DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.805#0014
[274] PRIMITIVE PICTOGRAPHS AND SCRIPT 5
Menidi,3 on a three-handled vase from Nauplia4 and a stone pestle from
Mycenae.5 Dr. Tsountas in describing these finds lays stress on their
occurrence in two cases in groups of three and four respectively, and reason-
ably asks whether we have not here to deal with some form of writing.
Professor Petrie again has discovered a series of isolated symbols on what he
considers to have been fragments of early Aegean pottery discovered by him
at Gurob in a deposit which he assigns to the period of the Twelfth Dynasty,
and again at Kahun amongst Eighteenth Dynasty relics.6
Notwithstanding these indications, however, the last writer on the
Mycenaean and early Aegean culture, M. Perrot, sums up the evidence as
follows: ' The first characteristic which attracts the historian's notice when
he tries to define the prae-Homeric civilization is that it is a stranger to the
use of writing. It knows neither the ideographic signs possessed by Egypt
and Chaldaea nor the alphabet properly so called which Greece was afterwards
to borrow from Phoenicia.' He admits indeed that some of the marks
recently observed on the vase-handles bear resemblance to letters, either
Greek or Cypriote, but observes that they do not seem to form words, and
that they are perhaps nothing more than the marks of the potter or the
proprietor, or ignorant copies of Phoenician or Asianic characters. 'As at
present advised,' he concludes, ' we can continue to affirm that for the whole
of this period, nowhere, neither in the Peloponnese nor in Greece proper, no
more on the buildings than on the thousand objects of luxury or domestic use
that have come out of the tombs, has there anything been discovered which
resembles any kind of writing.'7
The evidence which I am now able to bring forward will, I venture to
think, conclusively demonstrate that as a matter of fact an elaborate system
of writing did exist within the limits of the Mycenaean world, and moreover
that two distinct phases of this art are traceable among its population. The
one is pictographic in character like Egyptian hieroglyphics, the other linear
and quasi-alphabetic, much resembling the Cypriote and Asianic syllabaries.
In the course of a visit to Greece in the spring of 1893 I came across
some small three- and four-sided stones perforated along their axis, upon which
had been engraved a series of remarkable symbols. The symbols occurred
in groups on the facets of the stones, and it struck me at once that they
belonged to a hieroglyphic system. They were however quite distinct from
3 Tsountas, Mjjfrijrai p. 213. One has a sign marks (see below, p. 282) M. Perrot had previ-
resembling the Greek TT, the other, 4^ the ously admitted {op. eit. 461) that the Cypriote
Cypriote, pa, ici, or pha. signs may have had an Aegean extension ' during
4 'ApxatoXoymiv AeAnV, 1892, p. 73. It a certain time.' But the subsequent passage on
was discovered by Dr. Stais in a tomb of the p. 985 retracts this admission as far as the My-
Pronoea, On each handle was engraved a sign cenaean period is concerned. Dr. Reichel sug-
like the Greek H but with offshoots from the gests (ffomerische Waffcn, p. 142) that. the
top of the upright strokes. linear designs below the combatants on the silver
5 npaKTMaTTJs'Apx<"°^oyMVs'Eraif>ias, 1889, fragment from Mycenae {'E<p. 'Apx- 1891, PI.
p. 19. 6 See below, p. 348. II. 2) are signs of an unknown script. But the
7 Perrot et Chipiez, La Grece primitive: I'Art figures in question represent throwing-sticks
MyrJnien, p. 985. In describing the KnSsian (J.ff.S. xiii. (1892-3), p. 199, n. lla).
Menidi,3 on a three-handled vase from Nauplia4 and a stone pestle from
Mycenae.5 Dr. Tsountas in describing these finds lays stress on their
occurrence in two cases in groups of three and four respectively, and reason-
ably asks whether we have not here to deal with some form of writing.
Professor Petrie again has discovered a series of isolated symbols on what he
considers to have been fragments of early Aegean pottery discovered by him
at Gurob in a deposit which he assigns to the period of the Twelfth Dynasty,
and again at Kahun amongst Eighteenth Dynasty relics.6
Notwithstanding these indications, however, the last writer on the
Mycenaean and early Aegean culture, M. Perrot, sums up the evidence as
follows: ' The first characteristic which attracts the historian's notice when
he tries to define the prae-Homeric civilization is that it is a stranger to the
use of writing. It knows neither the ideographic signs possessed by Egypt
and Chaldaea nor the alphabet properly so called which Greece was afterwards
to borrow from Phoenicia.' He admits indeed that some of the marks
recently observed on the vase-handles bear resemblance to letters, either
Greek or Cypriote, but observes that they do not seem to form words, and
that they are perhaps nothing more than the marks of the potter or the
proprietor, or ignorant copies of Phoenician or Asianic characters. 'As at
present advised,' he concludes, ' we can continue to affirm that for the whole
of this period, nowhere, neither in the Peloponnese nor in Greece proper, no
more on the buildings than on the thousand objects of luxury or domestic use
that have come out of the tombs, has there anything been discovered which
resembles any kind of writing.'7
The evidence which I am now able to bring forward will, I venture to
think, conclusively demonstrate that as a matter of fact an elaborate system
of writing did exist within the limits of the Mycenaean world, and moreover
that two distinct phases of this art are traceable among its population. The
one is pictographic in character like Egyptian hieroglyphics, the other linear
and quasi-alphabetic, much resembling the Cypriote and Asianic syllabaries.
In the course of a visit to Greece in the spring of 1893 I came across
some small three- and four-sided stones perforated along their axis, upon which
had been engraved a series of remarkable symbols. The symbols occurred
in groups on the facets of the stones, and it struck me at once that they
belonged to a hieroglyphic system. They were however quite distinct from
3 Tsountas, Mjjfrijrai p. 213. One has a sign marks (see below, p. 282) M. Perrot had previ-
resembling the Greek TT, the other, 4^ the ously admitted {op. eit. 461) that the Cypriote
Cypriote, pa, ici, or pha. signs may have had an Aegean extension ' during
4 'ApxatoXoymiv AeAnV, 1892, p. 73. It a certain time.' But the subsequent passage on
was discovered by Dr. Stais in a tomb of the p. 985 retracts this admission as far as the My-
Pronoea, On each handle was engraved a sign cenaean period is concerned. Dr. Reichel sug-
like the Greek H but with offshoots from the gests (ffomerische Waffcn, p. 142) that. the
top of the upright strokes. linear designs below the combatants on the silver
5 npaKTMaTTJs'Apx<"°^oyMVs'Eraif>ias, 1889, fragment from Mycenae {'E<p. 'Apx- 1891, PI.
p. 19. 6 See below, p. 348. II. 2) are signs of an unknown script. But the
7 Perrot et Chipiez, La Grece primitive: I'Art figures in question represent throwing-sticks
MyrJnien, p. 985. In describing the KnSsian (J.ff.S. xiii. (1892-3), p. 199, n. lla).