Code-breakers: deciphering the languages and writing systems of the
ancient world
Writing systems• Hieroglyphs: Egypt, Anatolia, Crete• Cuneiform (Wedge-shaped script):
Sumerian, Akkadian, Old Persian, Babylonian, Elamite, Luwian.
• Linear A (Syllabograms?) Unknown language Minoans not Greek
• Linear B (Syllabograms for Greek) Mycenaeans were Greek
• Ogham (Irish system): Gaelic/Irish
Hieroglyphic
Scripts• Hieros
- sacred• Glyphein
- to carve
• Egyptian• Anatolian or
Hittite orLuwian
• Cretan• Mayan
Egyptian Hieroglyphs• 3,300 bc • Logograms
(word)• Ideograms (idea)• Alphabetic
letters
The Rosetta Stone
• Napoleon in Egypt 1798-1801
• Jean-François Champollion 1822 Translation
• 3 scripts– Greek– Hieroglyphic Egyptian– Demotic Egyptian
(easier to write on papyri)
Luwian Language
• Hittites• Hieroglyphs
& Cuneiform• Trojans? Seal
with Luwian Hieroglyphics
From Pictogram to Cuneiform
Cuneiform Technique
Cuneiform Texts
Deciphering Cuneiform
The Behistun Inscription
• Old Persian, Elamite, Babylonian• Darius I (521-486 bc)• Henry Rawlinson, Edward Hincks
Interlude…
• Stop it, you little monster, or I’ll go out to the barn, and tell your father!
• Pasiphae and Minotaur
• RF vase, Etruria, c.340bc
Cretan Hieroglyphics: The Phaistos Disk
Related scripts, partly syllabic, partly logographic: – Linear A – Anatolian hieroglyphs – Egyptian hieroglyphs.
The Minoans: Linear A• Arthur Evans• Unknown language
(NOT Greek)• Minoan, Eteocretan?• Linear B syllabograms
derived from Linear A• Linear A = Luwian?• Linear A = Phoenician?• John Younger
The Mycenaeans: Linear B
• Arthur Evans effect
• Linear B & Etruscan?
• Syllabograms & Logograms
• Total of 200 signs
Michael Ventris
• Michael Ventris1922-1956
• John Chadwick• Inflected Language
DeclensionsConjugations
• Cretan Place names? • Greek!
Greek in Syllabograms
Linear B & Mycenaean Social Order
• WA-NA-KA [wanax] The King• RA-WA-KE-TA [lawagetas]
Leader of the People = Prince?• E-QE-TA [heqetas]
Companion or Member of Warrior Caste?• KE-RO-SI-JA [geronsia] Council of Elders?• DA-MO [damos] village• KO-RE-TE, PO-RO-KO-RE-TE [koreter,
prokoreter] Official & Deputy• DO-E-RO, DO-E-RA [doeros, doera]
Slave/Servant (doulos=slave)
Phoenician Alphabet
• Semitic letter names
• Aleph - ox - alpha• Bet - house - beta
Greek Alphabet
Alphabet in History…
• Herodotus: “The Phoenicians who came with Cadmus introduced into Greece …a number of accomplishments, of which the most important was writing, an art till then, I think, unknown to the Greeks.
Or Is it Pure Myth?
• Cadmus, brother of Europa
• Founder of Thebes
• Date?
Family Tree of Danaos & Cadmus
POSEIDON_____________LIBYA I
__________I__________I I
AGENOR BELUSI __________I______
CADMUS I I AEGYPTUS DANAOS I I I I 50 SONS 50 DAUGHTERS
Cadmus Myth
• Cadmus, founder of Thebes, preceded Trojan War by several generations
• Conventional date of Trojan War: early C12th bc
• Cadmus C14th bc• Cadmeian alphabet
not found in Greece before about the middle of C8th bc.
Writing in Homer:
Iliad 6.197-202
• He (Proetus, King of Argos) balked at killing the man (Bellerophon) - he’d some respect at least.
• But he quickly sent him off to Lycia, gave him tokens,
• Murderous signs, scratched in a folded tablet,
• And many of them, too, enough to kill a man.
• He told him to show them to the father of Antea (wife of Proetus, false accuser of B):
• That would mean his death…
Baleful Signs
• When the tenth dawn shone with her rose-red fingers,
• He began to question him, asked to see his credentials,
• But then, once he received that fatal message
• Sent from his own daughter’s husband, first
• He ordered Bellerophon to kill the Chimaera
Memory of Linear B or New
Phoenician Alphabet?
• Uluburun shipwreck writing tablets
• late C14th bc• Cypriot or
Levantine Origin?• LHIIIA2 pottery• Cargo from entire
Aegean world: Mycenaean, Cypriot, Canaanite, Kassite, Egyptian, and Assyrian.
Oghamcarved & read from bottom to
top • 5th century Ireland (Wales, Cornwall,
Scotland, Isle of Man, Shetland Islands).• letters consist of 1-5 perpendicular or angled
strokes, meeting or crossing a center line.• letters easily carved on wood or stone
objects, with edge of object forming the center line.
• Irish had no other written alphabet until Christian missionaries introduced Latin (C8th)
• Ogham died after first few centuries of Christian era, as use of inscription languages was reviled as a pagan practice.