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In the study of ancient writing systems that emerged when writing was invented, there is one geographical area that is, in a sense, an anomaly. This area is located in the Aegean and on Cyprus, in the Bronze Age. In this area and time period, a multitude of writing systems that that are at the origin of writing
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Linear A, the enigmatic writing system utilized by the ancient Minoans between 1800 and 1450 BC, has long baffled scholars and archaeologists. Although it remains largely undeciphered, recent breakthroughs in decoding symbols, particularly those related to numerical fractions, have fueled optimism among researchers.
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Known by the Greeks as ‘Megalónisos,’ or the ‘Great Island,’ the island of Crete has a long and varied history. Steeped in historical and cultural heritage, Crete is the most visited of the Greek islands. It has also been of paramount strategic importance for thousands of years, thanks to its location close to the junction of three continents and at the heart of the eastern Mediterranean Sea. For much of its long history, the island has been ruled by foreign invaders.
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The land of Greece is made up of
mainland Greece and the numerous islands scattered throughout the Aegean and Adriatic Seas. It is a mountainous country with hot dry summers and rain only in winter. The early Greek settlements developed as small independent communities cut off from each other by the mountains and often competing for the best land, because the fertile arable soil is in short supply. Each of the citystates
which developed out of these communities had a strong individual identity, and citizens were very loyal to their home state and to its patron deity.
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The decipherment of Linear B was described in the first two chapters of our joint book, Documents in Mycenaean Greek. This is an attempt to present that story to the general reader, through the vital steps in the decipherment are here explained in more detail, and much of the background which is unfamiliar to the general reader is filled in.
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Any discussion of the origins and formation of the Mycenaean palaces must
begin with the insightful studies of Klaus Kilian, especially his contribution to
the Strasbourg Colloquium of 1985 (Kilian 1984; 1987a, b, c, d; 1988a, b;
1990). He pointed the way for understanding the palace in the context of the
evolving socio-political structure of the Mycenaean state with appropriate
attention to the role of the wanax and, presciently, to influences from Crete
(Kilian 1988b).
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The 1700s saw the Scandinavian nations of Denmark, Norway and Sweden embrace the ideas of the Enlightenment era. This pivotal century paved the way for major social and political reforms across the region.
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Greek Writing from Knossos to Homer examines the origin of the Greek alphabet. Departing from previous accounts, Roger Woodard places the advent of the alphabet within an unbroken continuum of Greek literacy beginning in the Mycenean era. He argues that the creators of the Greek alphabet, who adapted the Phoenician consonantal script, were scribes accustomed to writing Greek with the syllabic script of Cyprus. Certain characteristic features of the Cypriot script–for example, its strategy for representing consonant sequences and elements of Cypriot Greek phonology–were transferred to the new alphabetic script. Proposing a Cypriot origin of the alphabet at the hands of previously literate adapters brings clarity to various problems of the alphabet, such as the Greek use of the Phoenician sibilant letters.
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