Volume 58, Issue 1-2

This paper investigates the distribution and use of the Hieroglyphic Luwian signs □ <ta> (L 100) and □ <ta> (L 29), expanding on and reacting to Rieken 2010. It appears <ta> and <ta> are used contrastively not only in a select subset of texts from the Karkamiš region, but in large parts of the Hieroglyphic Luwian corpus in general. Word-internally, <ta> appears to be used wherever we expect to find a short stop (either voiced or voiceless), while <ta> is used for long (fortis) stops. This suggests that consonantal length was at least a phonetic feature in Hieroglyphic Luwian.

Following Rieken’s 2008 establishment that the Anatolian hieroglyphic sign *41 (CAPERE/ta) denoted the syllable /da/, with lenis /d/, Yakubovich (2008) argued that the sign’s phonetic value was acrophonically derived from the Hittite verb dā-i/d- ‘to take’. In the present article it is argued that this view can no longer be upheld in view of new proposals regarding the phonetic value of sign *41 (rather [da]) and the interpretation of Hitt. dā-i/d- (rather [tʔā-]). It is proposed that the value of sign *41 has instead been derived from the Luwian verb ‘to take’, lā-i/l-, which from a historical linguistic perspective must go back to earlier *.ā-i/ *.-. This acrophonic assignment of the value [da] to sign *41 must then be dated to the beginning of the 18th century BCE at the latest, which implies that already by that time the Anatolian hieroglyphs were in use as a real script that made use of phonetic signs.

In this article we will discuss a new document in Cretan Hieroglyphics not considered by the editors of the Corpus of this script. The presence in this document of the two signs sequence a-sa, which also appears in the so-called “Archanes Formula” has provided the opportunity to discuss the relationship between Cretan Hieroglyphics and Linear A as well as the origin of the two Minoan scripts.

This paper focuses on the palaeography of two Bronze Age Aegean writing systems, Linear A and Linear B. Linear A, used to render the Minoan language (ca. 1800-1450 BC), is understood to have acted as template upon adaptation of the system to write Greek, giving rise to the script traditionally called Linear B (ca. 1400-1190 BC). The adaptation process is likely to have operated on different levels: palaeographical, structural, phonological, logographical, metrological. In this paper, the palaeographical level will be examined. In order to throw light on the transmission process on graphic grounds, that is to say from a palaeographical perspective, the study of sign variants comes to play a key role. For a script (i.e. the graphic manifestation of a writing system) to be analysed, it is in fact necessary to ‘single out’ its constitutive components, namely signs, as well as their different graphic representations, namely variants. The aim of this paper is to see how these sign variants, in both Linear A and Linear B, were treated and transmitted.

La comparaison entre les données concernant le toponyme linéaire B da-wo - attestées dans les tablettes de Cnossos - et les structures archéologiques (relatives aux Minoen Récent IIIA-B) trouvées a Haghia Triada et a Kommos (deux localités dans la plaine crétoise de la Messara) est favorable a l’identification da-wo = Haghia Triada.

This article presents two newly-discovered fragments of Linear B tablets from recent excavations at the site of Ano Englianos, Bronze Age Pylos, along with a third possibly inscribed object.

Der vorliegende Beitrag behandelt die Identitat des lydischen Qλdans, der oft mit Apollon oder dem Mondgott gleichgesetzt wurde. Nachdem jedoch jungst bekannt geworden ist, dass auch eine lydische Munze den Namen Qλdans in ihrer Legende nennt, sind die fruheren Deutungen als Gottheit zu revidieren. Eine phonetische Untersuchung von Qλdans ergibt zunachst eine Gleichsetzung mit dem Namen des beruhmten lydischen Konigs Kroisos, dem letzten Herrscher der machtigen Dynastie der Mermnaden. Die Inschriften, die Qλdans nennen, enthullen daruber hinaus die Existenz eines Herrscherkultes fur den verstorbenen Konig in Lydien in der zweiten Halfte des 6. Jh. v. Chr. Vor diesem Hintergrund werden ferner sowohl die Bedeutung der oben genannten Munze als auch die eines perserzeitlichen lydischen Siegels mit dem Namen Qλdans darauf herausgearbeitet. Schlieslich wird dafur argumentiert, dass sich Kroisos nach der verlorenen Schlacht gegen die Perser selbst totete und im Pyramidengrab in Sardis bestattet wurde.

The corpora of the IE Anatolian languages vary widely in script, legibility, size, date, subject matter, and in the extent to which we understand them. Four syntactic features which they appear to have inherited are: a S(ubject)- O(bject)-V(erb) clause structure; declined anaphoric pronouns attached enclitically to a clause’s first accented element; the ability to move the object or verb to the start of a clause for emphasis (“fronting”); the option not to enforce case and number agreement among more than two coordinated elements. The discovery of the Lycian languages and our current understanding of them is summarised. It is proposed, although the evidence comes primarily from Lycian A: that languages of the southwest Luwic area, namely, the alphabetically written Carian and the two from Lycia, had changed to a basic SVO clause; that Lycian A, and probably B too, abandoned the inherited medio-passive conjugations in -r-, which are absent from their corpora; that the passive preterite was expressed by a periphrastic OVS construction with fronted direct object, then me and a particle chain starting with the n- found clause-initially in Hittite but absent from other Luwic dialects, then innovatively appending *-an to the verb, and with the subject last.

Ausgehend von der Bestimmung von sidi als ‚Schwiegersohn‘ gegenuber der luwischen Entsprechung zitis mit der Bedeutung ‚Mann, Ehemann‘ wird das in einer neuen Grabinschrift von Tlos belegte sedi ebenso gedeutet, mit Erwagungen zu den Grunden fur eine Senkung des Stammvokals. Damit fuhrt der Graberbauer nicht nur seinen Onkel statt seines Vaters an, was auch in zwei anderen Grabinschriften belegt ist, sondern bekundet auch noch, da. er dessen Tochter geheiratet hatte. Eine solche Cousinenheirat ist in Lykien noch ofters belegt, allerdings erst in der Kaiserzeit.