Our systems are now restored following recent technical disruption, and we’re working hard to catch up on publishing. We apologise for the inconvenience caused. Find out more

Recommended product

Popular links

Popular links


Cretan Hieroglyphic

Cretan Hieroglyphic

Cretan Hieroglyphic

Matilde Civitillo, Università degli Studi della Campania ‘Luigi Vanvitelli’
Silvia Ferrara, Università degli Studi, Bologna, Italy
Torsten Meissner, University of Cambridge
October 2024
Available
Hardback
9781009490108
£100.00
GBP
Hardback
USD
eBook

    Nearly 4000 years ago a hieroglyphic script was used on Crete which predates Linear A and Linear B, indeed any other writing in Europe, but remains undeciphered since its discovery at the beginning of the twentieth century. This is the first comprehensive account of this script, which is analysed by the leading experts through an array of lenses, including archaeology, philology, palaeography, cognitive studies and decipherment theory, in order to showcase its importance in the history of writing. The book takes a broad approach to writing, understanding it not solely or even mainly as a visual tool to convey language, but primarily as a social and cultural phenomenon rooted in agency, materiality, and semiotics. The volume will provide an invaluable tool for scholars and will facilitate further research. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

    • Offers the first complete overview of all aspects of Cretan Hieroglyphic writing
    • Explores new approaches, both interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary, to the earliest, least understood and still undeciphered script from the Aegean
    • Adopts a broad approach to writing, understanding it primarily as a social and cultural phenomenon rooted in agency, materiality, and semiotics

    Product details

    October 2024
    Hardback
    9781009490108
    352 pages
    250 × 175 × 23 mm
    0.764kg
    46 b/w illus. 36 tables
    Available

    Table of Contents

    • Preface: The Cretan Hieroglyphic Script and Problems of Decipherment Louis Godart
    • Introduction Matilde Civitillo, Silvia Ferrara and Torsten Meissner
    • 1. Cretan Hieroglyphic Sign Repertoires: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow Silvia Ferrara
    • 2. Origins and Interface with Iconography Miguel Valério
    • 3. Cretan Hieroglyphic Writing as a System of Visual Encoding: Iconicity and Graphic Communication Georgia Flouda
    • 4. Macro View: Uses, Social Practices, and Ideological Implications of Hieroglyphic Texts Anna Margherita Jasink and Judith Weingarten
    • 5. Forms, Materials and Sequence Matilde Civitillo
    • 6. Scribal Practices, Syntax, and Morphology Philippa M. Steele
    • 7. The Relationship between Cretan Hieroglyphic and the other Cretan Scripts Torsten Meissner and Ester Salgarella
    • 8. Investigations into the Language(s) behind Cretan Hieroglyphic and Linear A Brent Davis
    • 9. The Future of Cretan Hieroglyphs: Outlooks and Trajectories John Bennet And Vassilis Petrakis
    • Epilogue John G. Younger
    • Appendix
    • Indexes
    • Concordances
    • Bibliography.
      Contributors
    • Anna Margherita Jasink, Brent Davis, Ester Salgarella, Georgia Flouda, John Bennet, John G. Younger, Judith Weingarten, Louis Godart, Matilde Civitillo, Miguel Valério, Philippa M. Steele, Silvia Ferrara, Torsten Meissner, Vassilis Petrakis

    • Editors
    • Matilde Civitillo , Università degli Studi della Campania ‘Luigi Vanvitelli’

      MATILDE CIVITILLO is Associate Professor of Philology and Civilizations of the Aegean and Pre-Classical Mediterranean at the Università degli Studi della Campania 'Luigi Vanvitelli'. Her research has mainly been focused on the analysis of the three main corpora of Aegean texts, namely the written documentation in Cretan Hieroglyphic, in Linear A and in Linear B, on which she has published La scrittura geroglifica minoica sui sigilli. Il messaggio della glittica protopalaziale (2016) and a number of journal articles.

    • Silvia Ferrara , Università degli Studi, Bologna, Italy

      SILVIA FERRARA is Professor of Philology and Civilizations of the Aegean and Pre-Classical Mediterranean at the Università degli Studi di Bologna. An expert on both ancient undeciphered scripts and the invention of writing, she is the author and editor of numerous books, including Cypro-Minoan Inscriptions (2012) and The Greatest Invention (2019). In 2017 she was awarded an ERC grant for the project INSCRIBE (Invention of Scripts and their Beginnings).

    • Torsten Meissner , University of Cambridge

      TORSTEN MEISSNER is a Professor of Classical and Comparative Philology at the University of Cambridge and Fellow and Director of Studies in Classics at Pembroke College. His research mainly focuses on the early Celtic and Germanic languages, the history of Greek from the Bronze Age to the present day and the writing systems of the Bronze Age Aegean, on which he has published numerous articles and books, including S-stem Nouns and Adjectives in Greek and Proto-Indo-European (2006) and Personal Names in the Western Roman World (ed. 2011). He is also the head of the Mycenaean Epigraphy Group in Cambridge and an alumnus of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.