DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.805#0102
[362] PRIMITIVE PICTOGRAPHS AND SCRIPT 93
Canaan. There can be no doubt that many of the marks referred to above
as found on the potsherds of Tell-el-Hesy, which has been identified with the
ancient Lachish, belong to the same system as the linear characters of the
Aegean and Egyptian deposits. May we suppose that both in this case and at
Kahun and Gurob these marks were originally derived from a Cretan or
Aegean source ? The appearance in the later strata at Tell-el-Hesy of Aegean
painted pottery, including a fragment representing a bird which resembles
one from the sixth Akropolis tomb at Mycenae, certainly points to an
influence from this side.
The evidence as a whole reveals a very direct relation between the
linear forms and the Mycenaean form of culture in its most typical shape.
On the Goulas cup, the Knosos amethyst, the prehistoric walls of the same
site, the vase-handles of Mycenae itself, it appears on objects of the character-
istically Mycenaean class. In short there seems every reason to believe that
this quasi-alphabetic group of signs represents the typical form of Mycenaean
script.
The pictographic series on the other hand may be regarded as
more local in distribution and as the special property of the indigenous
Cretan stock, who appear to have continued to use this less developed form
of picture-writing at a time when their neighbours had generally adopted
what may be a more simplified form of script. To this pictographic or
hieroglyphic group I would provisionally give the name of ' Eteocretan.'
That it lived on in Crete into Mycenaean times is proved by a variety of
evidence and that it belonged to a people largely under Mycenaean influence
is also clear enough. But it does not seem to have been so widely current
amongst the Aegean peoples of the Mycenaean age as the linear system.
In comparing the two groups the first question that naturally suggests
itself is: How far does the pictographic or ' Eteocretan' series represent the
parent stock out of which the linear or ' Mycenaean' system proper may be
supposed to have been evolved ?
That there is a connexion between the two systems is certain. Not only
do both groups of characters occur on seal-stones of the same typical form,
but in some cases the linear forms are seen accompanied by signs belonging to
the hieroglyphic class. On the four-sided stone Fig. 36, two facets of
which are occupied by purely ornamental designs, we find the two remaining
sides occupied respectively by a figure of a man, which may be taken to have
an ideographic signification, and a group of three linear signs. On the
triangular seal-stone Fig. 29 we see another group of three linear characters
preceded by a sign which represents a simplification of the eye-symbol that
recurs on several stones of the purely hieroglyphic series, and on the
remaining side two other pictographic characters. On Fig. 30 two sides are
filled with linear characters, while the third exhibits what is possibly a rude
version of the hippocamp symbol. Moreover on the stone vase-handle
from Mycenae we see the quasi-alphabetic forms accompanied by a more
pictorial representation which closely resembles an early form of the ' broad
arrow' symbol as seen on some of the Cretan stones. It is a noteworthy fact
Canaan. There can be no doubt that many of the marks referred to above
as found on the potsherds of Tell-el-Hesy, which has been identified with the
ancient Lachish, belong to the same system as the linear characters of the
Aegean and Egyptian deposits. May we suppose that both in this case and at
Kahun and Gurob these marks were originally derived from a Cretan or
Aegean source ? The appearance in the later strata at Tell-el-Hesy of Aegean
painted pottery, including a fragment representing a bird which resembles
one from the sixth Akropolis tomb at Mycenae, certainly points to an
influence from this side.
The evidence as a whole reveals a very direct relation between the
linear forms and the Mycenaean form of culture in its most typical shape.
On the Goulas cup, the Knosos amethyst, the prehistoric walls of the same
site, the vase-handles of Mycenae itself, it appears on objects of the character-
istically Mycenaean class. In short there seems every reason to believe that
this quasi-alphabetic group of signs represents the typical form of Mycenaean
script.
The pictographic series on the other hand may be regarded as
more local in distribution and as the special property of the indigenous
Cretan stock, who appear to have continued to use this less developed form
of picture-writing at a time when their neighbours had generally adopted
what may be a more simplified form of script. To this pictographic or
hieroglyphic group I would provisionally give the name of ' Eteocretan.'
That it lived on in Crete into Mycenaean times is proved by a variety of
evidence and that it belonged to a people largely under Mycenaean influence
is also clear enough. But it does not seem to have been so widely current
amongst the Aegean peoples of the Mycenaean age as the linear system.
In comparing the two groups the first question that naturally suggests
itself is: How far does the pictographic or ' Eteocretan' series represent the
parent stock out of which the linear or ' Mycenaean' system proper may be
supposed to have been evolved ?
That there is a connexion between the two systems is certain. Not only
do both groups of characters occur on seal-stones of the same typical form,
but in some cases the linear forms are seen accompanied by signs belonging to
the hieroglyphic class. On the four-sided stone Fig. 36, two facets of
which are occupied by purely ornamental designs, we find the two remaining
sides occupied respectively by a figure of a man, which may be taken to have
an ideographic signification, and a group of three linear signs. On the
triangular seal-stone Fig. 29 we see another group of three linear characters
preceded by a sign which represents a simplification of the eye-symbol that
recurs on several stones of the purely hieroglyphic series, and on the
remaining side two other pictographic characters. On Fig. 30 two sides are
filled with linear characters, while the third exhibits what is possibly a rude
version of the hippocamp symbol. Moreover on the stone vase-handle
from Mycenae we see the quasi-alphabetic forms accompanied by a more
pictorial representation which closely resembles an early form of the ' broad
arrow' symbol as seen on some of the Cretan stones. It is a noteworthy fact