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)

ARRANGEMENT OF THE HIEROGLYPHIC INSCRIPTIONS 251
on b and d from right to left, as if the object had been to write the whole inscription

On P. 100 the inscription runs from right to left on faces a, c, and d, while on b it
takes the other direction. On P. 103, again, lines a, b, and c run from right to left and
d from left to right. The three- and four-sided bead-seals afford evidence of the same
kind of variation, though it is not always so patent as that supplied by the clay bars.

The inscriptions on the clay labels, like those on the bars, begin close to the inscrip-
perforation. They generally start on its left side and run round from left to right. In ",°"sla°bnels
some cases, however, as on P. 92 a, they run from right to left. The graffiti on the clay
sealings also run either way.

On the clay tablet P. 120 both lines run from left to right. The Phaestos Tablet
shows a more complicated arrangement, the inscription starting from left to right and
terminating in a curiously sinuous manner (see below, p. 254, Fig. 111).

The clear data, supplied especially by the clay bars and labels, bring out the value
of a small recurring mark, which forms a very serviceable guide to the order of the
inscriptions. This is an X cross, more rarely +, methodically placed at the beginning The initial
of groups or before isolated word-signs. It is sometimes only put at the beginning of 'x'-
an entire line, at times of only one line on a bar, thus apparently marking the beginning
of the whole inscription, as, for instance, on P. 109 a. In other cases the first group is
without it, but it is placed before the second, as on P. 103 b, and, apparently, 24 c. It
is sometimes omitted, but where it occurs it is applied with great regularity as an
initial sign, and thus has a special value in determining the order of many of the
groups, notably on the seal-stones, where the evidence is otherwise not so clear.

The initial X mark is sometimes boldly incised and of the same dimensions as the
other characters—an instance of this being supplied by that to the left of P. 26 a—but
as a rule it is distinctly smaller. At times it is quite minute, occasionally almost
microscopic, as that which marks the beginning of the group on the signet P. 39. The
fact that a somewhat parallel graffito group (P. 105 a) showed an initial sign in an
analogous position induced me to look for it on the signet with the aid of a lens, and
by this means the small cross became clearly perceptible. With the same assistance
a minute X is discernible before the double-axe sign on the edge at the end of face c of
the three-sided bead-seal P. 44/ where the stone is somewhat worn.

A diagrammatic sketch2 of the arrangement of the signs on the three faces (a, b, c)
of this seal is given in Fig. 107, the arrows indicating the direction of the lines. It will
be seen from this that the whole may be read as a continuous inscription, with lines
running in alternate directions, so that if they had been in a single field the arrange- Evidence
ment would have been boustrophedon. This arrangement is indeed shown, from the °ropfJ^
evidence supplied by the initial X marks, to have been adopted on face c. an-ange-

Examples of the same inscription recurring in different documents, and in each
case provided with the initial mark, supply some useful illustrations of the methods

1 This had not been perceived by the artist who drew * The S-shaped scrolls at the two ends of A are omitted
the enlarged figure of this seal-stone given m Ptdographs, as being probably decorative adjuncts.
&v.,p. 22, Fig. 23, i,and reproduced below under P.24 c.