As of 1989, the corpus of Cretan hieroglyphic inscriptions included two parts:
Seals and sealings, 150 documents with 307 sign-groups, using 832 signs in all.
Other documents on clay, 120 documents with 274 sign-groups, using 723 signs.[3]
More documents, such as those from thePetras deposit, have been published since then. A four sided prism was found in 2011 atVrysinas in western Crete.[4]
These inscriptions were mainly excavated at four locations:
the Petras deposit (MM IIB), 12 clay documents, 5 seal impressions, and 6 seals, excavated starting in 1995 and published in 2010.[5]
The first corpus of signs was published byEvans in 1909.[6] The current corpus (which excludes some of Evans' signs) was published in 1996 as theCorpus Hieroglyphicarum Inscriptionum Cretae (CHIC).[7] It consists of:
clay documents with incised inscriptions (CHIC H: 1–122)
seal fragment HM 992, showing a single symbol, identical toPhaistos Disk glyph 21.[8]
The relation of the last two items with the script of the main corpus is uncertain; the Malia altar is listed as part of the Hieroglyphic corpus by most researchers.[9]
Since the publication of the CHIC in 1996 refinements and changes have been proposed.[10][11] The main issue is that a number of symbols found on sealstones, tending to be more image-based, were deemed as purely decorative and not included in the sign list (or are transcribed when read). The concern is that this process may have resulted in actual signs being deprecated.[12][13]
Some Cretan Hieroglyphic (as well as Linear A) inscriptions were also found on the island ofSamothrace in the northeastern Aegean.[14]
The overlaps between the Cretan script and other scripts, such as the hieroglyphic scripts of Cyprus and the Hittite lands of Anatolia, may suggest ... that they all evolved from a common ancestor, a now-lost script perhaps originating in Syria.[15]
New exemplars continue to be found. During recent excavation at the Neopalatial area of the Cult Centre of the City of Knossos a seal stone was found in a foundation deposit. The steatite seal had four inscribed faces and the deposit dated to Final Palatial Period into LM III B. The room where the deposit was found had a "religious sceptre" inscribed all over with Linear A.[12]
AtZakros three sealings inscribed with Cretan hieroglyphs were found in the same deposit with a Linear A tablet and aLinear A inscribed roundel. The deposit was in a destruction layer dated between layers LM IA and LM IB.[16][17]
The Archanes Script. MM IA / MMIB, 2100–1800 BC.Archanes type of Cretan hieroglyphs. Archanes Phourni. Archaeological Museum of HeraklionCretan hieroglyphs (1900–1600 BC) on a clay bar from Malia or Knossos,Crete. As exhibited atHeraklion Archaeological Museum, Crete, Greece. Dots represent numerals
The glyph inventory in CHIC includes 96syllabograms representing sounds, ten of which double aslogograms, representing words or portions of words.
There are also 23 logograms representing four levels of numerals (units, tens, hundreds, thousands), nine signs for numerical fractions, and two types of punctuation.[18]
Many symbols have apparentLinear A counterparts, so that it is tempting to insertLinear B sound values. Moreover, there are multiple parallels (words and phrases) from hieroglyphic inscriptions that occur also in Linear A and/or B in similar contexts (words for "total", toponyms, personal names etc.)[19]
It has been suggested[vague] that several signs were influenced by Egyptian hieroglyphs.[20][21]
The development of hieroglyphs passed three important stages:
Archanes script (signs look like pictograms, although their number and frequency rather suggest a syllabic script); this script was only described as a distinct stage in development of the Cretan hieroglyphic in the 1980s. Most of these seals contain a repetitive "Archanes formula" of 2–3 signs.[22]
Hieroglyphic A (best represented in archaeological records; similar to Archanes, but images of animals are reduced to heads only)
Hieroglyphic B (mostly on clay, characters are essentially simplified, may have served as a prototype for Linear A and possibly the Cypro-Minoan script). Only this latter version of the hieroglyphic includes signs that can possibly match ideograms known from Linear A.
The sequence and the geographical spread of Cretan hieroglyphs, Linear A, and Linear B, the five overlapping, but distinct, writing systems of Bronze Age Crete and theGreek mainland can be summarized as follows:[23]
^[1]Civitillo, Matilde, Silvia Ferrara, and Torsten Meissner, Introduction", in The Earliest Script on Crete: Semiotics, Linguistics, Archaeology and Palaeography, Cretan Hieroglyphic, Cambridge University Press, pp. 1-12, 2024
^D. G. Hogarth, "The Zakro Sealings", JHS 22, pp. 76-93, 1902
^Perna, Massimo, "The Roundel in Linear A from Zakro Wc 2 (HM 84)", Kadmos 33.1, pp. 29-37, 1994
^Nosch, Marie-Louise, et al., "The materiality of the Cretan Hieroglyphic Script: textile production-related referents to Hieroglyphic signs on seals and sealings from Middle Bronze Age Crete", The social and cultural contexts of historic writing practices. Contexts of and relations between writing systems 2, pp. 73-100, 2021
Evans, A. J. (1909).Scripta Minoa: The Written Documents of Minoan Crete with Special Reference to the Archives of Knossos. Vol. I. The Hieroglyphic and Primitive Linear Classes with an Account of the Discovery of the Pre-Phoenician Scripts, their Place in Minoan Story and their Mediterranean Relations. Oxford.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
Finkelberg, Margalit (1998)."Bronze Age Writing: Contacts between East and West"(PDF). In Cline, E. H.; Harris-Cline, D. (eds.).The Aegean and the Orient in the Second Millennium: Proceedings of the 50th Anniversary Symposium, Cincinnati, 18–20 April 1997. Aegeum 18. Liège. pp. 265–272. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 19 March 2015.
Olivier, Jean-Pierre (1990). "The Relationship between Inscriptions on Hieroglyphic Seals and those Written on Archival Documents". In Palaima, Thomas G (ed.).Aegean Seals, Sealings, and Administration(PDF). Université de Liège, Histoire de l'art et archéologie de la Grèce antique. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 3 March 2016.
Meijer, Louk C. (1982).Eine strukturelle Analyse der Hagia Triada-Tafeln: ein Beitrag zur Linear A-Forschung (in German). John Benjamins Publishing.ISBN978-90-6032-187-4.
Redmond, Marian (2007).Literacy and History: The Greeks. R.I.C. Publications.ISBN978-1-74126-506-4.
Robinson, Andrew (27 August 2009).Writing and Script: A Very Short Introduction. OUP Oxford.ISBN978-0-19-157916-5.
Sanavia, A. (2017). "An Overview of the Protopalatial Impressed Fine Ware from Phaistos and Some Comparisons with the Phaistos Disc".LUME.95: 81.
Wheatley, Paul (2008) [1971].The Origins and Character of the Ancient Chinese City, Volume 2: The Chinese City in Comparative Perspective. Transaction Publishers.ISBN978-0-202-36769-9.
Ferrara, Silvia, "Icon, index, symbol: Language notation in the Cretan Hieroglyphic script", Representations: Material and Immaterial Modes of Communication in the Bronze Age Aegean, Oxford, pp. 211-240, 2021
Grumach E., "The Structure of the Cretan Hieroglyphic Script", Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 46, pp. 346-384, 1964
G. A. Owens,An Introduction to «Cretan Hieroglyphs»: A Study of «Cretan Hieroglyphic» Inscriptions in English Museums (excluding the Ashmolean Museum Oxford), Cretan Studies VIII (2002), 179–184.
[2]Weingarten, Judith, and Silvia Ferrara, "Cretan Hieroglyphic seals and script: a view from the East", Pasiphae: rivista di filologia e antichità egee: XVI, pp. 111-121, 2022
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