DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9804#0175
THE MINOAN SCRIPTS OUTSIDE CRETE 149
important fact that this language remained at least in
partial use in Late Minoan III.1 It has already been
remarked 8 that at an early period it was written with
pen and ink, and not only scratched on clay. The clay
tablet, it may be noticed, is probably the direct ancestor
of the Greek and Roman custom of writing with a " stilus"
on a tablet coated with wax.
How far these systems of writing, and the language
that they represent, prevailed outside of Crete, it is
impossible yet to tell. The Island of Melos, whose close
connection with Crete we have already had several times
to notice,3 seems to be the only place where traces of
the Minoan scripts occur in any considerable quantity.
Even here there are only marks on vases,' and the same
is true of the still more isolated traces found on terracotta
or stone vases in the Island of Cythera or on the main-
land, at Mycenae and elsewhere.6 Such marks, like
those on the spinning whorls from Troy,' may point to
the fact that a system of writing existed in their original
centre of diffusion ; but in their place of discovery they
may be trade-marks, copied and used without compre-
hension of their original meaning. They may belong,
too, some of them, not to any particular system of
developed writing, but to the original stock of signs
common to the Mediterranean race. It would hardly be
maintained that the pottery marks at Tordos, in Transyl-
vania, which resemble so closely those on the Trojan
whorls,' prove that the Minoan script and the Minoan
language were in use in Neolithic Hungary.1
The fact that the remains of the script at Mycena;
1 B.S.A. xi. p. 16. 2 See p. 64.
3 See pp. 14, 63, 85. * Phylakopi, pp. 177-85, figs. 150-9.
0 J.H.S. xiv. pp. 272-4,Tsountas-Manatt, 1897, M.A. pp. 268-93.
6 H. Schmidt in Dorpfeld, T.I. 1902, i. pp. 427-8, and Bcilagc
48.
7 H. Schmidt in Z. f. Eihnol. 1903, figs. 38-9, p. 457.
8 Evans has some remarks on this point in J.H.S. xvii.
PP- 391-2, and xiv. p. 367.
important fact that this language remained at least in
partial use in Late Minoan III.1 It has already been
remarked 8 that at an early period it was written with
pen and ink, and not only scratched on clay. The clay
tablet, it may be noticed, is probably the direct ancestor
of the Greek and Roman custom of writing with a " stilus"
on a tablet coated with wax.
How far these systems of writing, and the language
that they represent, prevailed outside of Crete, it is
impossible yet to tell. The Island of Melos, whose close
connection with Crete we have already had several times
to notice,3 seems to be the only place where traces of
the Minoan scripts occur in any considerable quantity.
Even here there are only marks on vases,' and the same
is true of the still more isolated traces found on terracotta
or stone vases in the Island of Cythera or on the main-
land, at Mycenae and elsewhere.6 Such marks, like
those on the spinning whorls from Troy,' may point to
the fact that a system of writing existed in their original
centre of diffusion ; but in their place of discovery they
may be trade-marks, copied and used without compre-
hension of their original meaning. They may belong,
too, some of them, not to any particular system of
developed writing, but to the original stock of signs
common to the Mediterranean race. It would hardly be
maintained that the pottery marks at Tordos, in Transyl-
vania, which resemble so closely those on the Trojan
whorls,' prove that the Minoan script and the Minoan
language were in use in Neolithic Hungary.1
The fact that the remains of the script at Mycena;
1 B.S.A. xi. p. 16. 2 See p. 64.
3 See pp. 14, 63, 85. * Phylakopi, pp. 177-85, figs. 150-9.
0 J.H.S. xiv. pp. 272-4,Tsountas-Manatt, 1897, M.A. pp. 268-93.
6 H. Schmidt in Dorpfeld, T.I. 1902, i. pp. 427-8, and Bcilagc
48.
7 H. Schmidt in Z. f. Eihnol. 1903, figs. 38-9, p. 457.
8 Evans has some remarks on this point in J.H.S. xvii.
PP- 391-2, and xiv. p. 367.