DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1021#0322
270 THE MYCENAEAN AGE
pthah, so that its whole career is comprised in the two cen-
turies and a half from 1450 to 1200 b. c. Both towns
appear to have been occupied by immigrants from Asia and
the shores of the Aegean, and both yielded unmistakable
Mycenaean pottery ("Aegean," Mr. Petrie prefers to call it),
often inscribed with characters similar to, and in some cases
identical with, those found in Greece. In these characters
Mr. Petrie did not hesitate to discern " some kinship with
the Western alphabets." *
Such were the main results obtained up to the year 1893,
and in publishing them2 we observed: When the charac-
ters are found isolated, they are obviously nothing but the
artificer's or owner's marks; but when they occur in con-
secutive order, four or more together, may we not look for
a deeper significance? May we not regard them as letters?
At any rate, the stone vessel whose handle bears the longest
inscription was probably made in Greece. May we then
venture to credit the Greeks of the Mycenaean Age with a
knowledge of writing ? Any answer to this question now
would be premature; but it is only right to say that, so far
as our present knowledge goes, the facts do not make for
an affirmative answer.
Now, however, the data available for a solution of the
problem are much more abundant, and that largely through
the insight and energy of one m,an. During a visit to
Greece, in the spring of 1893, Mr. Arthur J. Evans " came
across some small three and four sided stones," engraved
1 " Having now this body of signs in use in 1200 b. c. in a town [Gurob] occu-
pied by people of the Aegean and Asia Minor, Turseni, Akhaians, Hittites and
others, it will require a very certain proof of the supposed Arabian source of
the Phoenician alphabet, before we can venture to deny that we have here the
origin of the Mediterranean alphabets." — Ten Years Digging in Egypt, pp.
134 f.
2 Tsountas, Mimojmm, Athens, 1893.
pthah, so that its whole career is comprised in the two cen-
turies and a half from 1450 to 1200 b. c. Both towns
appear to have been occupied by immigrants from Asia and
the shores of the Aegean, and both yielded unmistakable
Mycenaean pottery ("Aegean," Mr. Petrie prefers to call it),
often inscribed with characters similar to, and in some cases
identical with, those found in Greece. In these characters
Mr. Petrie did not hesitate to discern " some kinship with
the Western alphabets." *
Such were the main results obtained up to the year 1893,
and in publishing them2 we observed: When the charac-
ters are found isolated, they are obviously nothing but the
artificer's or owner's marks; but when they occur in con-
secutive order, four or more together, may we not look for
a deeper significance? May we not regard them as letters?
At any rate, the stone vessel whose handle bears the longest
inscription was probably made in Greece. May we then
venture to credit the Greeks of the Mycenaean Age with a
knowledge of writing ? Any answer to this question now
would be premature; but it is only right to say that, so far
as our present knowledge goes, the facts do not make for
an affirmative answer.
Now, however, the data available for a solution of the
problem are much more abundant, and that largely through
the insight and energy of one m,an. During a visit to
Greece, in the spring of 1893, Mr. Arthur J. Evans " came
across some small three and four sided stones," engraved
1 " Having now this body of signs in use in 1200 b. c. in a town [Gurob] occu-
pied by people of the Aegean and Asia Minor, Turseni, Akhaians, Hittites and
others, it will require a very certain proof of the supposed Arabian source of
the Phoenician alphabet, before we can venture to deny that we have here the
origin of the Mediterranean alphabets." — Ten Years Digging in Egypt, pp.
134 f.
2 Tsountas, Mimojmm, Athens, 1893.