"My Lady Rhea"

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...

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).

Goddess Eileithyia and her snakes

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.

Exploring the patterns on the (in)famous Phaistos Disc

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.

Divine names on Linear A tablets

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!