The First ‘European’ Writing: Redefining the Archanes Script

Abstract

Summary This paper investigates a series of glyptic inscriptions attested on Crete at the end of the third and beginning of the second millennium BC, collectively referred to as the ‘Archanes Script’. These minute engravings are considered to represent the earliest appearance of writing west of Egypt, and the first ‘true’ writing in the Aegean. Though mentioned in passing in almost every study of Bronze Age Aegean writing, few scholars have ever offered a definition of what exactly they consider the ‘Archanes Script’ to be. No work or scholarly consensus exists delineating which signs constitute its signary, or even which documents comprise its corpus. Study of the seals as objects in their own right, examining script signs alongside associated iconography, material qualities and form, has been rare. This paper offers the first complete overview and redefinition of the Archanes Script since its discovery in the 1960s and initial definition by Paul Yule in 1980.

What Is the ‘Archanes Formula’? Deconstructing and Reconstructing the Earliest Attestation of Writing in the Aegean

“…A forerunner of the Cretan Hieroglyphic (Sbonias 1995, 108; Olivier and Godart 1996, 18 n. 59; Younger 1996–7, 380‒1; Perna 2014, 252; Karnava 2016, 352), or of Linear A (Godart 1999; Anastasiadou 2016, 177‒82), or of both (Schoep 1999, 266, 270‒3)? Or do they represent separate examples of an altogether different script, a predecessor connected to Cretan Hieroglyphic (Decorte 2018b)? To address these questions, we need to reassess the ‘Archanes formula’ vis-à-vis the graphic repertoires of Cretan Hieroglyphic and Linear A.…”

“…Some seals bearing the ‘Archanes formula’ also have one or more additional faces engraved with other motifs, which may be considered either decorations or ‘icons’ (Civitillo 2016b) when they are figurative (as the quadrupeds on #313 and #315), as fillers when they are smaller or geometrical, or as isolated signs (as the hand and the leg on sealstone #315, which recall signs CH 008 and 010 respectively). Some of these elements may be part of the script as either phonographic or sematographic signs (Decorte 2018b), but there is no reason to ascribe them to an altogether separate script. The presence of additional elements, beyond the ‘formula’, makes these seals comparable with many other Cretan Hieroglyphic seals, which include both writing stricto sensu and decorative motifs.…”

“…If the association with Linear A is tenuous, we need to turn to the possible evidence tying Archanes to the Cretan Hieroglyphic script. A crucial point of departure is the idea that sign CH 095 is the only sign in the ‘Archanes formula’ that is not attested elsewhere in the Cretan Hieroglyphic inscriptions (Karnava 1999, 197; Decorte 2018b, 347). This very sign and its chance discovery among the signs of the script is one minute detail upon which hinges the argument that the ‘Archanes formula’ is a self-standing writing tradition.…”

Imagining Cretan Scripts: The Influence of Visual Motifs on the Creation of Script-Signs in Bronze Age Crete

“…The earliest expressions of what has been defined as an ‘early glyptic vocabulary’ (Decorte 2018a, 39; 2018b, 356) can be detected already as early as the Pre-Palatial period, with an incremental introduction of symbolic motifs over time (‘glyptic take off’; Webb and Weingarten 2012, 93). This resulted in the creation of a ‘shared symbolic culture’ (Sbonias 2010; Civitillo 2016, 166, 169–70), which formed a fertile arena for the development of a ‘visual language’ (Schoep 2017), slowly giving rise to ‘literacy through iconicity’ (Ferrara and Jasink 2017, 51).…”

Recent developments in the study of Early Bronze Age Crete (Early Minoan period)

“…More encouraging is the recent work on the study of early script on Crete, which, although it only touches on the end of the EBA, is providing much needed new insights into how script might have developed on the island early in the second millennium BC (Decorte 2018a;; see also Ferrara and Jasink 2017;Militello 2017). Such new impetus clearly has synergies with the strong research body of sphragistic and glyptic research on Prepalatial and Protopalatial Crete (Relaki 2010;Sbonias 2010;Krzyszkowska 2012;Panagiotopoulos 2014;Anastasiadou 2016;Anderson 2016).…”