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

2. 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

3. Hieroglyphic Scripts Hieros - sacred Glyphein - to carve Egyptian Anatolian or Hittite or Luwian Cretan Mayan

4. Egyptian Hieroglyphs 3,300 bc Logograms (word) Ideograms (idea) Alphabetic letters

5. 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)

6. Luwian Language Hittites Hieroglyphs & Cuneiform Trojans? Seal with Luwian Hieroglyphics

7. From Pictogram to Cuneiform

8. Cuneiform Technique

9. Cuneiform Texts

10. Deciphering Cuneiform

11. The Behistun Inscription Old Persian, Elamite, Babylonian Darius I (521-486 bc) Henry Rawlinson, Edward Hincks

12. Interlude… Stop it, you little monster, or I’ll go out to the barn, and tell your father! Pasiphae and Minotaur RF vase, Etruria, c.340bc

13. Cretan Hieroglyphics: The Phaistos Disk Related scripts, partly syllabic, partly logographic: –Linear A –Anatolian hieroglyphs – Egyptian hieroglyphs.

14. 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

15. The Mycenaeans: Linear B Arthur Evans effect Linear B & Etruscan? Syllabograms & Logograms Total of 200 signs

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

17. Greek in Syllabograms

18. 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 (doulos=slave)

19. Phoenician Alphabet Semitic letter names Aleph - ox - alpha Bet - house - beta

20. Greek Alphabet

21. 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.

22. Or Is it Pure Myth? Cadmus, brother of Europa Founder of Thebes Date?

23. Family Tree of Danaos & Cadmus POSEIDON_____________LIBYA I __________I__________ I I AGENOR BELUS I __________I______ CADMUS II AEGYPTUS DANAOS II 50 SONS 50 DAUGHTERS

24. 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.

25. Writing in Homer: Iliad 6.197-202 He (Proetus, King of Argos) balked at killing the man (Bellerophon) - he’d 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…

26. 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 daughter’s husband, first He ordered Bellerophon to kill the Chimaera

27. 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.

28. Ogham carved & 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.