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syllabic

CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: A term describing scripts in which each of the signs represents a syllable, as in Linear A and B.

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Champollion, Jean-François (1778-1867)

CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: French historian and linguist who founded scientific Egyptology and played a major role in the deciphering of Egyptian hieroglyphics by deciphering the Rosetta Stone. A masterful linguist, Champollion started publishing papers on the hieroglyphic and hieratic elements of the Rosetta Stone in 1821-1822, and he went on to establish an entire list of hieroglyphic signs and their Greek equivalents. He was first to recognize that some of the signs were alphabetic, some syllabic, and some determinative (standing for a whole idea or object previously expressed). His brilliant discoveries met with great opposition, however. He became curator of the Egyptian collection at the Louvre, conducted an archaeological expedition to Egypt, and received the chair of Egyptian antiquities, created specially for him, at the Collège de France. He also published an Egyptian grammar and dictionary, as well as other works about Egypt.

Cypro-Minoan

CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: The syllabic script used in Cyprus from the 15th century BC, falling into disuse before being revived in the 8th century BC. It was used to write Greek until the 3rd century BC. It has similarities to Minoan Linear A and may have come from Crete. Inscriptions appear on baked clay tablets, bronze votives, ivories, and seals. It has not been deciphered.

Iberians

CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A prehistoric people of southern and eastern Spanish coastal regions of the 1st millennium BC who later gave their name to the whole peninsula. In the 8th-6th centuries BC, waves of Celtic peoples migrated to the region. By the time of the Greek historian Herodotus (mid-5th century BC), 'Iberian' applied to all the peoples between the Ebro and Huelva rivers, who were probably linguistically connected and whose material culture was distinct from that of the north and west. There was a common script of 28 syllabic and alphabetic characters somewhat derived from Greek and Phoenician, and a non Indo-European language which cannot yet be translated. Notable among their products are their jewelry and statues, of which the Lady of Elche is the most famous. The Iberians' origins are obscure, perhaps North African. They disappeared as a separate group under the Roman occupation, partly by fusion with the Celts of the interior, partly through displacement of their language by Latin. The Iberian economy had a rich agriculture and mining and metallurgy.

Kharosti script

CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: A writing system used in northwestern India before about 500 AD; one of the two main early Indian scripts. The earliest extant inscription in Kharosti dates from 251 BC, and the latest from the 4th-5th century AD. The system probably derived from the Aramaic alphabet while northwestern India was under Persian rule in the 5th century BC. Aramaic, however, is a Semitic alphabet of 22 consonantal letters, while Kharosti is syllabic and has 252 separate signs for consonant and vowel combinations. A cursive script written from right to left, Kharosti was used for commercial and calligraphic purposes. It was influenced somewhat by Brahmi, the other Indian script of the period, which eventually superseded it. The name Karoshti literally means asses' lips, and is said to refer to the similarity of the highly curvilinear script to the movement of asses' lips.

Linear A

CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: A syllabic script created by the Minoans and used in Crete and on other Aegean islands of Greece during the Neopalatial (early palace) period, c 1700-1450 BC (also c 2000/1900-1400 BC). The script has never been deciphered. It was inscribed on clay tablets as administrative records, as well as on stone (religious) vases and bronze double axes. Sir Arthur Evans named the Linear A and B scripts such to distinguish them from the hieroglyphic which preceded them; Linear A is the earlier of the two. Each is a syllabary, and was written with a sharp point on clay tablets. Linear A is of the Middle Minoan III-Late Minoan I. It is in some ways similar to Linear B and has pictograms reduced to formal outline patterns. Linear A tablets have been found in the palaces of Crete itself and also on the Cycladic islands of Melos, Keos, Kythera, Naxos and Thera.

Linear B

CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: A syllabic script used in Minoan Crete and Mycenaean Greece from c 1450-1200 (also c 1500-1100) BC. Michael Ventris deciphered it in 1952 as an early form of Greek. It was created at Knossos when the Mycenaeans took control and spread to mainland Greece. It was mainly used at the palace sites of Mycenae, Pylos, Thebes, and Tiryns. Most of the Linear B writings are on clay tablets but also on terra-cotta jars that were traded throughout the Aegean region. The writings are administrative / economic in nature and its decipherment has thrown much light on the continuity between Bronze Age and classical Greece. They are from the Late Minoan II in Crete and Mycenaean III A-B on the mainland. It is probable that when the Mycenaeans overran the Minoans they adopted the script used on Crete, Linear A and adapted it for writing the Greek language; many signs were added to the existing Linear A signs.

Linear Elamite script

CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: A syllabic script used in Elam for inscriptions c. 2200 BC. The earliest Elamite writings are in a figurative or pictographic script and date from the middle of the 3rd millennium BC. Documents from the second period, which lasted from the 16th to the 8th century BC, are written in cuneiform; the stage of the language found in these documents is sometimes called Old Elamite. The last period of Elamite texts is that of the reign of the Achaemenid kings of Persia (6th to 4th century BC), who used Elamite, along with Akkadian and Old Persian, in their inscriptions. The language of this period, also written in the cuneiform script, is often called New Elamite.

Sumer / Sumerian

CATEGORY: site; culture; language
DEFINITION: The earliest documented inhabitants of southern Mesopotamia (southern Iraq), c 3500 BC, considered the world's first civilization. Located between Babylon and the head of the Persian Gulf, these people spoke a language unrelated to any other known language. Formed originally by the need for irrigation agriculture, they created a social and political organization, their own art, literature, and religious observances and greatly influenced neighboring cultures. Cities appeared, such as Eridu, Lagash, Uruk, and Ur, with craft specialization and accumulation of wealth. Most important was the invention of writing. The cuneiform script developed for writing Sumerian can be read. The political unit was the city-state, in which the patron deity, through the priesthood and temple organization, was the major power in all matters. Secular rulers were required only in time of war. The various city-states were united by a common culture and religion, the patron deities such as Enki, Enlil, Nannar, and the rest being members of a single Sumerian pantheon. Sumer was conquered by the Semites of Akkad under Sargon c 2370 BC. The Sumerian culture survived this and later foreign conquests with very little change. Some scholars believe that the Sumerians go back much further and may even have been the first sedentary inhabitants of southern Mesopotamia, from about 5500 BC. The Sumerian language had invariable bisyllabic or monosyllabic roots, around which prefixes or suffixes, also invariable, were arranged to express grammatical inflections. The structure of the language must have made it easier to invent writing and, in a second period, the use of syllabic characters. Sumerian overtaken by Babylonian and ceased to be spoken at beginning of 2nd millennium BC, but then became a language used for cultural purposes and retained that function until cuneiform writing itself disappeared in 1st century AD.

Ugaritic

CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: An extinct Semitic language spoken and written from at least the middle of 2nd millennium BC at Ugarit and the surrounding area. It belonged to a western group of Semitic languages (i.e. Arabic, Hebrew) and was conveyed alphabetically -- the earliest alphabet for which we have a complete record. The cuneiform writing system used on the Syrian coast from the 15th-13th century BC. It was unique, though possibly patterned after the North Semitic alphabet. Ugaritic was written from left to right; its 30 symbols included 3 syllabic signs for vowels. Documents in Ugaritic are written on clay tablets with a wedge-shaped stylus and date from the 15th-14th century BC.