Universitätsbibliothek HeidelbergUniversitätsbibliothek Heidelberg
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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 Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.806#0279

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OFFICIAL TITLES, ETC., ON THE HIEROGLYPHIC SIGNETS 265

compound names into which these appellations entered. The lion's mask com-
bined with the lily spray, and the special characterization of the wolfs head, dove, and
owl, rather point to compound structure. In either case, such name-forms would
answer to a wide European usage.

It will be shown that almost all these types parlants are connected with groups or
with single word-signs which, both from their apparent ideographic value and their
recurrence on seals, we have good reason for identifying with official titles.

A specially valuable illustration of these presumably official formulas is supplied 'Family
by a closely interrelated group, consisting of the gate and human leg, with or without 0^ai°

« ^^ m%% A formulas

the Y sign, Ej ^% yf the 'trowel' and human eye, gt ^Sfip anc^ tne arrow_ ^afj;

head and' trowel

■<M

de-
vices.

In Table XXII (Fig. 119) I have put together in a rough diagrammatic form
the various connexions in which the 'canting' badges in question stand with these
recurring groups, as well as their combinations with certain other formulas of the same
official character.

Those belonging to the more primitive hieroglyphic Class A are placed here in the
upper section of the diagrammatic Table; those of Class B, which must be of some-
what more recent date, are placed below.

For the sake of clearness the signs are here given in their most normal forms, and
are set in the same direction—namely, from left to right. The initial X marks have
been also inserted where they could be supplied from any of the specimens.

In this way the whole series of sign-groups, representing what we may venture to
regard as Minoan titles, is seen to develop itself into a kind of ' Family Tree'. The
personal badges themselves are here shown in some cases to recur in successive
generations.

The gate and leg series (A) is taken here as the central stem, with the ancestral
types of two collateral branches—human eye and 'trowel' (B) and the 'arrow' and
'trowel' (C)—on either side. It will be seen that the descendants of these (Bn, Cn)
constantly intermarry, as it were, with the representatives of the main line (An), that is
to say, that they appear on faces of the same seal-stones as those showing the gate
and leg.

That several of the sign-groups on these signets are official formulas rather than
personal names may be fairly inferred from their continual reappearance over what
must have been a considerable period of time. The prototypes of the principal groups
A, B, and C are, as we have seen, already found in Class A representing seal types of
a distinctly earlier and more primitive age than those of Class B.

Those of Class A would in the main belong to the First Middle Minoan Period;
those of Class B, to the Second and the Third division of the Middle Minoan Age.

The occurrence in several cases of the dividing X-mark on vertical lines of

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