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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

DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.806#0237

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CATALOGUE OF HIEROGLYPHIC SIGNS 223

The simple cross is widely diffused in primitive pictography, notably among the
American Indians, as a star sign, and there is evidence (see op. tit., p. 93) that it had
the same significance in Minoan Crete.

The equal-limbed cross appears among the signs of the Linear Class A, together
with a variant in which the cross-bar is shorter than the upright stem. This latter
type was generally adopted in Class B of the linear script.

TT7

1

113. Conjecturally a rain sign, and so = 'water'. This character is only found
on the sealing P. 70b, together with No. 117 below, and the 'branch' or 'tree'
(No. 97). The lower stroke is but faintly indicated. It is common in both classes of
the linear script. In the latter case the lower stroke is often broken into two or three
sections. In the linear series it is sometimes superposed, in an ideographic sense,
on certain vessels as if to show what they were intended to hold. There are reasons
for supposing that this may have been originally a rain sign and thus in a secondary
sense = 'water'.

Vertical lines descending from a more or less horizontal figure representing the
'sky' or 'clouds' are a regular feature in primitive rain signs.1 The Egyptian hiero-
glyph for rain (vertical waved lines descending from the ' heaven' sign) may also be
compared.

U U M

M M 4d

d e 1

114. a, P. 29c; £, P.25c(cf. P. 32d); c, P.26d; d, P. 64 d (cf. P. 96a); e, P. 107 c,
&'c.; f, P. no b, c; g, P. 103 c.

The ' Mountains' or Territorial sign. We have here a widely distributed picto-
graph for mountains and valleys, and so ' country' or ' land'. On the boss of Tar-
riktimme (Tarkondemos) At = country.2 It is found again in jerabis (Jerablus),3 and
apparently on the monument near Bulgar Maden * f^

1 For North American Indian analogies see Garrick seqq.; and cf. Halevy, Rev. Se'mitique, 1893, p. 55 seqq.
Mallery, First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, ' Wright, op. at, PI. IX, J. II, 1.1.

p. 373. * Ramsay and Hogarth, Prehelienic Monuments of Cap-

2 Ssyce.Trans. Bibl. Arch.,Vo\. VII, Pt. II (1887),pp. 297 padocia, PI. II, 1. a.

EVABS F f
 
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