Code-breakers: deciphering the languages and writing systems of the ancient world

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Code-breakers deciphering the languages and
writing systems of the ancient world
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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

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HieroglyphicScripts

• Hieros
• - sacred
• Glyphein
• - to carve

• Egyptian
• Anatolian or
• Hittite or
• Luwian
• Cretan
• Mayan

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Egyptian Hieroglyphs

• 3,300 bc
• Logograms (word)
• Ideograms (idea)
• Alphabetic letters

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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)

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Luwian Language

• Hittites
• Hieroglyphs Cuneiform
• Trojans? Seal with Luwian Hieroglyphics

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From Pictogram to Cuneiform
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Cuneiform Technique
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Cuneiform Texts
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Deciphering Cuneiform
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The Behistun Inscription

• Old Persian, Elamite, Babylonian
• Darius I (521-486 bc)
• Henry Rawlinson, Edward Hincks

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Interlude

• Stop it, you little monster, or Ill go out to
  the barn, and tell your father!
• Pasiphae and Minotaur
• RF vase, Etruria, c.340bc

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Cretan Hieroglyphics The Phaistos Disk

• Related scripts, partly syllabic, partly
  logographic
• Linear A
• Anatolian hieroglyphs
• Egyptian hieroglyphs.

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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

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The Mycenaeans Linear B

• Arthur Evans effect
• Linear B Etruscan?
• Syllabograms Logograms
• Total of 200 signs

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Michael Ventris

• Michael Ventris
• 1922-1956
• John Chadwick
• Inflected Language Declensions
• Conjugations
• Cretan Place names?
• Greek!

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Greek in Syllabograms
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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 (doulosslave)

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Phoenician Alphabet

• Semitic letter names
• Aleph - ox - alpha
• Bet - house - beta

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Greek Alphabet
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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.

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Or Is it Pure Myth?

• Cadmus, brother of Europa
• Founder of Thebes
• Date?

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Family Tree of Danaos Cadmus

• POSEIDON_____________LIBYA
• I
• __________I__________
• I I AGENOR
  BELUS
• I __________I______
• CADMUS I I
• AEGYPTUS DANAOS
• I I
• I I
• 50 SONS 50 DAUGHTERS

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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.

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Writing in Homer Iliad 6.197-202

• He (Proetus, King of Argos) balked at killing the
  man (Bellerophon) - hed 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

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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 daughters husband, first
• He ordered Bellerophon to kill the Chimaera

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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.

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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.