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The Decipherment of Minoan and Eteocretan
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
Extract
Two categories of non-Greek inscriptions from Crete, known as Minoan and Eteocretan, are from different periods. Minoan documents stem from the Middle and Late Bronze Ages (particularly c. 1850–1400 B.C.), whereas the extant Eteocretan texts were inscribed during Early Iron III (c. 600–300 B.C.). In assigning both categories to North-west Semitic, we shall base our conclusions on the inscriptions themselves, rather than on secondary considerations. Proper names will not be used as primary evidence, because people (including ourselves) often bear names derived from languages other than the one they speak. The same goes for the names of the places they inhabit and of the gods they worship. We shall not reiterate the evidence of history and tradition. Since our problem is linguistic, we shall concentrate on the direct linguistic data in the Minoan and Eteocretan inscriptions.
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References
1 Many names of people, places, and gods, as well as the ancient historical sources and traditions, point to the North-west Semitic character of the Minoan and Eteocretan texts, but the evidence need not be repeated here. See my “The Minoan connection”, Natural History, 81, 10 1972, 74–84.Google Scholar
2 These bilinguals (on Fig. 1) have been analysed in EML (my Evidence for the Minoan language, Ventnor, N.J., 1966), 8–10.Google Scholar
3 This meaning of Aramaic remâ is attested in the Palmyrene inscriptions, as called to my attention by William Bixler.
4 EML, 9 (para. 27), and 10 (para. 31). For the orthography, phonetics, and morphology, see EML, 18–25; on p. 25 is a list of 25 translatable North-west Semitic words in Eteocretan, nearly all of which are correct.
5 In lines 3–4 of the Early (First) Praisos Text, on Fig. 2.
6 Donner-Röllig (Donner, H. and Röllig, W., Kanaanäische und aramäische Inschriften, Wiesbaden, 1962–1964), I, 2–3. Text 13:3.Google Scholar
7 Donner-Röllig, I, 3. Text 14:20.
8 Donner-Röllig, I, 6. Text 26:III, 12–13.
9 In 1. 6 of the Third Praisos Text on Fig. 3.
10 The fact that the Greek unilinguals we are about to discuss differentiate between “city” (πóλις = ℸצי) and “fortress” (οὐρεῖον = ℸדכ) is in itself a confirmation of the decipherment of Eteocretan. I have pointed these and other correspondences out in p. 96 of my “Greek and Eteocretan unilinguals from Praisos and Dreros” (Berytus, XIX, 1970, 95–8).
11 Guarducci, Margarita, Inscriptiones Creticae, Roma, 1935–1950 (to be continued)Google Scholar; this text is in Vol. III (1942), pp. 142–4; cf. Berytus, XIX, 1970, 96.Google Scholar
12 The verb 'rr “to curse, adjure” occurs several times in the Eteocretan unilinguals, as noted in Berytus, loc. cit; e.g. on the line following νας ιρο υ κλ ες, “the people of his city and every (other) man” in the Third Praisos Text (Fig. 3), appears ιρερ μηια μαρ φ [ραισο] “…adjure whichsoever citizen of P[raisos]”.
13 In HT (Hagia Triada) 31 (Fig. 4), two groups of vases are described as ki-de-ma-wi-na and sa-ya-ma-n[a], which are probably plural adjectives (describing the vessels) that may respectively mean “gold” (cf. Hebrew םתכ “gold”) and “silver” (cf. Aramaic ם'ס “silver”, called to my attention by Roberta Richard). If this analysis is correct, the opposition between -în(a) and -ân(a) points to Aramaic, in which the m. pl. ends in -în and the f. pl. in -ân, in the absolute state; see my “Ki-de-ma-wi-na (HT 31:4)”, Kadmos, VIII, 1969, 131–3. The Minoan text on the wine pithos from Epano Zakro ends with re-ma-re-na ti-ti-ku which suggests the meaning “for our lord Titiku”; mârênā (אנידט) is Aramaic for “our lord”; the name or title Titiku occurs in HT 35 as a recipient of offerings, including wine. Other Aramaisms in Eteocretan include ενβα (= Greek καπρóς) = Aramaic אבנא δ = Aramaic ד “of”; and ινα = Aramaic תנא “I”; cf. Berytus, XIX, 1970, 70.
14 For a list of 20 names (and there are more) occurring simultaneously in Linear A and B, see my “Minoan”, Athenaeum, N.S., XLVII, 1969 (= Studi in Onore di Piero Meriggi), 127.
15 Minoan had both l and r, though they are not distinguished orthographically. The same holds for Egyptian. The proof that both Minoan and Egyptian had both sounds is that as soon as they came to be written alphabetically (i.e. as Eteocretan and Coptic respectively) l and r are written with distinctive letters. This is also true for Linear B which does not distinguish l from r orthographically, yet all Greek dialects (Cretan included) written alphabetically sharply differentiate the two sounds by different letters.
16 The absence of the article is archaic, suggesting that the text harks back to a list compiled in the days of Joshua at the end of the Bronze Age. For a Minoan example, see HT 88:37–5 (on Fig. 5), where six single entries are summed up as ku-ro 6, “total: 6”.
17 Stieglitz, Robert, “Minoan and Biblical totals”, Studi Micenei ed Egeo-Anatolici, Fasc. 14, 1971, 217–218Google Scholar. HT 122 (see Fig. 5) adds two totals (ku-ro) of 31 and 65 to make a grand total (po-to-ku-ro) of 96. Stieglitz will publish the North-west Semitic analysis of po-to-.
18 Gordon, Cyrus H., “Linguistic continuity from Minoan to Eteocretan”, Studi Micenei ed Egeo-Anatolici, Fasc. 3, 1967, 89–92.Google Scholar
19 On Fig. 6. It is referred to as “I, 14” in the system of references to the Minoan texts followed in this article; namely, the system of Brice, W. C., Inscriptions in the Minoan linear script of Class A (Society of Antiquaries), London, 1961.Google Scholar
20 In texts 33:2; 39:2; 41:1–2 in Donner-Röllig.
21 Thus, on the famous Pylos tablet that confirmed Ventris's decipherment, the words going with the vase and tripod pictograms describe the vessels, not their contents. The repeated attempt to distort the good Semitic vessel names in HT 31 into mysterious descriptions of their contents, runs against all the evidence.
22 Some of the vase pictograms designate specific types, while a simple cup serves as the general vase pictogram. This situation, which is paralleled in Egyptian hieroglyphic writing, should no longer be used to becloud the issue in HT 31. Minoan studies are being hampered by writers who are not sufficiently conversant with the ancient East Mediterranean
23 Text II, 2; see Fig. 6. For the discussion, note EML, 27.
24 EML, 26. See Fig. 5 for ku-ni-su WHEAT on HT 86.
25 See Fig. 7.
26 Text I, 4.
27 ה “the” came to be pronounced e. Note that Greek ε (like Latin “e”) has the same position in the alphabet as ה (the fifth letter).
28 Donner-Röllig, I, 2, Text 10:5.
29 For these and other Re names in Minoan, see my “Mi-ru-su-ra-re (HT 117:a:4–5)”, Studi Micenei ed Egeo-Anatolici, Fasc. 11, 1970, 58–9.
30 For references to forms of ןתי, see Donner-Röllig, III, 10–11.
31 Text I, 8 (see Fig. 6).
32 See EML, 28, n. 59.
33 “Notes on Linear A”, Antiquity, XXXI, 1957, 124–30.
34 EML, 28.
35 Astour, Michael, “Ugarit and the Aegean” (Orient and Occident: Essays presented to Cyrus Herzl Gordon, ed. Hoffner, Harry, 1973, 17–27); see p. 23 n. 76.Google Scholar
36 See Was, Daniel A., “The pseudo bilinguals in the Minoan linear script of Class A”, Κρητικα Χρονικα, XXIV, 1972, 228–237.Google Scholar
37 Best, Jan G. P., Some preliminary remarks on the decipherment of Linear A, Amsterdam, 1972.Google Scholar