Minotaurs and Labyrinths
Lecture Notes
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This part of the blog is dedicated to all things Bronze Age in the Aegean. It's fascinating to look at the relationships between the various writing-systems throughout the Aegean & in neighbouring lands.
Here are photographs of the pages in my my notebooks.
Drawing the signs is very good fun (helps to develop a better understanding of their form too). Many of these were my first go. I just went over them in ink. They are by no means perfect. But neither were the originals!
I've relied heavily on the recent publications from conferences on the subject and, in particular, on this fantastic book.
Understanding Relations Between Scripts: The Aegean Writing Systems - edited by Philippa M. Steele (Oxbow books, 2017)
There are many useful academic web sites, too, which are easily accessible. My interests focus on the scripts of Crete & other parts of Greece.
Here's my table of what's known as Linear A (still classified as non-deciphered).
Some sounds are considered known, as are some words. Officially it is considered to be "yet to be deciphered." Scientific approaches are important.
Here are a few extra signs
This is the deciphered form of Greek known as Linear B.
Chadwick wasn't sure what some of the signs (above) were and lumped them together as undeciphered Linear B signs. Some are now considered to belong to a different script (hence my pencil notes after them, referring to Linear A).
Here are the extra signs of Linear B.
Here are some examples of words translated from this language.
Yes, that is my toe holding the page down to prevent its blowing in the breeze!
There are also signs used for numbers, fractions and for weights and measures. Here they are.
How about a kotyle of vino?
As well as signs for sounds (phonemes) there are many ideograms and pictograms for familiar objects or creatures.
notes on the word ‘fig’
There are many symbols found on seals and gemstones in Crete and elsewhere. These are currently affectionately known as 'Cretan Hieroglyphs.' They provide many headaches for academics, but progress is being made to try to make sense of their 'meaning' and function.
This page shows what is considered to represent sounds. This page shows signs found on seals.
An understanding of semiotics is just as advantageous as a knowledge of Greek here!
Some useful links below:
Anna P Judson has a lively blog site about Linear B & related material
itsallgreektoanna.wordpress.com
Pippa Steele, whose book I mentioned earlier, has a number of social media sites and web pages related to Early Writing Systems (and alphabets). Here are some useful links:
CREWS project
@crewsproject
for information about the project and those experts associated with it.