Evans, Arthur J.: Scripta minoa: the written documents of minoan Crete with special reference to the archives of Knossos (Band 1): The hieroglyphic and primitive linear classes (Oxford, 1909)

SUCCESSIVE TYPES OF MINOAN WRITING 9

Hittite characters, and in particular the identity of the wolfs (or dog's) head showing
the tongue protruding, with a not infrequent Hittite sign, led me at the time to
hesitate between the alternative hypotheses either that the inscribed seal was an
imported object of 'Hittite' fabric or that a substantially identical system of con-
ventionalized pictographic writing had been introduced into prehistoric Greece under
some predominant ' Hittite' influence.

An objection, however, to the first alternative was to be found in the fact that no Reasons
similar types of seal-stones were forthcoming from the Anatolian or Syrian side. And Pj£T^^'
on the other hand, the generally independent character of the Mycenaean culture made as indi-
it difficult to presuppose such an absolute indebtedness to Hittite sources in the senous*
matter of script. This high early civilization, organized as was shown by the Mycenae
tombs under a succession of dynasts, presented just as favourable conditions for the rise
of a conventionalized script as that of the regions to the East and South. The elaboration
of a more advanced system out of the chaotic elements of primitive pictography achieved
under the early monarchies in Mesopotamia, the Syro-Anatolian region, and Egypt,
might with equal probability have taken place under the auspices of kings who reigned
before Agamemnon on the Greek shores of the Aegean. Isolated as was this example,
might it not really indicate the existence of an independent indigenous script in pre-
historic Greece ?

It was not long before decisive evidence came under my observation. In the Further
course of a visit to Greece, during the early spring of 1893, I hit upon some more ^mCme.
inscribed bead-seals of the same class as that referred to above. Like it they were
perforated along their axis and presented four, in some cases three, facets engraved
with signs, arranged in groups, and evidently belonging to a hieroglyphic or con-
ventionalized pictographic system. My inquiries succeeded in tracing all of these to
a Cretan source.1 Knowing of the considerable collection of 'island' and other early
gems in the Berlin Museum, I addressed myself to Dr. Furtwangler, whose catalogue
of the collection was not then published, and received through his courtesy several
impressions of similar seal-stones showing ' hieroglyphic' characters that fitted on to
and supplemented the series that I had already collected. In this case, too, the source
of the stones, as far as it was known, again turned out to be Crete. The impression of
a two-sided gem of another type obtained at Athens some years earlier by Professor
Sayce,5 and which I subsequently discovered to be also Cretan, supplied a new piece of
evidence. At a meeting of the Hellenic Society, on November 27, 1893/ I was thus Existence
able to make the formal announcement that I had discovered on a series of gems and gjyi&jc"
seals mainly found in Crete4 some sixty symbols which seemed to belong to a native system as-
system of hieroglyphics distinct from the Egyptian on the one hand and from the jn Crete.
Hittite on the other.

1 I subsequently discovered other examples with the of Mr. H. N. Story Maskelyne.
same provenance (P. u, 26 and 28 of the list below) in 3 J. H. S. vol. xiv, p. n.

the collection of the Archaeological Society at Athens, * ToCrete I also added 'the Pcloponnese' on theground
since transferred to the Central Museum. of the erroneous provenance attached to Mr. Grevilie

s See PI. II, P. 41. The stone is now in the possession Chester's stone.
B 2