DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.805#0010
[270] PRIMITIVE PICTOGRAPHS AND SCRIPT
PRIMITIVE PICTOGRAPHS AND A PRAE-PHOENICIAN SCRIPT
FROM CRETE AND THE PELOPONNESE.
§ I.—Cretan Discoveries.
In the absence of abiding monuments the fact has too generally been lost
sight of, that throughout what is now the civilized European area there must
once have existed systems of picture-writing such as still survive among the
more primitive races of mankind. To find such ' pictographs' in actual use
—the term is used in its most comprehensive sense to cover carvings on rocks
or other materials whether or not actually overlaid with colour—we must now
go further afield. Traces of such may indeed be seen on the rude engrav-
ings of some megalithic monuments like that of Gavr Innis, on the rock
carvings of Denmark, or the mysterious figures known as the Maraviglic
wrought on a limestone cliff in the heart of the Maritime Alps, to which
may be added others quite recently discovered in the same region.
In Lapland, where designs of this character ornamented the troll-drums
of the magicians till within a recent period, survivals of some of the traditional
forms may still be found to the present day, engraved on the bowls of their
reindeer-horn spoons. Of actual rock-paintings perfectly analogous to those of
Cherokees or Zulus, I have myself observed an example—consisting of
animals and swastika-like figures painted probably by early Slavonic hands
on the face of a rock overhanging a sacred grotto in a fiord of the Bocche
di Cattaro.
But the perishable nature of the materials on which picture-writing,
having for most part only a temporary value, was usually wrought has been
fatal to the survival of primitive European pictographs on any large scale.
If we had before us the articles of bark and hide and wood of early man in
this quarter of the globe or could still see the tattoo marks on his skin we
should have a very different idea of the part once played by picture-writing
on European soil. As it is, it is right-that the imagination should supply
the deficiency of existing evidence.
In the areas embraced by the older civilizations such as Egypt, Babylonia
and China, a different kind of influence has been at work, by which the void
caused by the disappearance of the more primitive materials may in a great
measure be filled up. For there the early pictographic elements, such as we
PRIMITIVE PICTOGRAPHS AND A PRAE-PHOENICIAN SCRIPT
FROM CRETE AND THE PELOPONNESE.
§ I.—Cretan Discoveries.
In the absence of abiding monuments the fact has too generally been lost
sight of, that throughout what is now the civilized European area there must
once have existed systems of picture-writing such as still survive among the
more primitive races of mankind. To find such ' pictographs' in actual use
—the term is used in its most comprehensive sense to cover carvings on rocks
or other materials whether or not actually overlaid with colour—we must now
go further afield. Traces of such may indeed be seen on the rude engrav-
ings of some megalithic monuments like that of Gavr Innis, on the rock
carvings of Denmark, or the mysterious figures known as the Maraviglic
wrought on a limestone cliff in the heart of the Maritime Alps, to which
may be added others quite recently discovered in the same region.
In Lapland, where designs of this character ornamented the troll-drums
of the magicians till within a recent period, survivals of some of the traditional
forms may still be found to the present day, engraved on the bowls of their
reindeer-horn spoons. Of actual rock-paintings perfectly analogous to those of
Cherokees or Zulus, I have myself observed an example—consisting of
animals and swastika-like figures painted probably by early Slavonic hands
on the face of a rock overhanging a sacred grotto in a fiord of the Bocche
di Cattaro.
But the perishable nature of the materials on which picture-writing,
having for most part only a temporary value, was usually wrought has been
fatal to the survival of primitive European pictographs on any large scale.
If we had before us the articles of bark and hide and wood of early man in
this quarter of the globe or could still see the tattoo marks on his skin we
should have a very different idea of the part once played by picture-writing
on European soil. As it is, it is right-that the imagination should supply
the deficiency of existing evidence.
In the areas embraced by the older civilizations such as Egypt, Babylonia
and China, a different kind of influence has been at work, by which the void
caused by the disappearance of the more primitive materials may in a great
measure be filled up. For there the early pictographic elements, such as we