe is in fact in the background, not carried by any of the adorants visiting the goddess. The main reason I do not believe this double-axe is purely a symbol of divine power is the existence of words in Aegean languages like A-SO-NA in Eteocypriot. These hint at the possibility, that the word for 'god' or 'goddess' might have begun with an 'A' in these languages. For example, if the word *ais or *as denoted 'god(dess)' in Minoan, then the double-axes in iconography would have merely signified that the figure depicted is a divine being, and not a commoner. This realization also sheds a new light on the use of double-axes on altars and in other sacral themes - a religious symbolism of a literate society.

How many Linear A signs do we have?

2010-05-10T11:21:00.001-07:00

My next post will be a bit of "return to basics". I have been dodging this matter for long enough, but now we really need to put some systematics into our work. What I attempt right now is to establish a 'minimal set' of Linear A signs, in the hope that this will shed light on previously undetected features of the underlying language. Of course, the only thing we are interested in, are the phonetic signs. There are zounds of logograms in both Linear A and B (and in Hieroglyphics, too), but I leave their analysis to the economists: for it is the language that interests us, not the goods Cretans produced or paid for. And this is when we need to work out a good way how to separate the two. This what my current post is about.

The base set of the Linear A system encompasses about 55 signs. These signs are all well-attested in Linear A, in phonetic use, and have a more-or-less ascertained reading thanks to their Linear B counterparts. You can see them all on the table below:

(I put an asterisk onto Lin AB *85 = AU because of its special value - it might have also been *hu or *wu instead of *au)

Unfortunately, not all signs attested in Linear A have such clear readings. We also have a couple of signs in the next group I shall term the extended set. The criteria for a sign to fall into this set are simple: (1) It cannot be a hapax (occurring once in the entire Linear A corpus) and (2) it should be featured at least two times in a certainly non-logogrammatic situation (the same word two times does count). I also included signs that (1) occur only once as phonetic characters, but (2) have clear Linear B counterparts with well-established reading. Using these relatively stringent criteria I could count about 27 additional phonetic signs. Most of them have very dubious readings - see them on the table below (warning: the list is very long - and it took quite some time to comply):

(I would like to express my thanks to John Younger, as his site provided invaluable references as well as corrected transcriptions of most phrases, and visual images of all the rare signs)

Even so, we are not finished yet. When searching for the signs of the 'extended set', I disqualified a number of signs that did not satisfy the appropriate criteria. Some Linear A signs are clear precursors of well-known Linear B ones, yet they are only and exclusively used as logograms. A good example is Linear A *122, the 'olives' (OLIV) logogram, that is exactly the same as Linear B *33 = RA3, with a phonetic value of rai or lai. Another example is the case of the Linear B *20 = ZO sign, that has a clear Linear A ancestor in Lin A *304. The only problem is - and that is a major problem - that Lin A *304 is exclusively a logogram, and never used as a phonetic sign. The Linear B *87 = TWE sign is attested too, but only as a mere logogram. In these cases, one can suspect that either these syllables were extremely rare in the Minoan language, or were perhaps already covered by existing signs; or even that the phonetic reading of these signs changed over time.

Other signs look like phonetic ones, but they are only attested once. This goes for examples like Lin A *342 (only in PA-*341-I), Lin A *349 (A-TO-*349-TO-I) and Lin A *361 (A-KU-TU-*361). Unfortunately, we have very little chance to ascertain their phonetic use, to exclude the possibility of graphic variants and - of course - to find the true phonetic value. Because all these troubles, I did not even attempt to make a list of this group. A clear-cut list might be impossible to comply, because of the nasty tendency of certain scribes (especially those at Phaistos) to heavily deviate from well-established sign-shapes, or to use logograms for phonetic purposes as 'shorthand notes' or even 'puns' (when used in names).

Clearly, we should not forget about the fact that no matter how many tablets we have found so far, there is no guarantee that these feature all the possible signs. Yet there is some correlation between the completeness of our syllabaries and the size of corpus. An exact calculation of sign-set size was first proposed by Alan Mackay, back in 1965, when he attempted to estimate the size of sign-set behind the Phaistos Disc. His formula was quite simple: The total number of signs, T = L*(1 - L/(L-A)), where A = the number of attested signs, and L is the total length of the sample. While this formula works well with alphabetic signs (just give it a try in English), it performs more poorly on texts that are either very repetitive or of sign-sets with very skewed distribution (e.g. ideogrammatic or complex scripts). Though I'm afraid the method won't pass a bootstrap analysis, let's try it on a subset of Linear A texts: the Haghia Triada inscriptions! In roughly 2000 non-logogrammatic characters, it attests 77 of the 80-85 known phonetic Linear A signs. Mackay's formula would predict 80 characters. So it isn't that bad after all. We shouldn't forget though, that Linear A signs actually have a very skewed distribution towards zero frequency, so what Mackay's formula gives is an underestimation. Perhaps - if I'll have ample time in the future, I shall put some effort into developing a better mathematical model...

Because of such reasons we should not forget about those signs that are only attested in Linear B, without any known single Linear A precursor. Although some of these signs might be novel inventions, such as QO (*32) from Mycenean *qous = 'cow', PTE (*62) from Greek pteros = 'wing' (looks like the 'horns of consacration') or DWO (*90) from the numeral *dwo = '2'; the rest might be Minoan heritage. Some signs may have evolved to yield more than one offspring: a possible example is the Lin B *90 = DWO sign with its twin Lin B *83 (possibly ZI). A truely peculiar case is what we find at the Linear B signs WE and NO. There are signs that resemble them in Linear A, the problem is, they remain assigned to another group (the Lin B *75 = WE closely resembles certain occurrances of Lin A *53 = RI). Either some of these Linear A signs are mis-assigned, or we deal with a quite complex evolution. Especially problematic is the case of the Linear A 'I'-group. In this case, there are not only two but three linear B counterparts: I (*22), AI (*43) and NO (*52) ! This matter is so complicated I would like to deal with it in a separate post. But up to this date, the available evidence is still more suggestive of the main Linear A signs being correctly aligned, thus the ancestors of these Linear B signs being missing. A collection of these missing signs - along with those whose identification in Linear A is not universally accepted - I put on our last table:

Now, what was this fuss worth at all? With more-or-less precise numbers on our hands, we can immedietely go and check some theories about the phonetic system of Minoan language. For example, it was proposed by Beekes, that the language underlying the Minoan system should have had two additional series for most consonants: a palatalized and a labialized one. However, looking at the number (and the expected maximal number) of signs in Linear A, it quickly becomes clear that it is sheer impossibility to reconstruct a complete palatalized-labialized system. With 5 vowels, and 24 or more series of consonants, the quantity of signs would be far too high versus the attested sign-set, which is reasonably small (82 according to our tables). Even with the O-series discounted (4 vowels only), we would get a really bad overestimation.

In my opinion, the highest possible number of full consonantal series (based on 5 vowels) is about 18. The first table already featured 16 probably full or almost full series - if we add the less-well established DW- and SW- series, we are done. And there are no normal-palatalized-labialized triads, not even with T (or at least there cannot be a complete series). This estimation would give 90 signs as a theoretic maximum, and we were not far from that when counting all the 'uncertain' signs. Since certain syllables were likely very rare (as in any other language), I do not expect to ever see the full system. And - of course - we shouldn't forget about the presence of superfluous 'shorthand' signs: removal of these lower the number of possible regular signs even further!

Some other would-be decipherers of Linear A go with a different assumption: if the limited number of signs make their hypothesis impossible (as they assume too many consonants), they lower the number of vowels instead. While there do exist languages with just 3 vowels (Arabic comes to my mind), it requires painstaking 'reassignment' of a high number of signs, with an otherwise perfect reading in E or O. These "reconstructions" thus create much more problem than they solve. The only thing I could view as acceptable (though certainly not with my approval), is the removal of the O-series from the list. This series has the lowest number of confirmed signs; and some Linear A words even seem to testify an O - U ambiguity (e.g. compare A-MI-DA-U [ZA10] and A-MI-DA-O [PH31]). However, anyone who would have his hands itching to obliterate the O-column from the table with a single scratch should stop for a second. Because they really need to explain why the PO, TO and RO (=LO) signs borrowed into Cypro-Minoan (and ultimately Linear C) have exactly the same phonetic value as the Linear B ones!

Divine names on Linear A tablets

2010-05-02T05:55:00.000-07:00

Parsing through the Linear A tablets several times, one can discover a large number of interesting phrases. The tablets mention places and persons, debths and taxes, a large variety of goods and even the names of gods offerings were given to. Given the intimate ties between religious and political authority in the Minoan and Mycenean era, the frequent references to religious ceremonies and donations should not be surprising. This is exactly what I would like to discuss.

It has already been well-known for several decades, that Linear B archives feature a high number of theonyms. Some tablets exclusively deal with the acts of sacrifice made to please the gods - like the famous Pylos tablet PY Tn316. This is an unusual document and therefore quite renown. It mentions golden chalices and people as a subject of sacrifice; the term PO-RE-NA might translate as "sacrificial victim", implying human sacrifice. Greek legends mention several instances of human sacrifice (remember Iphigeneia), so it must have existed in the bronze age - and now we have direct proof of it. But by any means, it is expected to having been carried out on very rare occasions only. Some have suggested that this tablet was written in the last moments before Pylos was overrun by the enemy. The mentioned sacrifices could have been the last desperate attempt to enlist divine aid, and were perhaps never carried out - as the tablet was found among the burnt ruins of the palace.

The sacrifices at Knossos were of much milder nature than what the former Pylos tablet has shown. Human sacrifice is never mentioned, and even animal sacrifice seems to be lacking. The gifts are exclusively agricultural goods, mostly oil or honey (supposedly given as libations). As an example, I will show one of these tablets below:

The text is roughly the following:
In the month of Lapathos: to Dwikutos(?) 1/18 unit of OIL, to Pipituna 1/18 unit, to Aurimos 4/18 unit of OIL, to all the gods 1/3 unit, to Qerasia 1/3 unit, to the priestess of winds 1 unit of OIL, to the Utanos priestess of winds 1/3 + 3/18 units.

All the personal names on this tablet are expected to be divine entities. Unfortunately we know nothing of Qerasia or Pipituna, except that the former name resembles the name "Thera" and the latter is somwehat similar to goddess Diktynna. The mentioned fractional oil units (the logogram is featured once in each line) are in fact quite large quantities: 1 unit of oil equals approximately 36 litres, so the smallest quantity is still about 2 litres.

Now, as we have seen the examples in Mycenean Linear B, it is time to look at those tablets that likely detail similar offerings in Minoan Linear A. We shall see that several putative theonyms can be discerned on Linear A tablets, among them the names of Maia, Eileithyia and Apollon!

We have already seen - thanks to the Egyptian scribes - that the Minoans had some divinities by the names Razija and Amaja. While for the former "Great God(dess)" there is no evidence on the Cretan clay tablets, there is one clear instance of the latter name. The Khania tablet KH14 features a broken heading, but sure-enough, a name A-MA-JA can be made out between two word-dividers. Given the frequent loss of initial vowels on Minoan words borrowed by Greek i.e. *Adikitu -> Dikte, it is quite possible that this goddess corresponds to the classic Greek Maia, leader of the Pleiades.

Tablet KH14
Statement	Item	Quantity
?-RA • A-MA-JA •	CYP	6
?	CYP	1/4
	*336 (horses)	2
	CYP	1/16
?	NI (figs)	1/4
	VIR+*307 (women?)	2
	CYP	?

The list of offerings to this deity is interesting, too: Apart from the figs (that were commonly used as food) and the CYP logogram (that might have meant barley or something other instead of Cypress-wood), we have a strange and unique logogram: a horse-head (Lin A *336), with a number '2' following it. Albeit horses were an important commodity in the later Mycenean age, the Linear A tablets never mention horses apart from this single occasion, so we must assume horse-breeding was less commonplace in the Minoan than it was in the Mycenean era. Thus this pair of horses is rather a special gift. In the lowest row of the tablet, a logogram VIR+*307 can be made out (with a number '2'), likely referring to women, but the context cannot be determined, as the rest of the tablet is broken off. But if the relatively little quantity of food FIC 1/4 belongs to them, we should rather expect temple-servants instead of sacrificial victims.

Our next tablet of interest is the Haghia Triada tablet HT96. Geographically, Haghia Triada is almost next to Phaistos (3 km away on the next hilltop), so we expect them to be the same polity, possibly even the same city. The Phaistos 'palace' must have been an important religious centre, and now we have some proof on our hands: this tablet mentions the term A-PA-RA-NE in the header on both sides. Although *Apalan(e) is a word somewhat different of the classical Greek Apollon (Latin Apollo, Etruscan Apulu, Luwian Appaliunas), but there is one term that makes this identification probable: the word SI-MI-TA, that is similar to a title of Apollon: Smintheus. This epithet refers to a hard-to-understand role of Apollon (Apollon of the mice). But form Hittite sources, we know that in the bronze age, mice played an important role in religion: they were not only given as religious offerings, but also used as a "scrape-mouse" (like a scrape-goat later) in ceremonies. Although SI-MI-TA is more probably read as *Simintha, a reading *Smintha cannot be entirely ruled out, since a weak-weak joining (a cluster of two non-plosive consonants) was somewhat a "scribe's choice" case: it could either have been simplified or resolved. Such ambiguities of writing rules may be caught on the tablet HT103 with the terms DA-KU-NA and DA-KU-SE-NE-TI. (*takusna versus *takusnethi ?)

Tablet HT96
Statement	Item	Quantity
I-TI-TI-KU-NI • A-PA-RA-NE • A-*123-NE • SI-MI-TA	GRA	5
	RU-SA	4
	323 317	1
	PI-TA-RA •	1
	323 344	1

?-KU-MA-RO • TE	NI (figs)	20
?	NI (figs)	2

A-PA-RA-NE • QA-*118-RA-RE •	*516 • GRA •	40+1/2+1/4
	OLE+U	4
	NI (figs)	2+1/16

The list of goods is - again - quite special. Apart from relatively small quantities of grain and figs, side A mentions twice a hard-to interpret item with logogram *323 (it is like a slightly modified TI sign). Once it stands with *317, the logogrammatic "double-axe" sign, and the other time with an image of a roughly-drawn tripartite building (*344). Like this unknown object, items by the name RU-SA and PI-TA-RA were also given (they have integer quantities), but we do not know what on earth they refer to. Given the small quantities and possibly a sacrifice, they must have been valuable. On the reverse, the goods are less exotic: There is a large shipment of grain (more than 40 units), some type of oil (OLE+U) and figs. These items are from an owner or place *Qazir (QA-*118 [KH10] in the suggested "pertinentive" case *-(a)le).

For the last part (and to make this 'trinity' complete), let us observe another Khania tablet (KH5), detailing a transaction that might have had something to do with a religious offering. In the header, we find a name A-RA-U-DA, which shows a reasonably high similarity to the Mycenean theonym Eleuthia, corresponding to classic Greek Eileithyia. This identification is further reinforced with another small detail: the second paragraph on the table mentions a place-name WI-NA-DU, that can be identified with the Mycenean WI-NA-TO and the classic Greek town of Einatos (thanks to Miguel Valério) - actually quite close to the cave sacred to Eileithyia.

Tablet KH5
Statement	Item	Quantity
A-DA-KI-SI-KA • A-RA-U-DA • WI-SA-SA-NE	CYP+1/4	2
	VIN+WI	2
WI-NA-DU • *301-NA • KU-PA-DO	CYP+?	3+2/3
	NI (figs)	2+1/2+1/3

At this time, the list of goods supposedly offered to goddess *Alauta is less exotic: A smaller quantity of wine, some CYP and a package of figs. Apart from the names, the header is difficult to interpret: while A-DA-KI-SI-KA might have been a verb, even a passive preterite one (ending -SI-KA), the word KU-PA-DO cannot be securely identified as the case of KU-PA (the -DO ending would be a hapax). Undoubtedly, we shall need more time, more finds and much more research to find out the truth behind these mysterious documents.

Many authors dealing with the Minoan religion forget about the essentially polytheistic nature of the Minoan pantheon. We can almost always read about a "Great Goddess", with little or no reference to others. But it is beyond doubt that like the Myceneans, the residents of Minoan Crete worshipped a plethora of divine entities. What is more, most of the classic Greek 'Olympic Gods' are though to be borrowed from earlier civilizations. Now we have seen a few intriguing examples of Greek divinities appearing in a purely Minoan context. Without doubts, this is just the 'tip of the iceberg': We know next to nothing about the portfolio of these gods, or their original attributes. Seems like we are looking forward to many more interesting discoveries in the near future!

On a quest to find Minoan pronouns

2010-04-22T14:21:00.000-07:00

I could not steer myself away from the direction my previous post has started, even if I tried to. The Linear A records are becoming more-and-more fascinating with every little step we take towards decipherment. So we shall go straight to the next step towards understanding the Minoan language. It is time to turn our attention towards the Cretan pronouns.

This will be a difficult quest to start with. Now we face a bit different problem to that we did when searching for declensional endings. It seems that Cretan scribes were not only fond of leaving out endings, but they also tended to fuse short grammatical elements - such as pronouns - to words following them. So we are to see an awfully high number of enclitic-like forms, even when there was none in the original language. Now, to stop teasing, let us see all the putative pronouns we can find in Linear A!

Part I: Demonstrative pronouns

The easiest-to-find pronouns in Linear A are the A-TA- and TA-N- particles commonly occurring in the libation formulae, and other "longer" texts. Due to their high frequency and characteristic sentence-initial or phrase-initial position (compare TA-NU-NI-KI-NA [PL Zf1] with U-NA-KA-NA-SI [KO Za1]), one can relatively safely identify them as demonstrative pronouns. More precisely, the declensional variants of a single demonstrative pronoun with stem *(a)ta-. This word is not restricted to the Minoan language. Eteocretan inscriptions yield an evolved variant of this very A-TA- pronoun in the form "et": The phrase "et isalabre" from Dreros is fully comparable with the Minoan A-TA-I-*301-WA-E [PK Za11]. The TA-N- form on the other hand, is prominent in Eteocypriot inscriptions, as the following example shows: WI-TI-LE • RA-NU • TA-NA • MU-NO-TI • A-I-LO (text on a gravestone from Amathous). Looking further along the Mediterranean, one can discover that even in Etruscan, the demonstrative pronoun had the form of ta in nominative and tan in accusative cases. Maybe it is not mere coincidence, that most Indo-European languages also share a common demonstrative pronoun with a t-stem (sometimes reconstructed as *to). In Linear A, we only have two cases of this pronoun preserved:

Base form (nominative?)	Oblique form -n (accusative?)
at(a)-	tan-

Part II: Personal, possessive and relative pronouns

Evidence for the next group of pronouns comes from a number of intriguing phrases. For example, on a pithos from Zakros [ZA Zb3], we see the following formation: WINE 32 • DI-DI-KA-SE • A-SA-MU-NE • A-SE (....). The word-divisor dot after the third word is barely visible, so we might think of A-SE as an example of Suffixaufnahme - but only at the first sight. The E-A junction shows that the word A-SE is phonologically fully separate (otherwise it would have been A-SA-MU-NE-JA-SE, according to the junctional rules). Although A-SE is a frequently encountered term on the Haghia Triada tablets [HT81, HT93, HT132, A-SE-JA on HT115], a place-name (in nominative) does not fit the context here. Instead, it seems that this tiny little word A-SE repeats the ending seen on DI-DI-KA-SE. From our previous studies, we may know that this *-(a)se ending is a valid declensional case-ending (most likely a possessive type). Thus the stem of A-SE must have been a single *a-. Since pronouns tend to be very short in almost all languages of the world, the repetition of the suffix alongside with the extremely short stem makes this word suspicious of being a pronoun - most likely a personal or a relative pronoun.

And this is not the only example we have: on a libation table from Syme [SY Za2], we find another intriguing sentence: A-TA-I-*301-WA-JA • JA-SU-MA-TU • OLIVES • U-NA-KA-NA-SI • OIL • A-JA. In this example, the word A-JA exactly repeats the ending of the first, compound phrase. Anyone with just a little language talent would immediately sense a connection. The stem is - again - a bare *a, whereupon came the ending *-ja. So it seems, that we find another case of the same pronoun, in a similar situation.

Now it is time to remember our previous discussion about words that show an attached initial i- mysteriously wanishing in some cases. Other words have a- (or ja-, see later) initials, behaving in a fairly similar way. Good examples for *a- are rare but we can find pairs like TA-NA-TE [heading tablet ZA10], A-TA-NA-TE [ZA10, one line below] and SI-DA-TE [ARKH2, header] versus A-SI-DA-TO-I [ARKH2, one line below]. The addition and loss if initial *i- is much more common (see some of the examples here). We have already observed that the i- element might be interpreted as a short deictic particle. Now comes the surprise: this i- particle may also exist as a fully independent word in other cases. On the gold ring CR Zf1, the following text is written: A-MA-WA-SI • KA-NI-JA-MI • I-JA • ZA-KI-SE-NU-TI • A-TA-DE (After checking the original text, I corrected QA- on the fourth word to ZA-). The first two words should be familiar by now: these seem to be a combination of a personal name: "to *Armawa" (in some dative-like possessive case), and a first-person verb *kanijami : "I give" (KA-NI-JA- is a verbal stem and the -m/-n suffixes are used by a wide range of Eurasian languages to indicate first person singular of verbs). Because of these two words, a relative pronoun (referring to the ring) is pretty much expected to follow: and so we have I-JA. Because the fourth word looks like a second (compound) verb, a phrase like 'that-which' offers itself as a possible translation. (At the same time, the last short word might contain an *at(a)- demonstrative.) And this is not even the only instance to find the word *ija! The HT Zb158 inscription features the sequence (...) SU-KI-RI-TE-I-JA (on a pithos), where the unnatural joining E-I immediately wakes the suspicion that there are actually two words: SU-KI-RI-TE • I-JA (otherwise the joining would have been directly E-JA). The word SU-KI-RI-TA is also featured in a Phaistos inscription [PH Wa32]. Since this phrase is a terminal fragment of a longer text, a pronominal meaning for I-JA is - again - possible. If this is true, then we might have found another class of pronouns in Minoan: this time one with a simple *i- stem, behaving similarly to the *a- stem counterpart. A possible scheme for word-formation is summarised on the table below (remember that 'enclitic form' solely means that the word is never written separately: it might have been simply a writing convention):

Enclitic forms		Independent forms
basic form (nominative? article?)	oblique form with -n (possessive? accusative?)	with -ja ending (relative pronoun?)	oblique forms (declined)
a-	an-	aja	ase (possessive?)
i-	in-	ija	N/A (no example)

Having both an *a and *i stem for personal pronouns is reminiscent of the Etruscan language. Hittite and Luwian languages also display an enclitic third person pronoun with the stem *a-, though not in *i-. But unlike Etruscan, we have no evidence of animate-inanimate distinction between the two stems. The only difference seems to be the frequent usage of *i- in a deictic sense. This makes it similar to the Proto-Indo-European pronoun reconstructed as h₁e (Latin hic).

The *a- form of the first pronoun is only conjectural: none of the examples gleaned so far are decisive. If correct, these finds may reflect a 'definite article'-like usage of the base *a- and *i- forms. The *in- and *an- forms were recovered from compound sequences A-NA-TI-*301-WA-JA [IO Za8] and I-NA-TA-I-DO-DI-SI-KA [IO Za6]. The first sequence can most easily be explained as a result of a simplification (-TI- was written instead of -TA-I-), and an additional prefixed particle, *an- (corresponding to *in- in the second case). These *an- and *in- forms have two possible interpretations: First, they can be simple declensional cases (perhaps accusatives, as in the case of *ta-n), followed by the demonstrative *at(a)-. But the -n- consonant was also used as a pertinentive formative (*na), thus a possessive meaning cannot be ruled out. In the latter case, it is possible that the true pronouns we see here are in fact *anath and *inath = "in his" or "in its" (i.e. the so-far unattested pure locative case of a possessive pronoun). In Eteocypriot, the phrases A-NA • TA-SO and A-NO-TI • TA-SO-TI (again, from an Amathousian gravestone ) show that such formation is perfectly possible. The problem is, there are too few inscriptions discovered so far to decide this question at this time.

Part III: Miscellaneous pronoun-like elements

In this last chapter, I would like to discuss a single, yet enigmatic particle. This is the only case where we may probably speak of a true enclitic pronoun, since the particle *ja is not only attached initially (e.g. JA-TI-TU-KU [LA Zb1] vs. TI-TI-KU [HT35]) or terminally to words (this might be the very -JA suffix I mentioned in the previous post), but also inserted into the interior of words. To get what I mean, we shall analyse phrases KI-TA-NA-SI-JA-SE, A-NA-NU-SI-JA-SE and I-JA-TE.

Word KI-TA-NA-SI-JA-SE [PE Zb3] is one of the most baffling phrases written in Linear A. The -SI-JA-SE ending is repated in a different word: A-NA-NU-SI-JA-SE [HT Zb 159, on a pithos]. Since Hieroglyphic seals also feature a word KI-TA-NA, we can be practically certain that this is the stem, upon which all the formatives were built. It is also quite clear that the words end in an *-(a)se ending, that probably expresses an ablative case. The remaining -SI-JA- part is unlikely to be a separate word - but it is also too long to be a single suffix. While a suffix *-si (dative?) is possible to make out, it does not make sense at all, with a terminal -*(a)se. So we have to suppose there is a third part hiding in the chain (which is also probable on phonological grounds): *-ja-. If (and this is a big IF) this -ja- is an enclitic pronoun, then the entire phrase suddenly becomes meaningful: the second -(a)se ending in *kithana-si-ja-(a)se refers to a different subject, expressing something like: "to-Kithana-from-him". (the "him" is just a random pronoun I put in - we cannot be sure if it worked as a personal, demonstrative or relative pronoun).

Interpreting the *-ja endings as attached clitics does sound as a wild idea, or at least so I think. Yet (at least in some cases) it does offer a way to understand phrases written in Linear A. On a Phaistos jar [PH Zb4], in a fragmented inscription, we have the word I-JA-TE written out. The I-JA- initial is an uncommon one, resembling the phrase I-JA on the golden ring CR Zf1. Based on the context, it is certainly not ιατήρ = 'doctor' (this funny identification I found on Wikipedia). Its -A-TE ending rather shows a locative-type suffix. But if I-JA is a pronoun, with *i stem and *-ja suffix, why does it not use a regular locative form *ite or *jate or similar? One possible reason can be that this *ija is a case constructed from a suffix that isn't a true suffix. If the meaning of I-JA is a relativising phrase like 'that-which', could I-JA-TE mean 'that-from-which' ? (Since it is on a vessel, such a complicated interpretation may even be meaningful!) I know that there might be a simpler interpretation of *-ja endings: namely, a denominal suffix (if we disregard the examples with initial ja-/0 alternation and assume the stems *kithanas and *ananus). But who knows which version is correct?

To sum up, we have seen that - with our current level of knowledge - it is already possible to identify at least a few words or stems with pronominal function. Since they are really infrequent ones (we should not expect them to be common...), a good deal of work is left for the upcoming next generation of linguists who are to be delve deep into the secrets of the Minoan language.

A bold new theory on Minoan grammar - simple nouns and their compound suffixes

2010-04-04T13:27:00.000-07:00

Back on the original track again, I decided to present a post on a theory I am currently working on. To undestand at least some details of the Minoan language is a really challanging task, but not challanging enough to deter me from making a post on a proposal regarding the grammar of the Minoan language. The task of decipherment is hard, due to a number of reasons. A large deal of this hardship is caused by the uncanny ability of Cretan scribes to abbreviate everything, including the total ommission of word-final consonants. In a language that frequently uses such tools (later we shall see that Minoan was probably such a language), the results are catastrophic: Even the affinity of the Minoan language is left uncertain. Any fluent speaker of the language could have relatively easily reconstructed the real meaning of the recorded phrases, but now we are facing tremendous difficulties, not knowing much about the speech of Bronze-age Cretan people. It is as if the correct English grammar would need to be reconstructed from a phrase like the following one (with respect to the elections, the quote is from Benjamin Franklin - the phonetics and ortography from Linear A):

E-NI • SO-SA-JE-TI • TA-TU-U-DU-KI-WA • A-RI-TI • RI-PE-TI • TU-KE-I • A-RI-TI • SE-KU-RI-TI • WI-DI-SE-WE • NE-I-TE • E-DU-RU-SO-PO

Although English is relatively poor in suffixes, we see that the verbs, articles and just about any other grammatically important part are essentially crippled in a script like Linear A. Although Hieroglyphics and Linear A were invented to write the Minoan language with, in many regards they were no better (or even worse) than the Egyptian Hieroglyphs (Linguists are still clueless about the vowels inside many-many ancient Egyptian words, even as Egyptian - Coptic - is still a 'living' language today).

Now, after all these warnings, let us turn our attention to the ancient Cretan scripts. Firt of all, I want to give you a sketch of a proposed noun declension system. I must remind all my readers that this is some sort of "preliminary work", something like the very first grids of Alice Kober - just scratching the surface and might not even be close to the truth. So, dear reader, treat everything you read on this page henceforth with extreme caution!

Part I : Declensional case endings

The simplest endings we can encounter on Minoan words consist of just one vowel. Since the Minoan suffixes are prone to intrude into the stem if they start with a vowel, these endings are expected to displace the orginal stem-vowel - in case the word ended with a vowel and not a consonant. To start with, I propose only two of these short or simple endings: one with -i , with a locative / dative / illative sense (at / to) and a counterpart -e with an ablative / elative sense (from / of). Since words could naturally terminate in -e or -i in nominative case as well, finding examples of these short endings is a rather hard task. This leaves this class of endings theoretic at best.

For the -i ending, we can encounter I-TI-TI-KU-NI on HT96. Since we can find numerous examples of TI-TI-KU on other tablets, it seems clear that this word was both prefixed and suffixed in the cited case. As for the initial I-particle, I have written about it enough in a previous post. But we also see a terminal -i here. As the Minoan Linear A syllabary cannot record terminal consonants, it is very probable that the original word ended with -n and the -i ending was added onto it (it was perhaps *thithkun - as another inscription [LA Zb1] shows a related word in the form JA-TI-TU-KU - note the way the consonantal cluster was resolved). For a word starting a header, an ending with a locative sense is the one most expected: in Linear B, most tablet-headers start with place-names, where the taxpayers or the goods stem from. For further examples, we can find place-names like I-DA-MI [SY Za1] (*i-tam(a)-i) and TE-KI [HT13], that occurs in the form TE-KE on tablet HT85. The two latter names are almost certainly referring to the same place, because other place-names coincide on the two tablets.

The existence of -e endings is little more than merely conjectural: in the libation formula, we have seen phrases like (J)-A-SA-SA-RA-ME, that aren't exactly in the nominative case. In our previous posts, I left that phenomenon unexplained: but now we may identify it as an -e ending, with a sense of "of *jasasaram(a)" Other tablets supply us with further words suspicious of belonging to this class: for example, there is the variation of A-TA-I-*301-WA-JA/-E. But again, the high number of words terminating in -e that are not of this case (probably being nominatives) hampers our work.

Even though the "simple/short cases" above were little more than merely conjectural, they are actually of great help explaining the system of the long/extended cases. These long or extended cases seem to be formed with the junction of a consonantal suffix (occasionally with a helper vowel) and the previously-seen vowel-based suffix: in other words, they are either of a -CV or a -VCV type. As there are three possible consonantal bases, the proposed system of extended suffixes would look like the following:

Consonantal part	+i (to/at?)	+e (from?)
-(a)s (possessive?)	-si (to/at the possession of?)	-(a)se (from the possession of?)
-(a)th (locative?)	-thi (to/at the location of?)	-(a)the (from the location of?)
-(a)l (pertinentive?)	? (not attested)	-(a)le (from the family of?)

The list of examples for these extended suffixes is much more longer than that of the short ones. It is not always simple to discern them though. For example, the -si and -ti endings can also occur on verbs. Fortunately, in many cases, the context can be helpful to determine the most probable meaning.

A good example for the possessive series is the word-pair PI-TA-KA-SE [HT21] (where it stands as a donor of goods) and PI-TE-KE-SI [HT87] (heading a list of people, and the term may specify the location or receiver of workforce). The -SI anding can also be caught in the term O-KA-MI-ZA-SI I-NA on tablet PK1. The highly unusual I-I junction shows that this term is actually two separate words: the first one carrying the ominous possessive suffix -si. The same ending is seen in words like E-NA-SI [KH7], U-TA-I-SI [KH16] and even ?-RA-MA-SI [ZA11], written on a tablet mentioning outgoing goods. From further examples, such as the golden ring CR Zf1, which features the sequence A-MA-WA-SI • KA-NI-JA-MI or the tablet HT28 with the header A-SI-JA-KA • U-MI-NA-SI on side B, it seems more-or less clear that this -si suffix does not simply express possession (like a genitive), but rather stands in a sense of dative. On the other hand, the -(a)se ending occurs frequently on the pithos-type jars found in the cellars of temples, and also on tablets listing taxpayers, like A-NA-NU-SI-JA-SE [HT Zb159], KI-TA-NA-SI-JA-SE [PE Zb3], O-TA-NI-ZA-SE [ZA5], DU-RE-ZA-SE [ZA10], TU-MI-TI-ZA-SE [ZA14], MI-ZA-SE [ZA15], SO-KE-MA-SE [ZA15] or RU-MA-TA-SE [ZA20]. We can also find word-pairs like RU-MA-TA [HT29] and RU-MA-TA-SE [ZA20]. The best example of this suffix is DI-DI-KA-SE on ZA Zb3. In this case, the context (especially the presence of a passive verb like A-TA-I-*301-DE-KA) strongly suggests an ablative sense of usage ("from the possession of...").

For the use of locative endings, like the -thi suffix, a great example is the pair RI-RU-MA [HT118] / RI-RU-MA-TI [PH31]. Another one consists of DA-KU-SE-NE [HT103] / DA-KU-SE-NE-TI [HT104]. Its counterpair, the -(a)the suffix is found in words like I-DA-MA-TE [AR Zf1] (despite my earlier interpretation, it could also mean "from the sanctuary"), or I-JA-TE [PH Zb4] (on a pithos sherd, possibly meaning "from that"). One can also add the example of the pair KU-PA3-NA-TU [HT47, HT119 tablets] / KU-PA3-NA-TU-NA-TE [AP Za2, on a stone vessel], where the original nominative of the noun - a place-name - was perhaps *Kurphan, ending in -n. Unlike -thi (that are more like regular locatives), the -(a)the endings are supposed to express an ablative or elative-like meaning ("from the place of..."). Such an interpretation of the -A-TE suffixes is not novel: it is in full accordance with the earlier theory of Miguel Valério on -TE suffixes (i.e. that of JA-DI-KI-TE-TE DU-PU2-RE).

The -(a)le class, as its pertinentive meaning suggests, occurs almost exclusively in personal names. The list is very long, and includes examples like A-RA-NA-RE [HT1], I-NU-MA-RE [ZA4], JA-MI-DA-RE [HT122], MI-RU-TA-RA-RE [HT117], TE-JA-RE [HT117] and WA-TU-MA-RE [HT128]. We find the same form in DU-RA-RE [KN Zc7] and O-SU-QA-RE [TL Za1] - a recurring theme on the libation tables. Another very nice example is the header of a tablet from Petras [PE1]: U-KA-RE • A-SE-SI-NA • KU-PA-RI. The first word of the three seems to carry this very -(a)le ending. The table lists the number of men alongside their food supplies, and the stem U-KA- is suspiciously similar to the phrase used in Linear B for "troops": O-KA. Thus the interpretation of the -(a)le ending as a pertinentive case-marker is fully meaningful. While the second word on the same tablet seems to be an adjective of -na ending (more on this later), the last one presents another example of an -i type ending.

I must mention though, that for the above system to work, one must assume a fully hypothetic class of medium-length or consonantal suffixes: that is, the pure consonantal endings [-(a)s, -(a)th, -(a)l]. The existence of this class is impossible to prove on the basis of Linear A texts: the Cretan writing conventions dictated that terminal consonants were always ommitted (unlike the later Cypriot Linear C). One can only guess at their existence where an unexpected vowel-change occurs, due to the addition of the auxiliary vowel onto the stem. A possible (though uncertain) example could be the strange formation observed in the I-PI-NA-MA / I-PI-NA-MI-NA pair: if the original word ended in -i, the -a ending on the first version could be the result of an intruding suffix, such as *-as.

It could be perhaps added, that no one was ever able to identify any clear plural marker for nouns in the entire Linear A corpus: therefore there is a distinct possibility that the plural marker was a purely consonantal-type suffix, always being ommitted from the records. As a rare example, in the compound U-NA-(RU)-KA-NA-SI/-TI, we find a -RU- extension on the noun corresponding to a putative plural marker. Yet caution is advised: there is no other known example of a -RU ending as plural, so it is probable that this ending is a derived one (not a simple nominative case) - in which case the plural marker could have been the naked -r- part (*una-r-u+?). Alternatively (though less probably, since we also have U-NA-A [KN Zb40]) the stem of this word could have contained this very -r-; and in this case the missing plural marker is only traceable because of the auxiliary vowel -u- it used to fit onto the stem (*unar-u+?).

Part II: Suffixes of unknown affinity

I must admit, there exist some suffixes that cannot be assigned a clear meaning without any contraversion. Apart from hapaxes, I could so far identify two of such endings: the A-A and the -JA suffixes.

The first of these suffixes is the very rare and mysterious -A-A case. It is very easy to discern (as an A-A junction is never normally observed outside this case). Problem is, there are only two known occurrances of this case-ending: U-NA-A [KN Zb40] and I-DA-A [KO Za1]. Though clearly a marker of some unidentified grammatical case, the sense of its use cannot be deciphered from just these two cases. It is also possible, that the real suffix was longer, and ended in a consonant we may never know.

The second suffix of uncertain affinity is the -JA ending observed on some words. It can be - at least theoretically - a simple nominative suffix. But problems abound with this interpretation once we turn to the Minoan pronouns (more on this matter in a later post - it deserves its own). All we know is the -ja ending sometimes alternated with -e (the latter expressing some ablative-like case). The use of this ending even persisted into Eteocretan (compare the words isalabre [*isal-awr-e] and isaluria [*isal-awr-ja]). The most important Linear A example is the alternation of A-TA-I-*301-WA-JA [PK Za12] and A-TA-I-*301-WA-E [PK Za11]. Other possible Liner A examples of this -JA suffix include the pair KU-PA [HT110] / KU-PA-JA [HT116] and PA-SE [HT18, HT27] / PA-SE-JA [HT93, HT Wc3001]. As there is no hint that the language behind Linear A was an ergative one, I could not make a good sense of this ending so far. It might have been some "clitic" as well, implying stress on a particular noun, irrevocably fused to the stem on some words, especially on those that were later borrowed into Greek (e.g. in the case of theonyms like Εἰλείθυια).

Part III: Derivative suffixes

The last class of nominal suffixes observed in Linear A or on Minoan words inherited by Greek is that of the adjectival formatives. We have evidence of three different classes. The first one: -na is well attested in Linear A (e.g. JA-SA-SA-RA-MA-NA = *(j)asasaram-na) as well as in place-names like Mycenae (*Muka-na). Of course, it could have been combined with the above-seen *-e suffix to yield the very common -NE ending of personal names on Linear A tablets. The next one is the famous -issos/-issa class of Pre-Greek names - it may correspond to the part -I-ZA or -E-ZA (-*(i)za with affricate?) found terminally (or sub-terminally) in a number of Linear A words, especially names. Take the example of DU-RE-ZA-SE [from ZA10]: *tule-(i)za-(a)se. Due to their nature, the formatives typically precede declensional case-endings (if there is any). Last, but not least, there is the case of Pre-Greek names in -inthos/-intha. The latter one may derive from a Minoan '-I-TA' -like suffix, with prenasalisation, of a form *-(i)ntha. The meaning of all three classes are subtly different. I promise to write a full post on them later, but beforehand, I mention that they are expected to express the following flavours:

Pertenitive adjective	Genitival adjective	Collective adjective
[stem]-na	[stem]-(i)za	[stem]-(i)ntha
(with [stem] ?)	(of a single [stem] ?)	(of multiple [stem] ?)

Now, to put our theories to the test, I shall post three different Linear A table-headers we will attempt to interpret with our newly-gained knowledge:

Number #1 (tablet HT117):

MA-KA-RI-TE	KI-RO	U-MI-NA-SI	[names with '1']
from place Makri or Makrintha (place-name?)	missing (past pariciple of verb *kir- = "to be missing")	for umina (sacrifice?) (cf. Etruscan umi- = "to dedicate")	[names of people required to pay "sacred" service]

Number #2 (tablet HT87):

QI-TU-NE	MA-KA-RI-TE	PI-TA-KE-SI	[number '1']
(noun): servant? qualifier of men?	from *Makri(ntha)(place-name?)	to *Pinthake (personal name?)	[amount of workforce allocated]

Number #3 (tablet PE1):

U-KA-RE	A-SE-SI-NA	KU-PA-RI	[men and grain]
of the troop? (cf. Linear B O-KA = 'troop')	(adjective): 'allocated' vel sim?	to kupa(r) (-i ending? *-r- formative? plural?)	[quantity of men (soldiers?) and their food supplies]

As the above examples show, the theory is a viable one, yielding a reasonable meaning for most of the phrases seen on Linear A documents. Still, we are far from having a proven and accepted theory on our hand, but at least we tried to construct a consistent one. I am sure this one will need a lot of improvements, even if it is basically correct. It is also imperative to look at the grammar of other "Aegean" languages, such as Eteocypriot, Lemnian and others. Apart from undeniable similarities, there are also notable differences: for example, the "duality" of extended (agglutinated) cases is not observed in Etruscan, yet it clearly seems to be a feature of the Minoan language. Whether this reflects the ancestral structure of Aegean languages, or just a side-branch development specific to Minoan, or rather that the theory needs amendment, I have no idea. But - so I hope - future will tell.

The Psychro inscription - how to make a real theory about a fake tablet?

2010-03-31T16:19:00.000-07:00

Back to blogging again, I am going to present yet another post off the track - about something associated with Minoan Crete, yet not being exactly... Minoan. The inscription (or at least its material) we will discuss does not comes from the Minoan era, but from the Classic age. It was originally considered to be one of the so-called 'Eteocretan' finds - text from Crete written in Greek letters, but recording an indigenous language. The Psychro inscription, this almost-surely fake tablet shall be perfect for an "April's fool's" post.

Since I love theorycrafting - even if it is about something entirely non-scientific, like fantasy literature - I will present a fancy theory of this 'Minoan' inscription made in the 20th century. Just for fun, and just for the sake of April 1st.

So, let us assume that we have just found a small brick, incised with a few Greek words and some strange other signs. Where we did find it - it does not really matter (perhaps in our workshop...?). What we can make it out on it, are about 4-5 words in Greek letters: yet they do not give out anything meaningful (okey, we failed composing a Doric text, because our poor knowledge - the Ionic and Doric words and grammar were badly mixed up). So, what if we assume it is Eteocretan?! No one would ever call our text into question any longer. As long as scientists know nothing (or almost nothing) of the true Eteocretan language, we are safe.

At last, we can go to the three strange signs the author of the tablet used as its monogram. A truely ingenious invention, really, a true Linear D. Problem is, the unfortunate author forgot about Linear B going extinct about 1000 years earlier. But it is just a minor flaw... what if a secret sect of crypto-Minoans kept its knowledge safe, hidden from the preying eyes of the evil Greeks and Romans?

But how do these signs read? They are barely legible in Linear B !! The 'scribe' that wrought these signs was either completely analphabetic in any of the Cretan writing systems, or was incredibly resourceful, since the signs can be interpreted as being 'evolved' from Linear B. At least something we did right when making (if the Greek text was already ruined...).

Let us now theorize an evolution of these signs from Linear B. Let's say the three signs represent the first word of the Greek-like text (why just the first word? It is sooo sloppy - but we are lazy...). So if it sounds epioi - then why not work out a theory to read the signs as I-PI-WI ?

I went so far with this funny 'nonsense' to actually make this theory work! you shall see the figure below, stating that such a derivation is of course, perfectly possible. And the 1000 years of time gives us a comfortable time-gap to derive anything we wanted wherever we wanted. Isn't it comfortable, to make any theory work you wish?

Lessons we have learnt today? Boys and girls, do not jump into deciphering anything that gets in your hands and looks ancient! Much more importantly, do not accept everything from other scholars without criticism. This tiny piece of Roman brick has already fooled many renown specialists of Minoan language and culture - something truly hilarious, knowing the facts about its origins...

Flower gardens of ancient Crete

2010-03-19T13:40:00.000-07:00

In this post, I decided to go a bit off-topic. As spring is closing on and every little bulbous plant is beginning to grow in order to bloom, one cannot help but contemplate about the origins of these petty jewels of nature. Many of them stem from the ancient Mediterrranian lands; and if we traced their origins - or at least the origin of their names - we would be surpised to see most of them originating from Minoan Crete. For anyone wishing to read more on the Aegean origins of our common garden plants, I can recommend the works of C. Diapoulis or Katzler's spice pages.

Let us see a few examples of herbaceous plants bearing Minoan names! From monocots, there is the common daffodil (Narcissus sp.) called νάρκισσος in Greek, the Madonna lily (Lilium candidum), the Greek λείριον or the white asphodel (Asphodelus albus), called ασφόδελος by ancient Greeks. Many of these flowers were also associated with mythical figures and stories. (Need I tell the story of Narkissos or the connection of the asphodel flowers to Hades?) The names of these plants (and many others) are typically 'Pre-Greek', lacking any meaningful Indo-European etymology, yet sharing some common features. This is one of the hallmarks that these names borrowed by Greek are actually of Minoan origin.

Althouth there are many more plants no longer bearing a Minoan name, we can be more-or-less certain that they were grown on ancient Crete, because of the frescoes. The paintings found on the wall of houses or the 'palatial' complexes depict a huge variety of plants: many of them still found in our gardens. Apart from lilies and daffodils we can find saffron (Crocus sativus), iris (Iris germanica) and gladiolus (Gladiolus segetum) flowers. There are wild rose-bushes (Rosa canina); myrtle (Myrtus communis) and sage (Phlomis fruticosa) shrubs; honeysucle (Loniceria etrusca) and ivy (Hedera helix) branches. Fruit-bearing trees were also depicted, like pomegrenates (Punica granatum). We also find palm-trees like the non-indigenous date palm (Phoenix dactylifera). There are also images of aquatic plants like papirus (Cyperus papyrus) and water lilies (Nymphaea alba). The frescoes even show weeds - common like today - such as nettle (Urtica pilurifera).

Perhaps the most beautiful and characteristic plant grown by ancient Cretans was the sea daffodil (Pancratium maritimum). It is depicted on a high number of frescoes as well as other objects. Faintly similar to the common daffodils but white in colour and blooming in summer, it must have had special importance to Minoans. Unfortunately sea daffodils are no longer cultivated today, but can still be encountered as a wild flower on the coast of the islands all around the Aegean Sea. The importance of this plant to Cretans is reflected by the fact that its symbol was even included in their writing system! One of the Cretan signs depict a lily-like flower: it is the Lin AB *27 (Hie *31) sign with a phonetic value 'RE' or 'LE'. On the hieroglyphic documents, this sign resembles not to the common lilies, but to Pancratium flowers, with their characteristic leaves and branched inflorescences. The Lilium flowers too, were an important symbol: another Minoan sign, Lin AB *122 (Hie *159), with the phonetic value 'RAI' or 'LAI', display a flower from the Lilium genus (despite its earlier interpretation as Crocus, It resembles more to Lilium, especially with its long stem and short bracts (barely visible on Crocus).

Other plants were not only planted for there mere beauty: Saffron or Crocus (Crocus sativus), was not only domesticated on the island of Crete, but also found application in numerous forms, most importantly as a dye and a spice. The Cretan origin of this plant is nowadays evident from genetic studies: it is a triploid and thus infertile variant of the wild-growing Crocus cartwrightianus plant native to Greece. Its Classic Greek name κρόκος, as well as its Semitic names (karkom, kurkum) likely come from the Minoan language. But we know that saffron likely bore a miriad of different names, like κνήκος (the term used for saffrons in Mycenean Greek) or others, lost to the passing of time.

We also know that the Minoans cultivated a high number of plants to use them as medicine, dyes, spices or just as food. Saffron was just one of them, with its stigmas used as a dye (not just for food colouring as today, but also for items like clothes). For example, wormwood (Artemisia absinthium) was used to ferment a strong alcoholic beverage that still keeps its name today: absinthe. Mint (Mentha sp.) on the other hand, was used for medicinal purposes. A special Cretan medicinal herb was dittany (Origanum dictamnus), that carries the name of mount Dikte and it is still grown on the island of Crete today. Poppy (Papaver somniferum) was likely domesticated in the western Mediterranean region, but was also cultivated on Minoan-era Crete, for medicinal purposes as well as its narcotic properties. Plants like caper (Capparis spinosa), celery (Apium graveolens) and garlic (Allium sativum) were used as spices. Linear B tablets also mention fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) and sage (Salvia officinalis) as MA-RA-TU-WO (classic Greek μάραθον) and PA-KO-WE (classic σφάκος). Other plants were imported from the East, together with their Semitic names: cumin (Cuminum cyminum) is featured as KU-MI-NO (κύμινον) and sesame (Sesamum indicum) as SA-SA-MA (classic σάσαμα) on Myceanean documents. Chick-pea (Cicer arietinum) was a legumine plant grown for consumption even in later times, but the Greeks still commemorated its Minoan origins by calling it ερέβινθος.

There is also an abundance of woody plants, trees and bushes that are planted since Minoan times and carry Minoan names up to the present time. For example, there is the Cypress-tree (Greek κυπάρισσος) that could be a symbol of Crete. Originally the name κυπάρισσος could denote any member of the genera Cupressus and Juniper. Although cedar-trees are famed for their timber since millenia in the ancient Near East, the tree received a new name in Greece, without any clear IE or Semitic etymology: κέδρος. The famous bay laurel (Laurus nobilis) was also called in a name predating the Greek civilization: δάφυη. Though almond-trees (Prunus dulcis) stem from the Middle East, they too, carry an ancient pre-Greek name up to this day: αμυγδαλιά. The olive trees (Olea europaea) yielded one of the most important products of the Aegean region: olive-oil. Domesticated in this region, the Greeks took its name - ὲλαία - from earlier inhabitants. As olive-oil is denoted by the syllable LAI (RA3) in Linear A, there can be no doubts that - this name as well - was of Minoan origin. Quince (Cydonia oblongata) stems from ancient Mesopotamia, but it likely grew so rich on Crete, that the Greeks and Romans called it "Kydonian apple" (κυδώνιον μῆλον) - where its modern name comes from. Perhaps one of the most common sight in today's gardens are the rose bushes. The name of rose (Rosa damascena) comes from the Greek ῥόδον. This is not a Semitic name, yet it does have cognates further to the east, like Arabic الورد (al-ward, hence the female name Warda) or the Hebrew ורד (wered). We also know that roses were one of the plants depicted on the beautiful Minoan frescoes found at Thera. Putting all pieces together it is quite possible that the name rose ultimately comes from an Aegean source.

As for the terebinth tree (Pistacia terebinthus), we can be almost 100% sure that its name is of Minoan origin, because of its structure: places with -inthos/-intha and -issos/-issa endings are typically found on the western Aegean (that is, Minoan) linguistic territory. The eastern Aegean (proto-Tyrrhenian and Luwian) territories would instead preferably show (grecized) endings in -anthos/-antha or -assos/-assa. The terebinth or turpentine tree was not only used as a medicine, but also as perfume or incense. The temples and shrines of the Aegean region likely used excessive amounts of incense or scented oils made of terebinth: this is shown by the sheer amount - one ton - of resin found in the shipwreck of Uluburun, Turkey (dating to the 14th century BC).

The following table will summarise some of the more important plant-names that stem from an Aegean, most likely Cretan source:

English name	Classic Greek	Minoan original	Notes
almond	ἀμυγδάλη	*amutskal(a))	with fricative?
asphodel	ασφόδελος	*aspadal(a)	ending=?
caper	κάππαρις	*kappar	stressed p = ph?
cedar	κέδρος	*kedar	ends in -r?
celery	σέλινον	*sedina	cf. Latin sedano
chick-pea	ερέβινθος	*arawintha	cf. Latin ervum
cypress	κυπάρισσος	*kuparitsa	-σσ- = *-ts-?
daffodil	νάρκισσος	*narkitsa	-σσ- = *-ts-?
dittany	δίκταμνος	*diktamana	cf. JA-SA-SA-RA-MA-NA
garlic	ἄγλις	*akil(i)	cf. Latin allium
laurel	δάφνη	*dakwuna	cf. Lin A DA-KU-NA
lily	λείριον	*lairi	cf. Lin AB sign 'RA3'
olive	ἐλαία	*alaiwa	cf. LAI (RA3) in Lin A
rose	ῥόδον	*orada	cf. O-RA2-DI-NE
saffron	κρόκος	*kuruku	cf. Lin A KU-RU-KU
saffron	κνήκος	*kanaka	Lin B KA-NA-KO
terebinth	τερέβινθος	*tarawintha	-β- = w or kw?
wormwood	ἄψινθος	*aspintha	cf. M.Persian aspand

The table is by no means complete and the reconstructions are far from certain. The original Minoan ending was almost always supplanted by a Greek nominative case-ending. In places where the original word likely ended in a vowel, I used 'a' , as this is by far the most common in Linear A words. Since the Mycenean age, Greek has had the tendency to recolour vowels inside stems from -a- to -e-, so it appeared wise to back-colour at least some of the stems to -a-. At some places, we have evidence of methathesis or other substantial changes: words attested in other languages like Arabic, Hebrew, Persian and Latin help to reconstruct the original sounding. Some of these names actually refer to similar, but not identical plants: the Latin ervum stands for bitter vetch (Vicia ervilia) and the Middle Persian aspand probably means syrian rue (Peganum harmala). I also made a good use of the "Pre-Greek" theory of Robert Stephen Paul Beekes. There are some reconstructed words that sound very similar to phrases recorded in Linear A. Most of them are personal names (like DA-KU-NA [HT103] and KU-RU-KU [HT87]) and not wares (like O-RA2-DI-NE [HT6] = resin?). Nevertheless, as it is common - even today - to give names of flowers, especially to girls, it is not beyond reasoning that these phrases are actually related to plant names.

A marvel of Minoan finds: the double-axe of Arkalochori

2010-03-12T15:18:00.000-08:00

It was long due to write a bit of the famous Arkalochori Axe, since we already talked about it a lot when discussing the authenticity of the Phaistos Disc. This decorative double-axe ("labrys") has become renown because of the unique (or almost unique) inscription it bears. Its signs are not from the Linear A syllabary, even if they resemble to Linear A a lot. They are clearly not Hieroglyphs either. The only other script they resemble apart from Linear A, is that of the Phaistos Disc. In truth, they are somewhat 'in-between' Linear A, the Hieroglyphs and the Phaistos syllabary.

I was not the first one to realize the high value of this artefact in our understanding of the variations of the Cretan writing systems. In fact it was Thorsten Timm, who first proposed a direct connection between the Phaistos Disc and the Linear A syllabary; using this very axe as a proof that the evolution of Cretan writing was far more complex as once we had thought. He also pinpointed that the signs of the Phaistos Disc are by no means exotic or exceptional: they are just plain variations of the well-known Linear A signs, just with some fancy design. Although I do not agree with some of the values Timm has proposed, I perfectly agree with the basis of his theory. Although I cannot link a page of his book, here is the link to his website. I think it is worth to pay a visit.

The inscription on the Axe of Aralohori is a rather short one: there are three vertical columns, filled with no more than 6 signs each. There are no word-dividers or any other auxiliary signs, but it is reasonable that the text runs from the top to the bottom. (Actually, I do not know about any writing system in the word that would have an upside-down direction of writing or reading...) The order of the columns - on the other hand - is open to debate. I lean toward the left-to right direction, since this is most natural with respect to Linear A. Remember, in Linear A, the faces of figures are not fixed to the start of lines, rather they are fixed by convention: human faces, pig-heads and eagles - for example - point to the end of script, while other animal heads like sheep or kine, point to the opposite direction. It is worth to observe that this inscription (unlike that of the Phaistos Disc) does respect traditional direction of objects - the 'cat head' (Lin AB *80 = MA) is drawn face-to-face (as in Linear A) and not in profile like on the Disc. This is how the inscribed face of the double-axe looks like:

The transliteration of the signs on the axe is again, not the simplest task. Despite their close relationship to Linear A signs, some figures are nearly unrecognizable. Keeping these problems and the doubtful readings in mind, one can give the following transcript of the axe's signs (the numbering of columns runs from left to right):

1st column: I-DA-MA-NA-RI?-*86
2nd column: I-SE?-NA-I-MA-TE
3rd column: SI?-RE-DA

We find three instances of the 'plumed head' sign. As we have seen before, it most likely corresponds to the Linear AB *28 = 'I' sign. In this instance, we not only find them as word-initials (as seen on the Disc), but they also give out meaningful words! The part I-DA-MA-NA- is strongly reminiscent of the I-DA-MA-TE phrase found in Linear A (AR Zf 1 and 2, engraved on double-axes made from gold and silver) or the place-name I-DA-MI (SY Za 1, as part of the libation formula). Our senses tell us compellingly, that this word has something to do with the name of Mount Ida, the sacred mountain of Crete. But this can be misleading: The stem we find here is *(i)-dam (or *(i)-tam), with an 'm' on its end (and not just ida), similar to the case of JA-SA-SA-RA-ME: *(j)-asasaram-e , with an 'm' in the stem (the Luwian-based analysis jasa+sara+me appears to be incorrect). The mentioned words apparently reflect the structure *(i)-dam-ate and *(i)-dam-i, the stem being *dam (perhaps *tam or even *itam). The 'i' vowel may be either part of the stem or a separate deictic particle (if I-DA-MA-TE is the same as DA-MA-TE, on KY Za 2). As for me, I suspect that this stem is originally without i- and it means 'sanctuary'. (Compare with Etruscan tmia = 'temple' and Luwian dammaranza = '[a group of] priestesses'.)

While the shape of the 'cat head' (Lin AB 'MA'), 'twig' (Lin AB 'DA') and 'dotted column' (Lin AB 'NA') signs pose no problem of reading, some signs are trickier. The last sign of the first column is undoubtedly Lin AB *86, the 'boat' sign (of a value not yet deciphered) but rotated with 90 degrees (as on the Disc). The second sign in the last column ('RE'), on the other hand, continues the Hieroglyphic tradition in depicting not only three petals of a 'lily flower' (as Lin AB 'RE'), but also a row of leaves on its stem. Since this type of design is common in Hieroglyphics (in overwhelmingly word-terminal positions, just like Lin AB 'RE'), there can be no doubts that it displays the original shape of the 'RE' sign. As we know that the Cretan writing systems originally do not distinguish between 'r' and 'l' sounds, it is tempting to believe, this glyph indeed represents a lily flower, not only in shape, but also in sound. The Greek word for lilies, λειριον, from which the Latin word lilium (and ultimately the English word, lily) comes from, is pretty much possibly of Cretan origin. The phonetic value of the lily sign (either 're' or 'le') nicely admits an acrophonic derivation from a form *le:ri or similar.

Finally, apart from simple variations of signs: mirror images, like in the case of 'DA' or the addition of extra strokes, as in the case of 'NA', there remains a bunch of problematic signs to read. For example, there is the first sign in the rightmost column, that appears almost identical to the Hieroglyphic 'arrow' sign (not to be confused with the 'arrow-head' sign, that is likely 'TI'). The same arrow-sign is also featured on the Disc, in that case with fletching. Linear A offers a number of possible descendants, among these the sign 'SI' appears to be the best candidate (though still far from certain).

The second sign of the middle column is more problematic. There are two possible approaches to decipher it. First, it is similar to the Hieroglyphic 'wing' sign, that likely reads 'KU'. But if we look for parallels in Linear A, we might get a match with the sign 'SE': even if that 'vine' winds in a different direction, it is still fairly similar in general graphic concept to this sign on the Axe. Unfortunately, both readings are possible using Linear A parallels, so we are left fairly helpless. Out of these two, I preferred the 'SE' reading, as I expected the 'wing' sign already to be turned into the well-known 'flying eagle' (KU) by the age this axe was made. It is good to observe that the columns [NA signs] were dotted like in Linear A, not solid like in Hieroglyphics. The Phaistos Disc, also displays flying birds [KU] - the Linear A version - instead of an isolated flapping wing, like Hieroglyphics.

The fifth sign of the left column is perhaps the most mysterious one. It is not even faintly similar to most Linear A signs, and finding its Hieroglyphic parallels is equally hard. Perhaps because the sign is poorly designed, lacking important details, or perhaps it is just damaged. From the Phaistos Disc, it might correspond to the 'sitting bird' sign, with two legs (that has no clear ancestor in Hieroglyphics). Based upon this observation, I very tentatively assigned the value 'RI', but I am aware that I might not even be close to the true match. If you have any better ideas of a counterpart in Linear A or Hieroglyphics, I would love to hear it!

A few notes on the altar-stone of Mallia

2010-03-08T13:36:00.000-08:00

I am devoting our next post to one of the smaller yet interesting pieces of Minoan writing. The object I am talking of, was found at the ruins of the "palatial" building complex of Mallia: it is an altar-stone, with a conical depression on its top, supposedly used for burnt offerings. The most interesting feature of this crude monolith block is however, the inscription it bears: There are 15 Hieroglyphic Minoan signs arranged in a single row, tilted at 90 degrees.

The text lacks any meaningful word-separators or other auxiliary signs well-known from Hieroglyphic texts, apart from the (dubious) '16th' sign (a simple vertical line). Despite this fact - as 15 syllables are way too much for a Minoan word, we can be certain that it consists of several words whose boundaries are not indicated by any markers.

The first problem we have to solve relates to the direction of reading. As we have seen before, the Hieroglyphic Minoan texts lack a well-established, conventional reading direction. Therefore they can be read from right to left as well as left to right. To avoid ambiguities, the Minoan scribes used special indicators: the start (X) sign, and the termination (Z) sign. Yet none of these can be observed on the above text. The only auxiliary sign is the (rightmost) vertical line. It looks like as the word-separator line of Hieroglyphic texts. In spite of the fact, that it does not actually separates words within the rest of the text, we can be almost sure that a text does never end with a word-separator, so it is wise to start reading on the right. Later we shall see that this reading direction (although exactly the opposite to the one Linear A uses) is also reinforced by the reading (with words meaningful in Linear A).

The next thing we have to solve is to get an approriate transliteration of signs, into Linear A, so we can read it. This is where troubles begin. Unfortunately, during the roughly 500 years while the Minoan writing system evolved from Hieroglyphs into an abstract syllabary, the shape of signs changed a lot. What we can see that the signs on this document are actually much closer to the origins of the script, than to the simple, undecorative Linear A figures. But since the shapes already seem to diverge from the initial picture-like Hieroglyphs, scientists label this style as 'Hieroglyphic B'. It is regarded as the direct precursor of the Linear A system.

At first sight, there are only a few signs that can be equated with Linear A ones. These examples include the leftmost sign with double twigs (Lin A 'NI'), the 'window' sign next to it (Lin A 'JA') and the 'double hills' sign (Lin A 'TA'). With a careful eye and thourough examination, however, most of the signs can be assigned an approriate Linear A counterpart. For example, a simple 'elimination of the improbable' strategy leads to the identification of the 'column' sign with Linear A 'NA'. The same way, the arrow-head sign can be assigned the value 'TI' (though the related value 'SI' cannot be completely excluded). Now, if we put all these identifications together, we can give the following reading of the text:

• TA-I?-NA-RO-TE-PI-*312-RO-E?-TA-NA-SU?-TI-JA-NI

What really interesting is, is the sequence of the last 6 signs. Here we see a natural word-initial sequence in TA-NA-SU?-TI-JA-NI (or rather, phrase-initial to be correct). The sequence TA-NA is not only common on Linear A tablets (adjoint to other phrases), but also on Hieroglyphic documents (as separate). Recalling our previous experience, we may identify it as the accusative case of the demonstrative pronoun, meaning 'this'. Finding this term is a further reinforcement, that our choice of reading direction was correct. The rest of the sequence, with the somewhat tentative SU sign, shows resemblance to the phrase TA-NA-SU-TE-(?)-KE found on a libation table (PR Za 1). That should not surprise us, given the context: this text likely also mentions offerings. While the rest of the text remains ambiguous, we may translate its last phrase as '....this^(acc) offering' (if nominal) or this^(acc) [we] offer (or similar, if verbal).

The word I-PI-NA-MA: Blood or Honey?

2010-03-03T14:59:00.001-08:00

I think this occasion is appropriate to give a bit of supplementation to one of our earlier topics. It is the 'Libation Formula' I am talking of. On these flat stone tables, we can encounter the word I-PI-NA-MA. As we seen before, a thorough analysis of the Formula suggests that this is a word specifying the offering made with the help of the vessel. It is very tempting to see it as a term referring to the fluid given as offering. But what was this fluid exactly? Was it oil? Or honey? Or rather the blood of sacrificed animals?

First of all, we must analyse the word to get closer to its meaning. The first part of I-PI-NA-MA is suspiciously similar to the particle '*iphi-' found in a number of Greek words, most importantly personal names. Apart from Iphigeneia (the famous mythological figure), we may find Iphianassa (an archaic name with wanassa = 'queen') and Iphimedeia (a goddess in Mycenean-era Pylos). We can also compare them to the name of Iphis (a heroine of Ovidius), Iphicles (a half-brother to Heracles), or the ancient Greek adjective iphios = 'strong'. The latter word has no truly convincing Indo-European etymology, so it is possible that it is an adjectival form of a borrowed Aegean word, *iph(i).

But what on earth could this *iphi word mean? Just by the high number of names derived from it, its meaning must have been something suitable for honorary titles and theonyms. On the other hand, the common Greek word ιφιος gives us a chance to check our theories in practice ('of *iphi' should give a meaning 'strong'). I have formed two theories about its meaning. In the current post, I will give sketches of both, leaving to the reader to find out which is better at his/her own discretion.

The first of these theories stems from the observation that *iphi was used to form theonyms. Iphigeneia was perhaps also a minor goddess, not just a simple personal name. So this term was associated with goddesses, and also with a type of libation (I-PI-NA-MA). Perhaps I was reading too much of the Hittite mythology, but I immediately thought about the story of goddess Hannahanna and the bees. Like in Asia Minor, there was a strong connection between certain gods and bees on the Bronze-Age Aegean isles. The symbol of bees is frequently used in Minoan art, and even a Linear A sign (*39 = PI) derives from the shape of a (sitting) bee. Honey was a sacred food offered to gods (see the Pylos tablets) likely in the form of libation. We might also take the Latin word apis = 'bee' into the equation, since the latter has no clear etymology among Indo-European stems, and is certainly similar to *iphi. So, according to this theory, the word *iphi should originally mean 'bee', and I-PI-NA-MA (*iphinama) can be interpreted as an elaborate word for 'bees' honey'. While - according to this theory - it is not the easiest to explain the source of word ιφιος (like a bee?), it gives a convenient explanation where the word for 'bee' disappeared in the classic period. In that era, the Greeks termed bees as μέλισσα = 'of honey' (this is the same as the modern Greek word for 'bee' as well as the popular female name Melissa). It is very probable that bees were regarded as sacred animals, and some taboos surrounding the uttering of sacred names can conveniently explain the disappearence of words. For example, the 'bear' is called Arctos in Greek and Ursus in Latin - preserving the ancient IE name, while substituted by terms like 'brown' (Bear in English) or 'honey-eater' (*Medw- in slavonic languages) where it was worshipped as a totemic animal.

My second - and more recent - theory uses the parallels between Etruscan and Minoan stems. In Etruscan, we find the stem *ep as a word denoting 'blood'. There is even a derivation: epana = 'offering of blood', similar to the base of I-PI-NA-MA (thanks to the online Etruscan dictionary of Glen Gordon). If so, equating *ep with *iph(i) gives a convenient way to explain the meaning of ιφιος ('blooded' -> 'strong'). While this causes a problem with interpretation of the personal names (we must assume they came from ιφιος and are not direct derivation from *iph(i)), the offering given on the tablets seem to be the blood of slaughtered animals rather than honey.

How could we decide this question once and for all? Unfortunately, I am not in that position, yet it is possible to predict the kind of fluid contained by the libation tables. Despite the unimaginably long 3500 years that has passed since they last seen use, it would still be possible to apply chemical trace-analysis methods to the tables to determine with high probability what kind of fluid did they hold. There is a well-known case of Mayan vessels, when the combined chemical analysis and linguistic methods helped to identify the Mayan word for 'Chocolate', also inscribed onto the vessels that contained it.

Minoan incantations on Egyptian papyri

2010-02-21T12:48:00.000-08:00

This time we shall discuss an interesting topic. We all know that the Minoan world did not grow up in a cultural vacuum. It had direct connections to the highly developed urban civilizations of the Middle East, especially Egypt. In fact, it was the Egyptian influence that had a decisive impact upon the course of the Cretan culture. The Minoan 'palatial' (temple) architecture and the development of an advanced writing system are just few elements of culture the Minoans imported from Egypt. Egyptian sources also prove the presence of Minoan traders and craftsmen (and even physicians) in ancient Egypt. Though some scholars still express doubts, it is fairly generally accepted that the "Land of Keftiu" is the term Egyptians used for Crete. There, the Minoans have left their traces, and even traces of their language: for there are papyri (for example the London Medical Papyrus or the Harris 501 papyrus) that record phrases, expressions and names in the language of Keftiu.

The medical adeptnesss of the Minoans is revealed by these Egyptian documents: there was even a special plant ("Keftian bean") imported from Crete as remedy for certain illnesses. But the most important part of the cited papyri are the magic incantations that were used to 'cure' certain diseases by the physicians (or should I say shamans?) of old. In the current post, I will write about only two of these magical phrases - these are the one of the best known examples of Keftian incantations. One of them is the incantation to treat the 'Asiatic' disease on the Hearst Medical Papyrus; the second one is the spell from the London Medical Papyrus to treat the Samuna-illness.

The first incantation reads as follows (as on the papyrus):

Spell for the Asiatic disease in Keftiu language:
s3-n-ti-k3-pw-py-w3-y-i-y-m3-n-ti-r-k3-k3-i-r
This utterance is said with...

Unfortunately, there are no word-dividers, nor determinatives, so it is hard to analyse this sentence. Just to break this monster into separate words is a hard task by itself. Perhaps (and I cannot stress enough: very tentatively) the phrase can be reconstructed as follows:

santi kapawa piyawaya iya mantil kakail

Almost everything in this phase is just pure theory, but a few things seem more-or-less certain: The i-r parts seem to be endings (moreover, similar endings), so I made them terminal. The phrase also features the sequence k3-pw, which looks similar to the KA-PA and KU-PA phrases found on the Linear A tablets. The i-j- part seems to start a word, so I reconstructed them as *iya (that is also found in Linear A in the form of I-JA). It can either be separate or form the beginning of the next word (*iya mantil, *iyamantil or *i yamantil). Since this is a sentence, it must contain at least one verb. This could be either iya or any of the phrases preceding it (e.g. santi or piyawaya). Remember, we expect some sort of 'optative' mood, so the supposed Linear A verbal endings -TI and -SI do not help.

Fortunately, the second incantation is much better. Since it contains determinatives, one can not only properly separate the words, but also directly understand something of their meanings. This incantation reads the following:

Incantation of the Samuna-illness:
w-b-q-i (det: ILLNESS) s3-t-t (det: ?)

s3-b-w-j-7-3-jj-d3-3 (det: TO GO)

hw-m-c-k3-3-t-w (det: MAN)

r-t3-jj The Great God and 'a-m-c-j3, God!
This sentence is to be said four times!

This phrase could be a real treasure trove of Minoan words, if properly reconstructured, analysed and understood. A possible transliteration of the sentence is presented below:

wappakwi sat(et) sappawaya-iyattsaa hawamekaatu Ratsiya (GREAT GOD) Ameya (GOD)

I used double consonants to indicate the places where the Egyptian scribe used a voiced consonant (something which is not indicated on Linear A documents, since it is probable that there was inherently no distinction between voiced and voiceless stops). I intentionally entered a dash within the verb (you will see soon why). The presence of determinatives is a great help to understand at least the approximate meaning of the words.

Let us start with the first word: wappa-kwi - if we take off the last few sounds that are likely a suffix, it is very similar to the Hittite word-stem *huwapp- meaning 'wicked', 'bad', 'evil', etc. Though this is often thought of as a Proto-Indo-European word, a good alternative could be that this very stem is of Aegean origin. As we see, its meaning is perfectly fit with the determinative: the meaning of wappakwi seems to be the term 'disease' in general.

The second word: s3-t-t is a fairly obscure one. In his original publication, Haider interpreted this word as s3-t + det:BREAD. But it does not fit the context, unless this is indeed a 'bread-illness' (i.e. resulting from alimentary reasons). However, this is unlikely, and we are left to wonder if this word is an Egyptian phrase inserted into the text (similar to Netcher = 'god'), but without a determinative. Unfortunately, it is hard to find a fitting word in Egyptian language, and translation attempts like 'daughter of the father' (s3-t-jt ?= s3-t-t) were so far unable to give a truely fitting translation. The only thing we can say is that this term likely gives some detail of the disease.

The third word is very interesting due to two reasons. First, it is undoubtedly a verb, as the Egyptian determinative denote intransitive verbs related to movement. Yet it seems to terminate with an ending quite different from those obberved in Linear A. This strange ending can likely be explained by the optative or commanding sense of the phrase ('let [it] lift off', 'may [it] chase away' or similar). The other really interesting feature is the considerable length of this word. Since simple words in Minoan Linear A tend to be at most 2-3 syllable long, this phrase is likely a compound word. The first half of the term: sappawaya- is heavily reminiscent of the phrase SU-PU2-*188 (perhaps *supphuwe) common on Linear A tablets. Apart from tablets recording goods 'brought in' or 'carried away' (i.e. HT 8), the term can also be found as a name of a name for a vessel-type on HT 31 in the form SU-PU. Very recently, I had a truely perverted idea on the meaning of this name. We know all too well, that the Greek vessels bore names according to their composition or function: so there were Tripods (τριπους = 'three legs'), Kraters (κρατήρ= 'holder') or Amphores (αμφορεύς= Gr *amphi-phoreus ='carry-around' or 'twin carrier'). If so, then the (relatively amphore-like) vessel SU-PU might have been the Minoan equivalent of Greek amphores, with its name being a translation of the Greek word 'carrier'. This would fit well with the interpretation of the (related) SU-PU-*188 as a transaction term, and the meaning of sappawaya-ijattsaa as a verb expressing some sort of movement. The only problem of this interpretation lies in the fact, that sappawaya-ijatsaa actually appears to be intransitive, thus cannot mean 'carry off'. Otherwise the scribe would have used the determinant 'to carry' and not the one 'to go'.

The fourth word, hawamekaatu (also transliterated as humekatu) is some sort of a mystery. According to its determinative, its meaning should be something fairly general, like '[off this] man'. Otherwise the scribe would have used a determinative for a specific type of men or that of some body part. It is almost certainly a declined case expressing some sort of directionatlity (for example, an ablative, locative or alike) However, the Cretan scripts offer no parallel at this time. The only faintly similar word is KU-MI-NA(-QE) in Linear A and Komn in Eteocretan (from the Drerian inscriptions). Yet the former (and likely the latter as well) seem to denote a type of goat, thus having nothing to do with hawamekaatu.

As for the last two words, they stand with an explanatory Egyptian text, instead of determinatives. This makes their meaning crystal-clear: there are two gods mentioned, one by the name Ameya (supposedly a divinity specifically responsible for healing), and another one, Ratsiya, who appears to be an important 'chief divinity'. At this point, the classic Greek religion offers direct identification of these theonyms with Maia and Rhea. The former one was a figure of little importance in the classical era, yet Maia was noted for being the mother of Hermes (the god of craftsmanship), and occasionally even worshipped as a goddess of mountain-peaks. On the other hand, Rhea was renown for being mother to many of the Olympic Gods, including Zeus. Temples of Rhea stood at the centre of Knossos and Phaistos, exacly at the site of the former palaces, during the classical era. Since the Egyptian scribe has noted these theonyms with a male pronoun, we must theorise that this was an error on his side, being foreign to the Minoan religion (in Egypt, both the head of the pantheon and some gods associated with healing were males).

Read together, we may tentatively translate the second incantation as follows:

"Let God[dess] Ameya and Great God[dess] Ratsiya lift the [?] illness off this man.

These texts are not the only records of the 'Keftian' (Cretan) language in Egyptian texts, though undoubtedly the most complete ones. There is also a writing-board (used by scribes to practice) that records "how to make names of Keftiu", with a few names following it in a row - however, the afffinity of the latter names are disputed. I will show the entire list on the picture below, for those interested at deciphering the structure of these personal names.

Some of them appear outight semitic, especially the one starting with b-n- ('son [of]'). Other ones appear to be genuinely Egyptian (e.g. s-n-n-f-r). Only few of the names appear to be originating from outside the Middle East: mainly the ones that begin with iw-. Yet even those fit poorly with any name found on the Linear A tablets, and even the comparison with archaic Greek names staring with eu- ('good') appears to be more acceptable than the Minoan affinity of any of these words. So this table is indeed what it was meant to be by its author: a list of randomly gathered names just for practicing their shapes.

The 'I'-particle of Minoan language

2010-02-13T12:21:00.000-08:00

Although it was not my intention to start discussion on the Phaistos Disc or anything related so early on; but since you asked for it, I will start discussing a topic that goes well beyond the Linear A inscriptions. Our search for the mysterious initial 'I'-particle of the Minoan language shall lead us through all the writing systems of ancient Crete.

As we saw in a previous post on the Libation Formula, the initial J- does seem to carry meaning in the Minoan language. In that post, I mentioned without proof that this J- is the same as the I- part seen on some other words on the tablets. Now we shall look at some of these examples, one-by-one:

Word with I-	Related word	Notes on meaning
JA-SA-SA-RA-ME (TL Za 1)	A-SA-SA-RA-ME (PR Za 1)	A word related to religious devotion
I-DA-MA-TE (AR Zf1)	DA-MA-TE (KY Za 2)	Not 'ida-mater', but rather a place-name
I-QA-*118 (HT44)	QA-*118 (KH 10)	Also occurs in the form of QA-118-RA-RE (qazir-ale?)
I-TI-TI-KU-NI (HT 96)	TI-TI-KU (HT 35)	A suffix *-i was also added (locative?)
JA-DI-KI-TE-TE-DU-PU2-RE (PK Za 15)	A-DI-KI-TE-TE-? (PK Za 11)	Likely a compound word (*adikthethe duphre)
JA-TA-I-*301-U-JA (AP Za 1)	A-TA-I-*301-WA-JA (IO Za 2)	Sign -U- stands for *wu (a substitute for WA)
JA-WA-PA3 (SY Za5)	A-WA-PI (KN Zf 31)	This identitification is dubious
I-PA-SA-JA (KH 10)	PA-SE-JA (HT 93)	This identitification is dubious
I-NA-WA (PH 6)	n/a	NA-WA probably means 'temple' (Greek Naos, archaic Nawos)

As we see above, there are quite a few examples that demonstrate the use of this mysterious I-/J- particle. Most scholars up to date interpreted these particles as prefixes. Nevertheless, we know that the Greek pronouns like 'τον' were typically written together with the word they referred to in Linear B. If Greek were extinct, we might very well think it was a prefixing language by looking at the tablets!

Having dismissed the prefix theory, only one possible conclusion remains: the I-particle is a genuine pronoun or article. From its occurrances, a use like a definite article appears quite probable. For example if *nawa meant temple, then I-NA-WA (*i nawa) could have meant "the temple" (or even *i nawath = "at the temple"). Fully conforming this theory, the I-particle is most common on the first word of table headers. Even in the Libation formula, the I-particle can only be found if the sentence is long, thus necessitating repetition of the initial phrases.

Why have I talked about the Phaistos Disc so mysteriously in the introduction? Because the very disc is the greatest vault of I-particles ever found. Almost every second word begins with such a particle!

Looking at the disc, one thing immediately becomes clear: the heavy repetition of stems, words, and even complete sequences. Perhaps the most repetitive feature of the disc are the 'plumed-head' - 'cake' sign pairs, that precede roughly every second word. We know that this is just an attached particle because of two things: First, there are many words that occur both with and without this sequence. Second, there is an example of scribal error on side B, where these two particles were seemingly inserted after the following word had already been stamped into the surface.

How does this sequence (*02 - *12) read? First, we know that sign Pha *02 occurs in other words as well, but always as an initial. It is not a logogram that many have claimed before, for we see the same head on the Arkalochori axe as well - again, as initials. To find its Linear A counterpart, we have to look at carefully the signs of the Libation Formula, where the scribes had the time to fully work out the shape of the signs, unlike the clay tablets. Once we examined the Linear A signs, our eye will unfailingly tell that Linear A sign *28 (that is, the 'I' sign) is the plumed head! The only peculiarity of this sign is, that the 'hairy head' does not face the start of writing. But it is undoubtedly a head. The prominent hair is - again - not a mere fashion of that age. Since we also have a "bald but bearded" head on the Disc, it is clear that sign Lin A *28 and Pha *02 stood for 'hair'. (perhaps the word for 'hair' began with i- in the Minoan language)

For those still doubting in the identification of signs, that are mirrored in Linear A with respect to that of the Phaistos disc, one has to keep in mind that the very script (Linear A and B) did not fix the direction of animal and human heads toward the start point. This often resulted in figures pointing away from the start point with their head, towards the right side - directly to the opposite of what we would expect in a (classic) hieroglyphic script, like the Egyptian or Luwian Hieroglyphs, or even the Phaistos disc itself (where the figures were aligned just to give a better look). To provide examples, I will show a few Phaistos Disc signs and their Linear A counterparts. (Just watch the rotations and reflections!)

So we now see that sign Pha *02 is 'I'. This fits well with the notion that pure vowel signs should occur frequently as word-initials. As for the following 'cake' sign (Pha *12), the only Linear A candidates are KA (Lin AB *77) and QE (Lin AB *78). Based on shapes, the latter is much more likely. This line of thoughts gives the reading I-QE.

Now, what on earth could this particle mean? The initial 'I' was possibly used in Phaistos Disc words B3, B11 and B17 in a way identical to that of Linear A. But I-QE is not identical to the initial 'I', yet closely related, based on its usage. It looks like some sort of copula or conjunction between different phrases or sentences. Searching for parallels in languages like Etruscan, a word struck my eyes: it is the adjective Iχ meaning 'thus', 'then' or 'so' (e.g. check the Cippus Perusinus to see its use). Could this be a reflection of an earlier *iχe or *iχwe form?

Given the very repetitive structure of the Disc, it would not be surprising at all to see a word like 'thus' being repeated after each and every phrase. The inscription being in the form of two snakes (remember the Snake Goddess), together with its structure suggest ritualistic use of the language, probably a prayer. In such contexts, conjunctions like 'thus' are not only usual, but outright expected.

Searching for similar I- particles in the Hieroglyhic script was however disappointing. The 'head' sign is rare, and words beginning with it are even less frequent. This can partly be explained by the shortness of the texts (bare names and titles, no sentences). Also, there are problems with the correspondence between signs. Since going into this matter would go beyond the scope of the current post, I decided to break this post off here, and continue the discussion some time later.

How to read the Minoan Hieroglyphics ?

2010-02-09T13:52:00.000-08:00

Having discussed many things about the fairly-well readable Linear A inscriptions, I now feel confident enough to continue our dig into the past. And that means it is time to start discussing a script even more ancient than Linear A. It is time for some Minoan Hieroglyphics.

To anyone not comfortable enough with this topic, one glance at the famous Phaistos disc is enough to be convinced that writing systems other than Linear A did exist on Crete during the Minoan era. But it this point it gets interesting: according to a thorough archaelogical analysis, Minoan Hieroglyphs were not only used before the arise of the more simple Linear A script. They were also used more-or-less contemporaneously.

This fact points to a functional segregation between the two scripts: While the more figurative (and thus aesthetically more pleasing) Hieroglyhic script was heavily used on sigils and at other 'representative' occasions, the more simplistic Linear A script was used primarily for account-keeping. Despite the fact that it is much simpler to write with the Linear system, so high was the charm of Hieroglyphics, that craftsmen and artists continued to use them for a long period. And they even invented novel versions of the old theme. That is how the signs of the famous Phaistos Disc were born. These are not the same as the ancient Hieroglyphics, but nevertheless appear to be genuinely Minoan: It is not beyond reason that these signs represent a "secondary" Hieroglyphic system (that is, re-interpretation of the already simplified Linear A signs as figurative elements, to create a highly decorative "festive" script).

Looking at a Hieroglyphic script, the first thing that comes to one's mind (apart from admiration of the craftsman's work): How can we read it ? Where does the script start? The problem is, the scripts go from right to left, from left to right, from up to down and even around in circles. There was no fixed direction of writing. This is no good news at all.

While some documents indeed offer no clue, there are many more that contain dedicated elements to help the reader. There are at least three different signs to help to guess the direction of reading. The most salient feature of these scripts is the small X most texts contain on at least one end. This is actually the "start" sign - it has no phonetic value, other than indicating the start of a word. The "start" sign can even be encountered on some Linear A documents (such as table HT123-124) - this is proof enough that the two systems were used beside each other, by the same people.

An other frequently encountered feature is a Z-like (lightening or wave-like) sign. If one more thoroughly analyses the scripts, it turns out that this sign (Hie *61) always stand on the end opposing that of X. This observation and the fact that Hie *61 is unlike any meaningful Linear A sign (except Lin AB *76 = RA2, but that does not fit well into the context) implies that this sign is another marker. John Younger interpreted Hie *61 as the "termination sign", but I believe an interpretation like "abbrevietion sign" might equally be correct: it sometimes stands where only a single sign follows the start sign (i.e. on KN He HM 1279 and 1281). The usage of this sign is by far not that common compared to the almost-universal X ("start") sign: for example, it occurs regularly in accounting texts (where abbreviations are common in Linear A as well), but only rarely on seals.

And if these two signs were not enough, some documents (especially seals) feature a further mark to aid the readers: these are the tiny dots that follow each single sign on many seals and other inscriptions. One simple look is enough to see that they always stand behind the signs, not before them. So - with their help - a careful eye can follow the flow of characters even when they go around in circles.

Now to end the hollow theorising, let us make some reading excercises, with the help of the Hieroglyphic Seals Database (thanks to the University of Florence). Our first piece to practice on shall be the nice round seal CHIC #126. You can see its impression below:

As we are already trained in reading such scripts, we should immediately realize the presence of the small X in the lower left corner. So the reading should be started there. Theoretically, we should have two different directions to start, but if we take a more careful look at the small dots, it is apparent that the script can only go clockwise (as the 'gate' sign is in the middle of the text). So we read X-*62-*56. But there the line takes an abrupt break. The vertical line before the glove-like sign *09 is actually a word-divider (Hiero style), and thus the reading should be continued from there: *09-*36-*47. This is exactly what the direction of the little dots suggest (the dot of *36 was displaced to the right probably because it did not fit into the remaining surface). The only possible alternative order, *47-*36-*09 is less likely.

Okey, now we have our order. But what about the phonetic value of the signs? Since it is pretty much likely that Hieroglyphics are ancestral to the Linear A script, we expect this script to be a syllabary as well. This is further confirmed by the number of signs: there are less than a hundred of them (even less than the Linear A signs). So, by careful examination of the shape of signs, we may have the luck to find the phonetic value of some, and even read some complete words!

On the above specimens, we can identify four characters - most of whom bear at least some resemblance to the Linear A signs. Though we see no 'start' sign except on the third seal, we can infer that the text is to be read from left to right on the upper seals (right to left on the lower ones) and counterclockwise. This will be further confirmed by the reading (see below).

In the left side of the first seal, we see a 'sistrum' sign that has to be read as KI. Though the musical instrument it depicts has a different orientation of chords from that of the classic harp, it is interesting to speculate that it stands for the word Kithara. The next sign we see is a double-backed object (possibly breasts or hills), that undoubtedly reads as TA. The third sign is the hardest to decipher, but after some search one can find that the only fitting value is NA. (This latter identification is non-trivial and this is something I would love to make a post of some time later). So the reading is KI-TA-NA-?. The text ends here on the second and third seals. The last additional sign of the first and fourth seals is probably the same, but not easy to assign: possible values include SE or TE (both would fit to the above word well).

How can we check if our decipherment was correct? On the KH 30 and PE Zb 3 tablets we can enconter a very closely related sequence: KI-TA-NA-SI-JA-SE. This cannot be a mere coincidence!

The only thing that remains unknown is its meaning. Theoretically, the words written on sigils can be either names or titles. Since we can find at least four different examples of seals with the sequence above, this is unlikely to be a personal name. It is much more likely that this was some (unknown) title. Similar repetitive words dominate most seals, often leaving no more than only one facet to be unique, thus representing a proper personal name.

For the last part, just for some teasing, I show an impression of a (multi-faceted) seal. Though some sides contain 'start' signs, some do not. Where do we know how to read them, then? The answer is simple for those who have read too much ancient texts: the direction of reading is a boustrophedon ! One has to read in the order up-down-up-down-up-down. The direction only changes where we see a 'start' sign, and these are the only facets where a start sign was featured. Otherwise just follow the turns!