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)

PRIMITIVE LINEAR SIGNS AND FIGURES 113

differed in various localities or families. That in the case of simple linear signs Their
there could be no security for identity of meaning is sufficiently obvious. There ^"ency
are fixed points in the evolution of certain plain geometrical combinations which and variant
may be reached in various ways. Thus the svastika or crux gammata is known to derivatlon-
have been arrived at by several different stages. At times it originates from the
addition of terminal spokes, indicative of revolution, to the cruciform star-sign common
among primitive peoples. Sometimes it arises from the angularization, due to textile
requirements, of a pictorial figure, such as a flying bird. Or, again, the same trans-
forming medium produces it through the break up of a continuous plait-work pattern.
On early Greek coins it arises from the angles of a quadruple stamp. But it is
clear that a sign which might be evolved by several alternative processes could not
always have borne the same signification.

It will be seen that any off-hand adaptation of these heterogeneous elements— Advanced
alphabetiform though many of them appear—for the purposes of an advanced script ^oTved
was out of the question. As a matter of fact, the fully equipped systems of out of
writing, from Egypt and Babylonia to China and Mexico, came into being in a very tbnalized
different way. The process of evolution was much more laborious, and in all cases picto-
stopped short of the alphabetic goal. y'

The development of an advanced system of writing needs itself an advanced
stage of civilization. A savage race, accustomed, it may be, to barter hides or furs
for other rude commodities, has no use for a currency of coined money. A rough
and ready picture-writing is all that is needed by a primitive society. When,
with the Egyptians and other ancient races, the demand at last came for a more
elaborate system of writing it was almost wholly supplied by the adaptation of
existing pictographic figures.

The old linear signs were insufficient for graphic requirements. They were
too vague, too imperfectly generalized, too discordant in their signification. For
clearness' sake it was still necessary to adhere to pictographic methods. There
was, moreover, in Pharaonic Egypt, among the royal and priestly caste who had
its records in their charge, a desire for calligraphic effect and architectonic embellish-
ment which inclined to the pictorial as against the linear ideal. The traditional
pictographs drawn in the ' slate pencil' style of the childhood of Art now assumed
a more stately aspect, and the details of the objects represented were rendered
with greater accuracy. From the alphabetic point of view, this process was often
distinctly retrograde,- though the simpler method reasserted itself in the hieratic and
demotic scripts.

It was necessary thus for a new body of simplified signs to be generated from Derivation
the hieroglyphic figures before the elements of an advanced linear script could at °af^w f
last be reached. linearsigns

The facility with which a fresh supply of linear forms could be drawn from S^jjjfljj*'
this living source of conventionalized pictography receives indeed an interesting Egypt,
illustration from the remains of the earliest dynastic period in Egypt. In the First