DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1021#0323
WRITING IN MYCENAEAN GREECE 271
with a series of remarkable symbols. Most of these stones
were perforated along their axes, as if intended
to be strung on a cord. He at once surmised searches in
that these symbols belonged to a hieroglyphic
system, quite distinct from the Egyptian and also independ-
ent of the Hittite forms which they yet closely resemble.
All the available evidence pointed to Crete as the princi-
pal source of these hieroglyphic forms, and this determined
Mr. Evans to follow up his investigations on Cretan soil,
which he did in 1894 and again in 1896. There his expec-
tations were realized; his success, indeed, went beyond his
most sanguine hopes. He found a considerable number of
stones engraved with the same kind of hieroglyphic signs j
and these convinced him that the signs in question were
not mere fanciful drawings or ornaments, but characters of
an ancient system of writing. At the same time he col-
lected from different primitive remains in Crete groups of
linear signs of a kind already known from the finds in that
island as well as at Mycenae and in Attica and Egypt.
In the "Journal of Hellenic Studies,"1 Mr. Evans reported
and discussed these discoveries, and summed up his results
in the following words: " The evidence which I am now
able to bring forward will, I venture to think, conclusively
demonstrate that as a matter of fact an elaborate system of
writing did exist within the limits of the Mycenaean world,
and moreover that two distinct phases of this art are trace-
able among its population. The one is pictographic in
character like Egyptian hieroglyphics, the other linear and
quasi-alphabetic, much resembling the Cypriote and Asiatic
The pertinence of these interesting discoveries to the
1 Vol. xiv. (1894), 270-372; reproduced with some additional matter in
Cretan Pictographs and Pre-Pkoenician Script, London and New York, 1895.
with a series of remarkable symbols. Most of these stones
were perforated along their axes, as if intended
to be strung on a cord. He at once surmised searches in
that these symbols belonged to a hieroglyphic
system, quite distinct from the Egyptian and also independ-
ent of the Hittite forms which they yet closely resemble.
All the available evidence pointed to Crete as the princi-
pal source of these hieroglyphic forms, and this determined
Mr. Evans to follow up his investigations on Cretan soil,
which he did in 1894 and again in 1896. There his expec-
tations were realized; his success, indeed, went beyond his
most sanguine hopes. He found a considerable number of
stones engraved with the same kind of hieroglyphic signs j
and these convinced him that the signs in question were
not mere fanciful drawings or ornaments, but characters of
an ancient system of writing. At the same time he col-
lected from different primitive remains in Crete groups of
linear signs of a kind already known from the finds in that
island as well as at Mycenae and in Attica and Egypt.
In the "Journal of Hellenic Studies,"1 Mr. Evans reported
and discussed these discoveries, and summed up his results
in the following words: " The evidence which I am now
able to bring forward will, I venture to think, conclusively
demonstrate that as a matter of fact an elaborate system of
writing did exist within the limits of the Mycenaean world,
and moreover that two distinct phases of this art are trace-
able among its population. The one is pictographic in
character like Egyptian hieroglyphics, the other linear and
quasi-alphabetic, much resembling the Cypriote and Asiatic
The pertinence of these interesting discoveries to the
1 Vol. xiv. (1894), 270-372; reproduced with some additional matter in
Cretan Pictographs and Pre-Pkoenician Script, London and New York, 1895.