The most peculiar Minoan sign ever seen

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

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.