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)

285

HI. § 4. NON-MINOAN CHARACTER OF THE HIEROGLYPHIC
SYSTEM REPRESENTED ON THE DISK

A more detailed study of the Disk has only confirmed the view already expressed Non-
in the first Part of this volume * that it is itself of non-Cretan origin, and that it character
probably attaches itself to an old Anatolian element of which some later traditions are of the Disk
to be found in Lycian remains. This would not exclude an insular area, such as the ^"further
once Carian Rhodes, in close mainland contact. examina-

Dr. Pernier, indeed, in his account of the Disk, while admitting2 that the signs
here delineated ' show a noteworthy divergence from the ordinary Cretan hiero-
glyphs ', and that ' the doubt seems legitimate whether the writing on the Disk belongs
to the same system ' as the latter, is yet inclined to regard it as being of Cretan fabric.
He considers that the different aspect of the figures on the Disk may in part be due to
their possibly representing a 'different moment in the development of the Cretan hiero-
glyphic system '—a development of which, as he rightly suggests, ' the fictile inscriptions
of Knossos reveal the last stage.' In part he thinks that this divergence may be due to
the difference in the technical processes employed for the production of the signs, in
the one case by means of engraved seal-stones and graffiti on clay, in the other case
by means of impressions from wooden or ivory punches cut in relief.

As regards this last argument it may be fairly observed that the difference in the Objections
technical processes here exhibited might be regarded as itself only another indication pernfer-s
of non-Cretan origin. A difference, moreover, in technical production is not sufficient arguments
to account for the great variation in the subjects selected for characters. As regards jjinoaii
the first argument, the archaeological evidence, as accepted by Dr. Pernier himself, origin.
shows that the Disk belongs to the lower borders of the same period—the Third
Middle Minoan—to a slightly anterior stage of which the hieroglyphic archives of
Knossos itself must be ascribed.3 It is later, not earlier, than these.

The length and unique character of the document is also pleaded,* but, here again, Absence of
the very copiousness of the material makes it all the more remarkable that many of the x™*n
most frequent signs that appear both in their glyptic and graffito forms in the ordinary glyphs of
Minoan hieroglyphic system are conspicuous by their absence from the Disk. It is occur-"
only necessary to cite such recurring forms as the ' eye' (No. 5), the ' trowel' (No. 18), rence.
the 'broad arrow' (No. 13), the 'double axe' (No. 36), the 'sieve' (No. 54), the Y and
its vegetable variations, common to both classes of the ordinary hieroglyphic script.

Finally, it is wholly impossible to accept Dr. Pernier's conclusion that the writing System on
on the Disk represents a local hieroglyphic system of Phaestos parallel to but largely a j^j
divergent from that of Knossos and the other parts of the island where the normal Phaestian
Knossian type of hieroglyphic script is found. The conclusion itself is counter to the vane y'
whole trend of the archaeological evidence at our disposal, which tends to show that in
all their main features the successive stages of the advanced Minoan culture present a

1 Section 4, pp. 22-28. s See above, p. 145.

! Op. cit., p. B97. ' Pernier, op. cil., p. ag8.