88 research outputs found
F. Pagano, M. Civitillo, C. Rescigno, 'La Pittura della voce. L’alfabeto prima e dopo Cuma', Catalogo della Mostra (Baia, maggio-giugno 2024)
No full textQuella dell’alfabeto greco è stata tradizionalmente considerata come l’invenzione, da parte di un ignoto benefattore dell’umanità, di uno strumento che avrebbe costituito uno dei più prodigiosi vettori di civilizzazione e progresso della civiltà greca (e, con essa, di quella occidentale). Tuttavia, sembra oggi più verosimile che la diffusione di tale potente strumento non sia da interpretare in termini di monogenesi, ma come frutto di un lungo processo al quale parteciparono diversi intermediari in diversi momenti e in diversi luoghi. L’inizio di questo labirintico percorso si colloca nel Levante del II millennio a.C., dove era in uso una pluralità di alfabeti consonantici, tra loro correlati e in fase di vivace sperimentazione, che si stavano gradualmente sviluppando nel repertorio di forme segniche che si troverà poi standardizzato nelle attestazioni più antiche dell’alfabeto fenicio. Da questo, intorno al IX secolo a.C., sarebbero derivati, per adeguamento dei caratteri fenici alle esigenze della lingua greca, gli alfabeti regionali greci, finché uno di questi, quello euboico, sarebbe poi approdato sulle coste campane nell’VIII secolo a.C. La mostra intende narrare, attraverso l’esposizione di alcune tra le più significative iscrizioni alfabetiche ad oggi rinvenute che per la prima volta vengono esposte insieme, non solo il primo, delicato processo di adattamento della scrittura fenicia alla notazione della lingua greca, ma soprattutto il passaggio dell’alfabeto greco in Occidente e la graduale nascita della costellazione di alfabeti in uso dell’Italia antica. Attraverso la sua introduzione da parte dei naviganti euboici prima a Pitecusa e poi a Cuma, infatti, la pratica della scrittura si diffuse rapidamente presso le popolazioni vicine e nel corso del VI secolo a.C. assunse un valore identitario etnico, dando vita a un mosaico di diverse tradizioni grafiche, di volta in volta derivate direttamente dall’alfabeto greco o attraverso la mediazione etrusca o latina. Narrare questo lungo processo – contraddistinto da una intricata rete di stimoli, creazioni indipendenti, sperimentazioni locali – è lo scopo della mostra, che non a caso è ospitata nel castello aragonese di Baia. Dalla sua terrazza superiore, infatti, è possibile abbracciare con lo sguardo non solo Ischia e Cuma, luoghi di approdo dell’alfabeto greco in Occidente, ma anche, attraverso un’istallazione ottica realizzata in occasione dell’evento, il limite meridionale del Lazio, da dove la scrittura si sarebbe diffusa alle culture dell’Italia centrale. È quindi della scrittura intesa come fenomeno flessibile e cangiante (‘prima e dopo Cuma’, appunto), sempre al servizio di lingue e culture diverse che ne fecero uso per disparate finalità che la mostra vuole raccontare. Ma della scrittura verranno raccontate anche le pratiche, i supporti, i contesti e gli usi, poiché solo privilegiando i processi di produzione e fruizione della comunicazione scritta si possono comprendere appieno i suoi prodotti: ovvero i singoli testi, manifestazioni di quella ‘pittura della voce’ che la mostra vuole disegnare
"Sul prisma CHIC #294: «le premier sceau hiéroglyphique de la littérature crètoise» tra letture fine ottocentesche e strategie interpretative contemporanee"
No full textCHIC #294 (Archaeological Museum of Athens, inv. n. 8915) is the first seal written in Cretan Hieroglyphic script ever published. Since 1870, it was the subject of a long exegetical history but remains an unresolved conundrum among the Minoan inscribed glyptic. First interpreted as tessera gladiatoria datable to III sec. a.C. or later by Albert Dumont, it was regarded as written with ‘fully developed conventionalised pictographs’ by Evans and, finally (but wrongly), as the first hymn of the Greek literature ever known, written in a form proto-Greek, by Paul Faure. Some of the most sticking features of this four-sided prism are the frequent repetitions of signs or sign-sequences (notably in CHIC’s faces α and δ), the exceptional length of its faces and some special features in the execution technique of its signs. This paper aims to critically discuss the analyses proposed for this document and to provide a hint of novelty in the interpretation of the unique inscription it bears
Cretan Hieroglyphic
No full textNearly 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
“Comparing Cretan Hieroglyphic and Linear A seals: a preliminary assessment of forms, materials, sequences and uses”
No full textDetailed studies by J.-P. Olivier (1999; 2009; 2010) and M. Del Freo (2012; 2017) have identified, to date, four instances of seals written in Linear A (CR Zg 4, KN Zg 55, ARM Zg 1, CR (?) Zg 3). To these, we may tentatively add a few other examples signalled by M. Anastasiadou (2016: 178); in particular, CMS VII no. 31. However, some of these seals are problematic and some authors are cautious about their interpretation. The stylistic dating of most of these seals (CR Zg 4, KN Zg 55, CMS VII no. 31), is MM II or III-III, which is contemporary to the use of administrative seals written in Cretan Hieroglyphic. Conversely, the find context of ARM Zg 1 dates it to LM II-III A2, while the stylistic date suggested is MM I, which means this specimen may have been an heirloom. Finally, no dating is proposed for CR (?) Zg 3.
The marginal use of seals in Linear A for administrative practices is generally contextualised either to highlight the differences between the writing practices proper of this script and those of Cretan Hieroglyphics or, on the contrary and more recently, to minimize the gap between the two (Linear A and Cretan Hieroglyphics were both used on seals!) when arguing about the writing system in use on some seals engraved with the so-called “Arkhanes inscription” (Godart 1999; Anastasiadou 2016), traditionally interpreted as Cretan Hieroglyphic and consequently published in CHIC . There is yet to appear, however, a specific study analysing this mini-corpus of more or less problematic Linear A seals on their own and in comparison with the Cretan Hieroglyphic seal corpus. Despite the extremely poor documentation we have, it would be of interest, though, to analyse all the “contours” of the act of writing on seals in Linear A. We believe that these “contours” are not mere documentary supplements, but rather, they have social and referential aspects that are key factors for our understanding of any writing act in any writing system. Hence, it would be useful to assess the forms of the Linear A seals under examination, the material used for their manufacture, the formatting of the texts, the graphic norms used in their writing, the typology of the signs and sequences appearing on their surfaces, the possible presence of “decorative” signs along with inscriptions, the potential writers and the readers and their possible administrative uses. These results could then be compared with the same elements on the Cretan Hieroglyphic seal corpus, in order to try to understand the roughly contemporary use of seals and their function within the two different administrative systems of Protopalatial Crete.
For the Cretan Hieroglyphic seal corpus, despite the limitations of our documentation and our limited understanding of a number of specific issues, we can plausibly pin down a sort of a “canon” through which Hieroglyphic inscriptions were classified and interpreted during the Protopalatial period; this “canon” seems to be testified by documents covering the whole chronological period that this writing system was in use, from different places on the island and manufactured by different workshops. Above all, it is possible to identify a recurrent correlation between external elements (like seal forms: prismatic and 1- or 2-sided seals – and materials: hard and soft stones), the distribution of different kinds of sign-groups (for instance, “formulae” and non-formulaic sign groups) and their sphragistic use (on crescent-shape nodules and other kinds of nodule) (see Olivier 2000: 141, fig. 1; Poursat 200; Karnava 2000: 192-194, tab. 38-39). As a consequence, we may hypothesize that forms and materials, along with the visual presentation of the script, were significant from a semiological point of view, and were codified and transmitted in specific ideological contexts (see Flouda 2013: 143-144).
The very limited use of Linear A on seals can be, at first sight, tentatively contextualized among a series of “overlaps” in the forms and formats of Cretan Hieroglyphic and Linear A documents. For instance, the use of seals in the Linear A administration could have been residuary as the use of tablets in the Cretan Hieroglyphic. But was the use of Linear A on seals unpredictable and random, casually and inconsistently related to the Hieroglyphic tradition of inscribing seals, or was it codified according some specific and recurrent functions of particular seal forms connected to definite textual contents in a parallel administrative system?
A cursory preliminary scrutiny shows that in many of the semiologically significant aspects we have listed above the Linear A seals we are referring to seem to be quite different from “standard” Cretan Hieroglyphic seals (while some very interesting similarities with a few “nonconventional” Hieroglyphic seals will be reported). With regard to the forms, prisms (the majority in Hieroglyphic corpus with more than 100 out of ca. 150) are not encountered in the Linear A repertoire, and documents with one or two circular inscribed surfaces, in soft materials only, are the rule. As to the formatting of the texts, they are characterized by greater regularity in their general appearance than their Cretan Hieroglyphic counterparts: they tend to develop in a linear configuration even when they are encountered on circular surfaces. As a consequence, both for alignment and for orientation, the visual effect of the inscriptions contrasts with the irregular development of the often “fluctuating” signs of Cretan Hieroglyphic encountered on circular surfaces (and not only on these). The texts themselves, in terms of the general spheres of meaning they belong to, include ideograms as well as hapax (quite exceptional cases in the Hieroglyphic corpus), perhaps a ligature (on ARM Zg 1; Olivier 2010: 291 n. 16) and, in at least one case, a new form of a known word (Perna 2014: 257), attested, with its derivatives, on clay tablets, libation tables and gold artefacts written in Linear A: AB 28-01-01 (i-da-da) on CR Zg 4.a. It is probably a toponym.
Notwithstanding the extremely limited number of these documents, then, we believe it could be of interest to conduct a first preliminary analysis of them, through a systematic comparison of their features with Cretan Hieroglyphic seal traditions, with the aim of shedding more light on our understanding of the administrative practices in different places (in some cases, possibly site-specific) and the contexts of use for the two writing systems of Protopalatial Crete and how this may have led to the creation and use of different document formats
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