DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.8755#0064
Knossos Excavations, 1903.
53
a clay disk found by Miss Boyd at Gournia in 1903. There can be little
doubt, moreover, that the signs on the Dictaean Libation Table fit on the
same system. At Knossos itself certain graffito inscriptions on pottery
and those of another isolated tablet prove to belong to the same
category.
The Repository of the Knossian Sanctuary has now supplied what was
wanting in these other discoveries, namely, a definite chronological land-
mark for this form of linear script. At Knossos, at least, it is seen to belong
to the close of the first Period of the Later Palace, and to have been displaced
in the succeeding Minoan age by the system represented in the great mass
of the Palace Archives, which may be briefly referred to as Class B.
What, then, is the relation of Class A to Class B ? It must in any
case be recognised that there is a large common element. Considering the
later appearance of Class B in the Palace it might be thought that it stood
in a more or less filial relation to the other, representing a somewhat more
developed stage, though it is to be observed that a certain number of
signs are peculiar to one or the other group. In some respects Class A
shows a somewhat nearer relation to the earlier pictographic series of the
Middle Minoan Period, as, for instance, in the occurrence of a perforated
clay label, and in one feature of the numeral system—the indication of 10
by a dot. On the other hand we are confronted by the curious pheno-
menon that some of the forms of linear characters belonging to Class A are
further advanced from their pictorial original than the corresponding
linear signs of Class B—the flying bird-sign affords a good instance
of this.
We are thus reduced to the conclusion that Class B, though of later
appearance in the Palace, is fundamentally a parallel rather than a deriva-
tive system. It seems to be an alternative form of linear script, of more
or less equal antiquity, which, owing to some political change, came to the
fore during the latest Palace period at the expense of the other. At
Hagia Triada there is no evidence of any such supersession of Class A.
It is possible, therefore, that it continued to be in vogue there to a later
date than at Knossos, though it must at the same time be remarked that
the clay seal impressions with which the Hagia Triada tablets were asso-
ciated very closely conform in style and character to the seal impressions
from the Temple Repository at Knossos with which we are at present
concerned. This is a strong indication that they too, as a whole, belong
53
a clay disk found by Miss Boyd at Gournia in 1903. There can be little
doubt, moreover, that the signs on the Dictaean Libation Table fit on the
same system. At Knossos itself certain graffito inscriptions on pottery
and those of another isolated tablet prove to belong to the same
category.
The Repository of the Knossian Sanctuary has now supplied what was
wanting in these other discoveries, namely, a definite chronological land-
mark for this form of linear script. At Knossos, at least, it is seen to belong
to the close of the first Period of the Later Palace, and to have been displaced
in the succeeding Minoan age by the system represented in the great mass
of the Palace Archives, which may be briefly referred to as Class B.
What, then, is the relation of Class A to Class B ? It must in any
case be recognised that there is a large common element. Considering the
later appearance of Class B in the Palace it might be thought that it stood
in a more or less filial relation to the other, representing a somewhat more
developed stage, though it is to be observed that a certain number of
signs are peculiar to one or the other group. In some respects Class A
shows a somewhat nearer relation to the earlier pictographic series of the
Middle Minoan Period, as, for instance, in the occurrence of a perforated
clay label, and in one feature of the numeral system—the indication of 10
by a dot. On the other hand we are confronted by the curious pheno-
menon that some of the forms of linear characters belonging to Class A are
further advanced from their pictorial original than the corresponding
linear signs of Class B—the flying bird-sign affords a good instance
of this.
We are thus reduced to the conclusion that Class B, though of later
appearance in the Palace, is fundamentally a parallel rather than a deriva-
tive system. It seems to be an alternative form of linear script, of more
or less equal antiquity, which, owing to some political change, came to the
fore during the latest Palace period at the expense of the other. At
Hagia Triada there is no evidence of any such supersession of Class A.
It is possible, therefore, that it continued to be in vogue there to a later
date than at Knossos, though it must at the same time be remarked that
the clay seal impressions with which the Hagia Triada tablets were asso-
ciated very closely conform in style and character to the seal impressions
from the Temple Repository at Knossos with which we are at present
concerned. This is a strong indication that they too, as a whole, belong