Английская Википедия:Cretan hieroglyphs

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Шаблон:Short description Шаблон:Use British English

Шаблон:Infobox writing system

Cretan hieroglyphs are a hieroglyphic writing system used in early Bronze Age Crete, during the Minoan era. They predate Linear A by about a century, but the two writing systems continued to be used in parallel for most of their history.Шаблон:Sfnp Шаблон:As of, they are undeciphered.

Corpus

As of 1989, the corpus of Cretan hieroglyphic inscriptions included two parts:

  • Seals and sealings, 150 documents with 307 sign-groups, using 832 signs in all.
  • Other documents on clay, 120 documents with 274 sign-groups, using 723 signs.Шаблон:Sfnp

More documents, such as those from the Petras deposit, have been published since then. A four sided prism was found in 2011 at Vrysinas in western Crete.Шаблон:Sfnp

These inscriptions were mainly excavated at four locations:

The first corpus of signs was published by Evans in 1909.Шаблон:Sfnp The current corpus (which excludes some of Evan's signs) was published in 1996 as the Corpus Hieroglyphicarum Inscriptionum Cretae (CHIC).Шаблон:Sfnp It consists of:

The relation of the last two items with the script of the main corpus is uncertain; the Malia altar is listed as part of the Hieroglyphic corpus by most researchers.Шаблон:Sfnp

Since the publication of the CHIC in 1996 refinements and changes have been proposed.Шаблон:SfnpШаблон:Sfnp The main issue is that a number of symbols found on sealstones, tending to be more image-based, were deemed as purely decorative and not included in the sign list (or are transcribed when read). The concern is that this process may have resulted in actual signs being deprecated.Шаблон:SfnpШаблон:Sfnp

Some Cretan Hieroglyphic (as well as Linear A) inscriptions were also found on the island of Samothrace in the northeastern Aegean.Шаблон:Sfnp

It has been suggested that there was an evolution of the hieroglyphs into the linear scripts. Also, some relations to Anatolian hieroglyphs have been suggested:

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New exemplars continue to be found. During recent excavation at the Neopalatial area of the Cult Centre of the City of Knossos a seal stone was found in a foundation deposit. The steatite seal had four inscribed faces and the deposit dated to Final Palatial Period into LM III B. The room where the deposit was found had a "religious sceptre" inscribed all over with Linear A. Шаблон:Sfnp

Signs

Файл:Archanes Script, 2100-1800 BC, AMH, Sk 2260, 144882.jpg
The Archanes Script. MM IA / MMIB, 2100–1800 BC. Archanes type of Cretan hieroglyphs. Archanes Phourni. Archaeological Museum of Heraklion
Файл:Cretan hieroglyphs2.png
Cretan hieroglyphs (1900–1600 BC) on a clay bar from Malia or Knossos, Crete. As exhibited at Heraklion Archaeological Museum, Crete, Greece. Dots represent numerals

Symbol inventories have been compiled by Шаблон:Harvp, Шаблон:Harvp, and Шаблон:Harvp.

The glyph inventory in CHIC includes 96 syllabograms representing sounds, ten of which double as logograms, representing words or portions of words.

There are also 23 logograms representing four levels of numerals (units, tens, hundreds, thousands), numerical fractions, and two types of punctuation.

Many symbols have apparent Linear A counterparts, so that it is tempting to insert Linear B sound values. Moreover, there are multiple parallels (words and phrases) from hieroglyphic inscriptions that occur also in Linear A and/or B in similar contexts (words for "total", toponyms, personal names etc.)Шаблон:Sfnp

It has been suggestedШаблон:Vague that several signs were influenced by Egyptian hieroglyphs.Шаблон:SfnpШаблон:Sfnp

Chronology

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The development of hieroglyphs passed three important stages:

  • Archanes script (signs look like pictograms, although their number and frequency rather suggest a syllabic script); this script was only described as a distinct stage in development of the Cretan hieroglyphic in the 1980s. Most of these seals contain a repetitive "Archanes formula" of 2–3 signs.Шаблон:Sfnp
  • Hieroglyphic A (best represented in archaeological records; similar to Archanes, but images of animals are reduced to heads only)
  • Hieroglyphic B (mostly on clay, characters are essentially simplified, may have served as a prototype for Linear A and possibly the Cypro-Minoan script). Only this latter version of the hieroglyphic includes signs that can possibly match ideograms known from Linear A.

The sequence and the geographical spread of Cretan hieroglyphs, Linear A, and Linear B, the five overlapping, but distinct, writing systems of Bronze Age Crete and the Greek mainland can be summarized as follows:Шаблон:Sfnp

Writing system Geographical area Time spanШаблон:Efn
Cretan Hieroglyphic Crete (eastward from the Knossos-Phaistos axis) c. 2100–1700 BCШаблон:SfnpШаблон:Sfnp
Linear A Crete (except extreme southwest), Aegean islands (Kea, Kythera, Melos, Thera), and Greek mainland (Laconia) c. 1800–1450 BCШаблон:SfnpШаблон:SfnpШаблон:SfnpШаблон:Sfnp
Linear B Crete (Knossos), and mainland (Pylos, Mycenae, Thebes, Tiryns, Agios Vasileios – the ancient name of the latter is unknown) c. 1450–1200 BC
Cypro-Minoan Cyprus c. 1550–1050 BC
Cypriot Cyprus c. 11th–4th centuries BC

Fonts

The Aegean and Cretan Hieroglyphs fonts support Cretan hieroglyphs.[1]

See also

Notes

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References

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Works cited

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Further reading

External links

Шаблон:List of writing systems Шаблон:Authority control Шаблон:Minoan civilization