Glossary Society, writing and trade
Linear A
The undeciphered script of Minoan Crete, used from about 1800 to 1450 BCE, to which the Cypro-Minoan script of Cyprus is most closely related.
Linear A was written on clay tablets, sealings and cult objects on Crete and some Aegean islands, and its language is unknown. When Cypriots began to write in the sixteenth century BCE, their signs were closest in form to Linear A, which is why Arthur Evans named the Cypriot script Cypro-Minoan in 1909.
The earliest Cypriot tablet, from Enkomi, was nevertheless pressed into the clay in a cuneiform manner, and why Cypriots borrowed an Aegean script when Near Eastern cuneiform was in use next door remains an open question. See the Minoans and writing and literacy.
Full entry: Writing and Literacy in Ancient Cyprus
Related terms
- Linear B
The syllabic script of the Mycenaean palaces, used to write an early form of Greek on clay tablets and deciphered by Michael Ventris in 1952.
- Syllabary
A writing system whose signs each stand for a whole syllable, such as ka, pe or to.
- Aegean
The sea between Greece and Turkey and the lands around it, including Crete, the Cyclades and mainland Greece, home of the Minoans and Mycenaeans.