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.