DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1021#0329
WRITING IN MYCENAEAN GREECE 277
know where it took its rise. Its use in the island, limited
to a single class of objects, does not appear to speak for
an Eteocretan origin. Probably it originated in the East;
and, when transplanted to Crete and confined to the
Eteocretans, it would appear to have lived on — we can
hardly say flourished — there for long ages. Its Asiatic
provenance is suggested by the marked correspondence,
already noted, with the Hittite symbols. This correspond- .
ence Mr, Evans explains " by supposing that both systems
had grown up in a more or less conterminous area out of
still more primitive pietographic elements."
Now the Mycenaean civilization had penetrated every
section of Crete. Hence the Eteocretans, as well as their
neighbors of central and western Crete, had their part in it.
But, on the other hand, the hieroglyphics were, and always
continued to be, an exclusively Eteocretan possession. We
are not prepared to believe, then, that this pietographic
system exercised any appreciable influence on the Hellenic
peoples of Greece or even of Crete itself, or that it had
anything to do with forwarding the civilization which the
Greeks wrought out.
On the blocks of a prehistoric building at Knossos are
to be seen a number of curious signs, first noticed in 1880
and published by W. J. Stillman.1 The building linbab
itself Mr. Stillman sought to identify with the System
legendary Labyrinth. Dorpfeld and others, who saw it
after the excavations at Tiryns, discovered a striking simi-
larity between it and the Tiryns palace.2 The important
point for us is that this similarity gives an approximate date
for the building. The signs were probably mason's marks,
1 In the Second Annual Report of the Executive Committee of the Archaeo-
logical Institute of America, 1880-1881.
2 Fabricius, Ath. Mitth., 1886, pp. 135 ff.
know where it took its rise. Its use in the island, limited
to a single class of objects, does not appear to speak for
an Eteocretan origin. Probably it originated in the East;
and, when transplanted to Crete and confined to the
Eteocretans, it would appear to have lived on — we can
hardly say flourished — there for long ages. Its Asiatic
provenance is suggested by the marked correspondence,
already noted, with the Hittite symbols. This correspond- .
ence Mr, Evans explains " by supposing that both systems
had grown up in a more or less conterminous area out of
still more primitive pietographic elements."
Now the Mycenaean civilization had penetrated every
section of Crete. Hence the Eteocretans, as well as their
neighbors of central and western Crete, had their part in it.
But, on the other hand, the hieroglyphics were, and always
continued to be, an exclusively Eteocretan possession. We
are not prepared to believe, then, that this pietographic
system exercised any appreciable influence on the Hellenic
peoples of Greece or even of Crete itself, or that it had
anything to do with forwarding the civilization which the
Greeks wrought out.
On the blocks of a prehistoric building at Knossos are
to be seen a number of curious signs, first noticed in 1880
and published by W. J. Stillman.1 The building linbab
itself Mr. Stillman sought to identify with the System
legendary Labyrinth. Dorpfeld and others, who saw it
after the excavations at Tiryns, discovered a striking simi-
larity between it and the Tiryns palace.2 The important
point for us is that this similarity gives an approximate date
for the building. The signs were probably mason's marks,
1 In the Second Annual Report of the Executive Committee of the Archaeo-
logical Institute of America, 1880-1881.
2 Fabricius, Ath. Mitth., 1886, pp. 135 ff.