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)

72 SCRIPTA MINOA

to certain quasi-pictorial forms of the ox's head; No. 7 is only a slight simplification
of the ' mallet' or ' beetle' sign, and No. 13, angularized (as we see in the alternative
form of the later Cypriote le), also finds its Cretan counterpart.

Cautious as it is necessary to be about founding too definite relationships on

the resemblances of signs occurring in different areas, the agreement here observable

between the Cypriote and the Minoan forms is of such a kind as will probably

convince the most sceptical of a common origin. This conclusion, moreover, is

greatly strengthened by the fact that the Cypriote characters in question appear

Primitive in connexion with the remains of an extensive Minoan colony in the island. There

in"cavDrusS are' mcIeed, some indications that there existed among the indigenous population

of Cyprus at a still earlier date primitive linear signs analogous to those of ' Early

Minoan' Crete, ideographic in character and probably not yet possessing a syllabic

value. Professor Sayce, for example, has called attention to a group of five such

occurring on a primitive steatite cylinder from the ' Copper Age' cemetery of Hagia

Paraskeve,1 and belonging to a period which considerably antedates that of the

Minoan connexion with Cyprus. But such correspondences as those seen under

Nos. 2, 3, and 11 of Table III sufficiently demonstrate the real relationship of the

Cypriote forms there given . with the advanced linear scripts of Crete. We have

here, in short, the evidence of a colonial Cypro-Mycenaean system bearing much

the same fraternal relation to the Minoan linear Classes A and B as they do to

one another. It is to be observed that No. 2 is only found in Class B, and Nos. 8

and 15 only in Class A. It is quite possible that certain divergences which are

seen in the Cypro-Minoan or Cypro-Mycenaean signs may be due to the influence of

linear forms already in existence among the indigenous population such as are seen

on the cylinder referred to.

Minoan The interesting question remains—In what relation does the Cypro-Minoan

Minoan""0" signary, and, in a more general way, the advanced linear scripts of Crete to which

signs com- it is related, stand to the syllabary in use among the Greek-speaking inhabitants of

thTLter Cyprus at a much later period?

Cypriote This question has a crucial import, since, should the affinity be ascertained, an

"'"'""'. a priori probability would arise that the phonetic values of the Cypriote characters
might supply a clue to a certain number of those belonging to the Minoan scripts.
In the third column of Table III (Fig. 39) have been set down a series of signs
belonging to the later Cypriote syllabary presenting points of comparison with the
Cypro-Minoan forms. That several lacunas should occur is what would naturally
be expected, considering that the number of the characters of the Cypriote syllabary

1 Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch., xxvii, 1905, p. 254 and Plate XI. advanced linear scripts of Crete. It is probably contem-

Sayce reads the signs Mo-io-ta-se, and observes, 'The porarywith the class of Cretan seals presenting primitive

existence of the Cypriote syllabary is thus taken back linear signs, and belongs to a time when Cyprus and

to an age contemporaneous with the Kretan linear Crete were still at most very remotely connected. The

characters.' The cylinder itself, however, is of the usual signs themselves are of simple geometrical formation, and

primitive class, and the Hagia Paraskeve cemetery where must be regarded as of independent Cypriote origin,
it was found belongs to an earlier age than that of the