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Writing in Bronze Age Crete

Writing in Bronze Age Crete

Writing in Bronze Age Crete

‘Minoan' Linear A
Author:
Ester Salgarella, Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies, Aarhus University
Published:
June 2025
Availability:
Not yet published - available from June 2025
Format:
Adobe eBook Reader
ISBN:
9781009520034

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    The Bronze Age Aegean and Cyprus were home to a plethora of scripts, including Cretan Hieroglyphic, Linear A and Linear B, Cypro-Minoan and Cypro-Syllabic. This Element is dedicated to the conventionally named 'Minoan' Linear A script, used on Crete and the Aegean islands during the Middle and Late Bronze Age (ca. 1800–1450 BCE). Linear A is still undeciphered, and the language it encodes ('Minoan') thus remains elusive. Notwithstanding, scholars have been able to extract a good amount of information from Linear A inscriptions and their contexts of use. Current ongoing research, integrating the materiality of script with linguistic analysis, offers a cutting-edge approach with promising results. This Element considers Linear A within an investigative framework as well as narrative, shedding light on a number of burning questions in the field, often the subject of intense academic debate.

    Product details

    June 2025
    Adobe eBook Reader
    9781009520034
    0 pages
    Not yet published - available from June 2025

    Table of Contents

    • 1. Defining the (un)definable: what is Linear A?
    • 2. A tale of life and death: what is the life-span of Linear A?
    • 3. The Linear A corpus: where is Linear A found?
    • 4. Drawing lines: what does Linear A look like?
    • 5. Of clay and stone (and else): where does Linear A appear?
    • 6. (Beyond) accounting: what was Linear A used for?
    • 7. 'Elementary, my dear Watson': what do we know from reading Linear A?
    • 8. Speaking in riddles: which language does Linear A encode?
    • 9. More unresolved mysteries: what do we not have in Linear A?
    • 10. Current and future pathways of research: What's next?.
    Resources for
    Type
    Supplementary Material - Links - Salgarella_FINAL
    Size: 292.32 KB
    Type: application/pdf
    Appendix__Writing_in_Minoan_Crete_Salgarella_FINAL
    Size: 2.82 MB
    Type: application/pdf
      Author
    • Ester Salgarella , Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies, Aarhus University