Band 42, Heft 1-2

Innerhalb des Schriftsystems von Linear B gibt es eine Gruppe von Syllabogrammen, denen in der mittlerweile ein halbes Jahrhundert andauernden mykenologischen Forschung bislang noch nicht eindeutig ein bestimmter Lautwert zugewiesen werden konnte. Während für einige der betreffenden Silbenzeichen sogar jeweils gleich mehrere Lautungen in der Fachdiskussion vorgeschlagen worden sind, haben andere überhaupt noch keine Deutung erfahren (vgl. dazu den Überblick bei Heubeck 1979: 37–39 und Hooker 1991: 35). Dieser divergierende Befund erklärt sich vor allem durch den Umstand, daß die einschlägigen Grapheme fast ausschließlich nur in wenigen Schreibungen vorkommen, aus denen sich kaum Rückschlüsse auf die ihnen zugrundeliegende Lautung ziehen lassen. Eine Besserung dieses Zustandes kann nur dann herbeigeführt werden, wenn es durch Neufunde einen Zuwachs an bisher noch nicht bekanntem Material gibt, das zur Klärung offener Fragen wie etwa nach den Lautwerten noch nicht sicher bestimmter Syllabogramme beiträgt.

Editors' Note Kadmos normally does not enter into polemical discussions, but the importance of the Thebes texts is such that on this occasion the editors thought that the rule should be broken. Consequently, they have accepted the contribution by V. L. Aravantinos, L. Godart and A. Sacconi, the editors of the Thebes tablets, and asked Th. Palaima to write a very brief reply. The hope is that there will be more articles, which will lead to a better understanding of the Thebes tablets and if so, Kadmos will referee them in the usual manner; however, the editorial board is agreed that Kadmos will not print other articles whose main purpose is to reply to a review or to reviews not published in this journal.

Interested scholars should read my two reviews of the edition with commentary of the new Thebes tablets carefully and decide for themselves whether the account provided in the preceding article by V. L. Aravantinos, L. Godart and A. Sacconi (hereafter AGS) is accurate. The whole first page of my review in Minos (p. 475) praises the scholarly team involved in excavating, preserving, joining, drawing and editing the new Thebes tablets. I call aspects of this work ‘fine’, ‘superb’ and ‘expert’. I praise its speed. In my AJA review (p. 115), I stress that “[t]he transcriptions, photographs, drawings, indices and palaeographical tables in this volume are good and useful”. I conclude that the edition of the texts, i.e., the drawings and transcriptions and related indices and tables, in TOP is “good work” and “reasonably well done”. Why? Because it is good work that is reasonably well done.

The present contribution is a continuation of my article ‘The Lotus Flower in Cretan Hieroglyphic’. jabu-Re For the scribes of Cretan Hieroglyphic there were six ways of stressing the importance of the Egyptian sun-god Re as the key element in the Minoan throne-name jabu-Re , ‘Heart of Re’ (Fig. 1a; no. 162). One way of doing so was to add to the syllabic sign with the value re an identical, but smaller syllabic sign or, alternatively, to add to the logogram of the lotus flower with the value re an identical, but likewise smaller logogram; in both cases, the smaller, identical adjunct was added to focus the reader's attention upon the last part of the throne-name (Fig. 1b and 1c; no. 242, no. 214).

It is generally assumed that western Asia Minor was originally to a large extent – if not completely – Luwian. It is remarkable, however, that the name Luwian does not live on: Greek sources have not yielded a name that resembles the word Luwian . Of course, this is not a serious problem, for the name may simply have disappeared, but it may be useful to keep this in mind.

La lunga iscrizione (255 linee) che copre le quattro facce della Stele di Xanthos (TL 44), monumento funerario e insieme celebrativo delle fortune dei dinasti arpagidi, costituisce sicuramente il documento più importante per ricostruire le vicende storiche e la strut-tura politico-amministrativa della Licia occidentale alla fine del V sec. a.C. La parziale decifrazione del licio e le lacune dell'epigrafe consentono la lettura, spesso largamente ipotetica, soltanto di passi isolati e frammentari del testo, la cui esegesi è ostacolata da numerosi problemi, da quelli legati all'aspetto morfologico-sintattico e semantico (in molti casi è possibile attribuire a una parola licia soltanto un valore approssimativo e generico), a quelli connessi alla contestualizzazione storica e al rapporto con le fonti storiografiche greche, che solo raramente fanno esplicito riferimento a vicende o a personaggi della storia licia. Nonostante sia compito dello storico analizzare e tentare di interpretare tutta la documentazione superstite, soprattutto in campi come quello della Licia di età achemenide dove le fonti a disposizione sono scarse, à bene richiamare ancora una volta l'attenzione sulla necessità he venga sempre accolto con grande cautela quanto ipotizzato e desunto da un contesto linguistico per molti aspetti ancora oscuro e problematico.

Depuis 2001, une exploration archéologique systématique a été menée dans l'Ouest de la Phrygie par une équipe émanant de l'Anadolu Üniversitesi d'Eskişehir, sous la direction de T. Sivas. Outre, classiquement, l'élaboration de cartes et le repérage des restes archéologiques, le but essentiel de ces investigations est de clarifier l'extension et le caractère des établissements et monuments phrygiens en dehors des limites des Highlands, dans les provinces d'Eskişehir, Kütahya et Afyonkarahisar. Au cours de trois campagnes d'un mois, le travail sur le terrain a révélé, dans l'aire explorée, maints restes culturels phrygiens non encore repérés. Parmi les découvertes figurent deux ou trois inscriptions rupestres et quelques graffites sur poterie grise phrygienne.

Over the last hundred years there have been several attempts to find metre (usually of a Greek type) in certain of the Phrygian inscriptions, especially the Neo-Phrygian ones. Sir William Ramsay wrote that ‘it is certain that numerous traces of metrical arrangement are seen in the inscriptions’. In inscription 31 he saw three hexameters, while W. M. Calder analysed the same text as an elegiac couplet, ‘scanned roughly according to accent’. Calder found an elegiac also in 15, and ‘rough iambic metre’ in 58. Forty years later Otto Haas presented an analysis of 31 that was different again: two tetrameters and two pentameters of spondaic feet in which either of the longs could be replaced by two shorts. None of these attempts was at all convincing.

In recent studies the Carians of pre-Hellenistic times are described as sailors and mercenaries. It is true that the inscriptions they made when serving as mercenaries in Egypt under the command of pharaoh Psammetichus I (664–610 B.C.E.) or II (595–589 B.C.E.) speak of that. We learn this also from Herodotus I.12 and 171. But now we know that the Carians in Egypt were not only men of military professions, but skilled stonecutters and masons. This most important discovery and explanation was made by Sh. L. Gosline. The author identified 37 masons' marks, which came from buildings, or from quarries, with signs of the Carian alphabet. Most of them came from the terrace of the temple of Khnum at Elephantine, and they can be dated to the VII or VI centuries B.C.E. Such Carian signs – masons' marks – are also known from Persepolis and Pasargadae of the Achaemenid times. Taking the above given material into account, N. Franklin identified 17 masons' marks as Carian letters in the wallstones of Samaria and Megiddo, cities of the Israeli kingdom at the levels of the IX century B.C.E.

Eine kleine, im Ägyptischen Museum in Berlin befindliche und 1910 publizierte Totenstele von Abusir bei Memphis zeigt unter der üblichen Flügelsonne eine gänzlich unägyptische Prothesis-Szene in ostgriechischem Stil: Vier Trauernde sind um eine aufgebahrte Leiche („ein Jüngling”: Zahn bei Borchardt 1910, 135; vielleicht „a child, possibly a boy”: Nicholls bei Masson 1978, 76) versammelt, wobei einer der beiden Männer ein Messer zur Stirn führt, ein karischer Trauerbrauch: „Die Karer, die in Ägypten ansässig sind, gehen noch weiter als die Ägypter: Sie schneiden sich mit Messern in die Stirn” (Herodot II 61). Auch die Kleidung, das Totenbett und der Tisch davor sind nicht ägyptisch.

El alfabeto epicórico de la ciudad de Side ha sido objeto de estudio y de controversia por parte de los estudiosos que se han ocupado del tema en las últimas décadas. No sólo los valores correspondientes a cada signo sino también su origen son aspectos que aún no han sido dilucidados de forma totalmente satisfactoria.

Bei den ersten beiden hier behandelten Inschriften (ICS 270 und 279) war mir dank der freundlichen, oft bewährten Hilfe von Frau Dr. Joan Mertens, Curator of Greek and Roman Art am Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, am 11. Juli 2002 Autopsie möglich. (Auch die Fotos 1–3 werden dem Metropolitan Museum verdankt.) Die dabei gewonnenen oder gesicherten Lesungen machen diese Inschriften nun verständlich und verbessern unsere Kenntnis des altgriechischen Dialekts der Insel.

Die dreizeilige Inschrift ICS 92 ist rechtsläufig. Ihre Zeichen stehen denen des jung-paphischen Syllabars nahe, weisen aber auch abweichende, stärker kursive Formen auf. Das erschwert die Lesung. – Am 1. und 2. Okt. 2003 habe ich im British Museum, London, dank der Erlaubnis von Frau Dr. V. Tatton Brown Autopsie gewinnen dürfen.

Introduction The formulaic drinking inscriptions of the type , mostly written on both sides in the handle zone of Attic little-master lip-cups of c . 550–530 BC, are well known. In this contribution a catalogue of these inscriptions is presented, together with a discussion of the variants and the relation of the texts to the size and decoration of the vases. In a twin article, to which the reader is referred here (and vice versa), the history and functions of these drinking formulae, and in particular the forms πίει and χαĩϱε, are discussed.

While I was completing the Evans—Myres edition of the Linear A inscriptions, news came of inscriptions on second millennium pottery on the Lipari (Aeolian) Islands off the North coast of Sicily. These were reported to bear some resemblance to contemporary Cretan writing, and specifically to Linear A. After referring to their publication, I decided that the proposed resemblance was too doubtful to warrant pursuit.