Cretan hieroglyphs: Difference between revisions

Cretan hieroglyphs
Cretan hieroglyphs;
	A green jasper Minoan seal with Cretan hieroglyphs, 1800 BC
Script type	Undeciphered (presumed ideographic, possibly with a syllabic component)
Time period	MM I to MM III 2100–1700 BC
Status	Extinct
Direction	Left-to-right
Languages	Unknown; possibly "Minoan"
Related scripts
Parent systems	Proto-writing Cretan hieroglyphs;
Sister systems	Linear A
	This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

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Cretan hieroglyphs are a hieroglyphic writing system used in early Bronze Age Crete, during the Minoan era. They predate Linear A by about a century, but the two writing systems continued to be used in parallel for most of their history.^[1] As of 2024^[update], they are undeciphered.^[2]

Corpus

As of 1989, the corpus of Cretan hieroglyphic inscriptions included two parts:

Seals and sealings, 150 documents with 307 sign-groups, using 832 signs in all.
Other documents on clay, 120 documents with 274 sign-groups, using 723 signs.^[3]

More documents, such as those from the Petras deposit, have been published since then. A four sided prism was found in 2011 at Vrysinas in western Crete.^[4]

These inscriptions were mainly excavated at four locations:

"Quartier Mu" at Malia (Middle Minoan II period = MM II)
Malia palace (MM III)
Knossos (MM II or III)
the Petras deposit (MM IIB), 12 clay documents, 5 seal impressions, and 6 seals, excavated starting in 1995 and published in 2010.^[5]

The first corpus of signs was published by Evans in 1909.^[6] The current corpus (which excludes some of Evan's signs) was published in 1996 as the Corpus Hieroglyphicarum Inscriptionum Cretae (CHIC).^[7] It consists of:

clay documents with incised inscriptions (CHIC H: 1–122)
sealstone impressions (CHIC I: 123–179)
sealstones (CHIC S: 180–314)
the Malia altar stone
the Arkalochori Axe
seal fragment HM 992, showing a single symbol, identical to Phaistos Disk glyph 21.^[8]

The relation of the last two items with the script of the main corpus is uncertain; the Malia altar is listed as part of the Hieroglyphic corpus by most researchers.^[9]

Since the publication of the CHIC in 1996 refinements and changes have been proposed.^[10]^[11] The main issue is that a number of symbols found on sealstones, tending to be more image-based, were deemed as purely decorative and not included in the sign list (or are transcribed when read). The concern is that this process may have resulted in actual signs being deprecated.^[12]^[13]

Some Cretan Hieroglyphic (as well as Linear A) inscriptions were also found on the island of Samothrace in the northeastern Aegean.^[14]

Some scholars have suggested relations to Anatolian hieroglyphs:

The overlaps between the Cretan script and other scripts, such as the hieroglyphic scripts of Cyprus and the Hittite lands of Anatolia, may suggest ... that they all evolved from a common ancestor, a now-lost script perhaps originating in Syria.^[15]

New exemplars continue to be found. During recent excavation at the Neopalatial area of the Cult Centre of the City of Knossos a seal stone was found in a foundation deposit. The steatite seal had four inscribed faces and the deposit dated to Final Palatial Period into LM III B. The room where the deposit was found had a "religious sceptre" inscribed all over with Linear A. ^[12]

At Zakros three sealings inscribed with Cretan hieroglyphs were found in the same deposit with a Linear A tablet and a Linear A inscribed roundel. The deposit was in a destruction layer dated between layers LM IA and LM IB.^[16]^[17]

Signs

Cretan hieroglyphs (1900–1600 BC) on a clay bar from Malia or Knossos, Crete. As exhibited at Heraklion Archaeological Museum, Crete, Greece. Dots represent numerals

Symbol inventories have been compiled by Evans (1909), Meijer (1982), and Olivier & Godart (1996).

The glyph inventory in CHIC includes 96 syllabograms representing sounds, ten of which double as logograms, representing words or portions of words.

There are also 23 logograms representing four levels of numerals (units, tens, hundreds, thousands), nine signs for numerical fractions, and two types of punctuation.^[18]

Many symbols have apparent Linear A counterparts, so that it is tempting to insert Linear B sound values. Moreover, there are multiple parallels (words and phrases) from hieroglyphic inscriptions that occur also in Linear A and/or B in similar contexts (words for "total", toponyms, personal names etc.)^[19]

It has been suggested^[vague] that several signs were influenced by Egyptian hieroglyphs.^[20]^[21]

Chronology

The development of hieroglyphs passed three important stages:

Archanes script (signs look like pictograms, although their number and frequency rather suggest a syllabic script); this script was only described as a distinct stage in development of the Cretan hieroglyphic in the 1980s. Most of these seals contain a repetitive "Archanes formula" of 2–3 signs.^[22]
Hieroglyphic A (best represented in archaeological records; similar to Archanes, but images of animals are reduced to heads only)
Hieroglyphic B (mostly on clay, characters are essentially simplified, may have served as a prototype for Linear A and possibly the Cypro-Minoan script). Only this latter version of the hieroglyphic includes signs that can possibly match ideograms known from Linear A.

The sequence and the geographical spread of Cretan hieroglyphs, Linear A, and Linear B, the five overlapping, but distinct, writing systems of Bronze Age Crete and the Greek mainland can be summarized as follows:^[23]

Writing system	Geographical area	Time span^[a]
Cretan Hieroglyphic	Crete (eastward from the Knossos-Phaistos axis)	c. 2100–1700 BC^[15]^[24]
Linear A	Crete (except extreme southwest), Aegean islands (Kea, Kythera, Melos, Thera), and Greek mainland (Laconia)	c. 1800–1450 BC^[25]^[26]^[27]^[28]
Linear B	Crete (Knossos), and mainland (Pylos, Mycenae, Thebes, Tiryns, Agios Vasileios – the ancient name of the latter is unknown)	c. 1450–1200 BC
Cypro-Minoan	Cyprus	c. 1550–1050 BC
Cypriot	Cyprus	c. 11th–4th centuries BC

Fonts

The Aegean and Cretan Hieroglyphs fonts support Cretan hieroglyphs.^[29]

Notes

^ Beginning date refers to first attestations, the assumed origins of all scripts lie further back in the past.

References

^ Yule (1981), pp. 170–171.
^ [1]Civitillo, Matilde, Silvia Ferrara, and Torsten Meissner, Introduction", in The Earliest Script on Crete: Semiotics, Linguistics, Archaeology and Palaeography, Cretan Hieroglyphic, Cambridge University Press, pp. 1-12, 2024
^ Olivier (1990).
^ Hallager, Papadopoulou & Tzachili (2012).
^ Tsipopoulou & Hallager (2010).
^ Evans (1909).
^ Olivier & Godart (1996).
^ Sanavia (2017).
^ Macdonald (1999).
^ Jasink (2009).
^ Montecchi, Ferrara & Valério (2021).
^ ^a ^b Kanta, Palaima & Perna (2022).
^ Ferrara, Montecchi & Valério (2023).
^ Finkelberg (1998), pp. 265–272.
^ ^a ^b Castleden (2002), p. 100.
^ D. G. Hogarth, "The Zakro Sealings", JHS 22, pp. 76-93, 1902
^ Perna, Massimo, "The Roundel in Linear A from Zakro Wc 2 (HM 84)", Kadmos 33.1, pp. 29-37, 1994
^ Nosch, Marie-Louise, et al., "The materiality of the Cretan Hieroglyphic Script: textile production-related referents to Hieroglyphic signs on seals and sealings from Middle Bronze Age Crete", The social and cultural contexts of historic writing practices. Contexts of and relations between writing systems 2, pp. 73-100, 2021
^ Karnava (1999).
^ Woudhuizen (2002).
^ Best (2002).
^ Decorte (2018).
^ Olivier (1986), pp. 377–389 (377f.).
^ Robinson (2009), p. 55–.
^ Haarmann (2008).
^ Redmond (2007), pp. 2–.
^ Jahandarie (1999), pp. 200–.
^ Wheatley (2008), pp. 381–.
^ Unicode Fonts for Ancient Scripts by George Douros

Works cited

Best, Jan (2002). "The Lotus Flower in Cretan Hieroglyphic". Kadmos. 41 (1): 131–136. doi:10.1515/kadm.2002.41.s1.131. ISSN 0022-7498. S2CID 162230027.
Castleden, Rodney (2002). Minoans. Routledge. ISBN 1134880642.
Decorte, Roeland P.-J. E. (2018). "The First 'European' Writing: Redefining the Archanes Script". Oxford Journal of Archaeology. 37 (4): 341–372. doi:10.1111/ojoa.12152. ISSN 0262-5253. S2CID 59417289.
Evans, A. J. (1909). Scripta Minoa: The Written Documents of Minoan Crete with Special Reference to the Archives of Knossos. Vol. I. The Hieroglyphic and Primitive Linear Classes with an Account of the Discovery of the Pre-Phoenician Scripts, their Place in Minoan Story and their Mediterranean Relations. Oxford.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
Ferrara, Silvia; Montecchi, Barbara; Valério, Miguel (May 2023). "In Search of Lost Signs: A New Approach to the Issue of Writing and Non-Writing on Cretan Hieroglyphic Seals". Oxford Journal of Archaeology. 42 (2): 107–130. doi:10.1111/ojoa.12265. ISSN 0262-5253. S2CID 258091270.
Finkelberg, Margalit (1998). "Bronze Age Writing: Contacts between East and West" (PDF). In Cline, E. H.; Harris-Cline, D. (eds.). The Aegean and the Orient in the Second Millennium: Proceedings of the 50th Anniversary Symposium, Cincinnati, 18–20 April 1997. Aegeum 18. Liège. pp. 265–272. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-03-19.
Haarmann, Harald (2008). "The Danube Script and Other Ancient Writing Systems: A Typology of Distinctive Features" (PDF). Journal of Archaeomythology. 4 (1). ISSN 2162-6871.
Hallager, Erik; Papadopoulou, Eleni; Tzachili, Iris (2012). "VRY S (4/4) 01 – The First Hieroglyphic Inscription from Western Crete". Kadmos. 50 (1): 63–74. doi:10.1515/kadmos.2011.004. ISSN 0022-7498. S2CID 163980198.
Jahandarie, Khosrow (1999). Spoken and Written Discourse: A Multi-disciplinary Perspective. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-1-56750-427-9.
Jasink, Anna M. (2009). Cretan hieroglyphic seals: A new classification of symbols and ornamental filling motifs. Pise-Rome: Fabrizio Serra.
Kanta, Athanasia; Palaima, Thomas G.; Perna, Massimo (1 December 2022). "A Hieroglyphic seal from the cult centre of the city of Knossos (KN S (4/4) 01): with an appendix by Alessandra Giumlia-Mair". Kadmos (in German). 61 (1–2): 61–96. doi:10.1515/kadmos-2022-0003. ISSN 0022-7498. S2CID 257283511.
Karnava, Artemis (1999). The Cretan Hieroglyphic Script of the Second Millennium BC: description, analysis, function and decipherment perspectives (Thesis). Vol. 1–2. Bruxelles.
Macdonald, P. Jackson (1999). "A Statistical study of the Phaistos Disc". Kadmos. 38 (1–2): 19–30. doi:10.1515/kadm.1999.38.1-2.19. ISSN 0022-7498. S2CID 162209854.
Montecchi, Barbara; Ferrara, Silvia; Valério, Miguel (2021). "Rationalizing the Cretan Hieroglyphic signlist". Kadmos. 60 (1–2): 5–32. doi:10.1515/kadmos-2021-0003. hdl:11585/881988. ISSN 0022-7498. S2CID 247979947.
Olivier, Jean-Pierre (1986). "Cretan Writing in the Second Millennium B.C." World Archaeology. 17 (3): 377–389. doi:10.1080/00438243.1986.9979977. ISSN 0043-8243.
Olivier, Jean-Pierre (1990). "The Relationship between Inscriptions on Hieroglyphic Seals and those Written on Archival Documents". In Palaima, Thomas G (ed.). Aegean Seals, Sealings, and Administration (PDF). Université de Liège, Histoire de l'art et archéologie de la Grèce antique. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-03.
Olivier, Jean-Pierre; Godart, Louis; et al. (Poursat, Jean-Claude) (1996). Corpus hieroglyphicarum inscriptionum Cretae. Études Crétoises 31 (in French). Paris: De Boccard. pp. 1–447. ISBN 2-86958-082-7.
Meijer, Louk C. (1982). Eine strukturelle Analyse der Hagia Triada-Tafeln: ein Beitrag zur Linear A-Forschung (in German). John Benjamins Publishing. ISBN 978-90-6032-187-4.
Redmond, Marian (2007). Literacy and History: The Greeks. R.I.C. Publications. ISBN 978-1-74126-506-4.
Robinson, Andrew (27 August 2009). Writing and Script: A Very Short Introduction. OUP Oxford. ISBN 978-0-19-157916-5.
Sanavia, A. (2017). "An Overview of the Protopalatial Impressed Fine Ware from Phaistos and Some Comparisons with the Phaistos Disc". LUME. 95: 81.
Tsipopoulou, Metaxia; Hallager, Erik (2010). The Hieroglyphic Archive at Petras, Siteia (with contributions by Cesare D'Annibale & Dimitra Mylona) (PDF). Monographs of the Danish Institute at Athens, 9. Athens: Aarhus University Press. ISBN 978-87-7934-293-4.
Wheatley, Paul (2008) [1971]. The Origins and Character of the Ancient Chinese City, Volume 2: The Chinese City in Comparative Perspective. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 978-0-202-36769-9.
Woudhuizen, Fred C. (2002). "The "Trowel"-sign (Evans No. 18): Another Instance of Egyptian Influence on Cretan Hieroglyphic". Kadmos. 41 (1): 129–130. doi:10.1515/kadm.2002.41.s1.129. ISSN 0022-7498. S2CID 161315443.
Yule, Paul (1981). Early Cretan Seals: A Study of Chronology. Marburger Studien zur Vor und Frühgeschichte 4. Mainz. doi:10.11588/diglit.3044. ISBN 3-8053-0490-0.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

External links

Media related to Cretan hieroglyphs at Wikimedia Commons
The Cretan Hieroglyphic Texts
Cretan Hieroglyphic Texts Explorer

[24] Beginning date refers to first attestations, the assumed origins of all scripts lie further back in the past.

[FOOTNOTEYule1981170–171-1] Yule (1981), pp. 170–171.

[2] [1]Civitillo, Matilde, Silvia Ferrara, and Torsten Meissner, Introduction", in The Earliest Script on Crete: Semiotics, Linguistics, Archaeology and Palaeography, Cretan Hieroglyphic, Cambridge University Press, pp. 1-12, 2024

[FOOTNOTEOlivier1990-3] Olivier (1990).

[FOOTNOTEHallagerPapadopoulouTzachili2012-4] Hallager, Papadopoulou & Tzachili (2012).

[FOOTNOTETsipopoulouHallager2010-5] Tsipopoulou & Hallager (2010).

[FOOTNOTEEvans1909-6] Evans (1909).

[FOOTNOTEOlivierGodart1996-7] Olivier & Godart (1996).

[FOOTNOTESanavia2017-8] Sanavia (2017).

[FOOTNOTEMacdonald1999-9] Macdonald (1999).

[FOOTNOTEJasink2009-10] Jasink (2009).

[FOOTNOTEMontecchiFerraraValério2021-11] Montecchi, Ferrara & Valério (2021).

[FOOTNOTEKantaPalaimaPerna2022-12] Kanta, Palaima & Perna (2022).

[FOOTNOTEFerraraMontecchiValério2023-13] Ferrara, Montecchi & Valério (2023).

[FOOTNOTEFinkelberg1998265–272-14] Finkelberg (1998), pp. 265–272.

[FOOTNOTECastleden2002[httpsbooksgooglecombooksidg8eIAgAAQBAJpgPA100_100]-15] Castleden (2002), p. 100.

[16] D. G. Hogarth, "The Zakro Sealings", JHS 22, pp. 76-93, 1902

[17] Perna, Massimo, "The Roundel in Linear A from Zakro Wc 2 (HM 84)", Kadmos 33.1, pp. 29-37, 1994

[18] Nosch, Marie-Louise, et al., "The materiality of the Cretan Hieroglyphic Script: textile production-related referents to Hieroglyphic signs on seals and sealings from Middle Bronze Age Crete", The social and cultural contexts of historic writing practices. Contexts of and relations between writing systems 2, pp. 73-100, 2021

[FOOTNOTEKarnava1999-19] Karnava (1999).

[FOOTNOTEWoudhuizen2002-20] Woudhuizen (2002).

[FOOTNOTEBest2002-21] Best (2002).

[FOOTNOTEDecorte2018-22] Decorte (2018).

[FOOTNOTEOlivier1986377–389_(377f.)-23] Olivier (1986), pp. 377–389 (377f.).

[FOOTNOTERobinson2009[httpsbooksgooglecombooksidzcXH52jICOECpgPT55_55–]-25] Robinson (2009), p. 55–.

[FOOTNOTEHaarmann2008-26] Haarmann (2008).

[FOOTNOTERedmond2007[httpsbooksgooglecombooksidK2zOhNL5skcCpgPA2_2–]-27] Redmond (2007), pp. 2–.

[FOOTNOTEJahandarie1999[httpsbooksgooglecombooksid0R52Nzw_0c4CpgPA200_200–]-28] Jahandarie (1999), pp. 200–.

[FOOTNOTEWheatley2008[httpsbooksgooglecombooksidLb7jyuLpd0YCpgPA381_381–]-29] Wheatley (2008), pp. 381–.

[30] Unicode Fonts for Ancient Scripts by George Douros

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]

[15]

[16]

[17]

[18]

[19]

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[24]

[25]

[26]

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[29]

@@ Line 17: / Line 17: @@
 }}
-'''Cretan hieroglyphs''' are a [[hieroglyphic]] [[writing system]] used in early [[Bronze Age]] [[Crete]], during the [[Minoan civilization|Minoan era]]. They predate [[Linear A]] by about a century, but the two writing systems continued to be used in parallel for most of their history.{{sfnp|Yule|1981|pp=170–171}} {{As of|2023}}, they are undeciphered.
+'''Cretan hieroglyphs''' are a [[hieroglyphic]] [[writing system]] used in early [[Bronze Age]] [[Crete]], during the [[Minoan civilization|Minoan era]]. They predate [[Linear A]] by about a century, but the two writing systems continued to be used in parallel for most of their history.{{sfnp|Yule|1981|pp=170–171}} {{As of|2024}}, they are undeciphered.<ref>[https://cris.unibo.it/bitstream/11585/991459/1/Cretan%20Hieroglyphic_CUP_INTRO.pdf]Civitillo, Matilde, Silvia Ferrara, and Torsten Meissner, Introduction", in The Earliest Script on Crete: Semiotics, Linguistics, Archaeology and Palaeography, Cretan Hieroglyphic, Cambridge University Press, pp. 1-12, 2024</ref>
 ==Corpus==
@@ Line 27: / Line 27: @@
 These inscriptions were mainly excavated at four locations:
-*"Quartier Mu" at [[Malia (city)|Malia]] ([[Minoan civilization#Middle Minoan|Middle Minoan II period]] = MM II)
+*"Quartier Mu" at [[Malia (archaeological site)|Malia]] ([[Minoan civilization#Middle Minoan|Middle Minoan II period]] = MM II)
 *Malia palace (MM III)
 *[[Knossos]] (MM II or III)
-*the Petras deposit (MM IIB), excavated starting in 1995 and published in 2010.{{sfnp|Tsipopoulou|Hallager|2010}}
+*the Petras deposit (MM IIB), 12 clay documents, 5 seal impressions, and 6 seals, excavated starting in 1995 and published in 2010.{{sfnp|Tsipopoulou|Hallager|2010}}
 The first corpus of signs was published by Evans in 1909.{{sfnp|Evans|1909}} The current corpus (which excludes some of Evan's signs) was published in 1996 as the ''Corpus Hieroglyphicarum Inscriptionum Cretae'' (''CHIC'').{{sfnp|Olivier|Godart|1996}} It consists of:
@@ Line 46: / Line 46: @@
 Some Cretan Hieroglyphic (as well as Linear A) inscriptions were also found on the island of [[Samothrace]] in the northeastern Aegean.{{sfnp|Finkelberg|1998|pp=265–272}}
-It has been suggested that there was an evolution of the hieroglyphs into the linear scripts. Also, some relations to [[Anatolian hieroglyphs]] have been suggested:
+Some scholars have suggested relations to [[Anatolian hieroglyphs]]:
-{{quote|The overlaps between the Cretan script and other scripts, such as the hieroglyphic scripts of Cyprus and the Hittite lands of Anatolia, may suggest ... that they all evolved from a common ancestor, a now-lost script perhaps originating in Syria.{{sfnp|Castleden|2002|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=g8eIAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA100 100]}}}}
+{{blockquote|The overlaps between the Cretan script and other scripts, such as the hieroglyphic scripts of Cyprus and the Hittite lands of Anatolia, may suggest ... that they all evolved from a common ancestor, a now-lost script perhaps originating in Syria.{{sfnp|Castleden|2002|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=g8eIAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA100 100]}}}}
-New exemplars continue to be found. During recent excavation at the Neopalatial area of the Cult Centre of the City of Knossos a seal stone was found in a foundation deposit. The steatite seal had four inscribed faces and the deposit dated to Final Palatial Period into LM III B. The room were the deposit was found had a "religious sceptre" inscribed all over with Linear A. {{sfnp|Kanta|Palaima|Perna|2022}}
+New exemplars continue to be found. During recent excavation at the Neopalatial area of the Cult Centre of the City of Knossos a seal stone was found in a foundation deposit. The steatite seal had four inscribed faces and the deposit dated to Final Palatial Period into LM III B. The room where the deposit was found had a "religious sceptre" inscribed all over with Linear A. {{sfnp|Kanta|Palaima|Perna|2022}}
+At [[Zakros]] three sealings inscribed with Cretan hieroglyphs were found in the same deposit with a Linear A tablet and a [[Linear A]] inscribed roundel. The deposit was in a destruction layer dated between layers LM IA and LM IB.<ref>D. G. Hogarth, "The Zakro Sealings", JHS 22, pp. 76-93, 1902</ref><ref>Perna, Massimo, "The Roundel in Linear A from Zakro Wc 2 (HM 84)", Kadmos 33.1, pp. 29-37, 1994</ref>
 ==Signs==
-[[File:Archanes Script, 2100-1800 BC, AMH, Sk 2260, 144882.jpg|thumb|The Archanes Script. MM IA / MMIB, 2100–1800 BC. [[Archanes]] type of Cretan hieroglyphs. Arhcanes Phourni. Archaeological Museum of Heraklion]]
+[[File:Archanes Script, 2100-1800 BC, AMH, Sk 2260, 144882.jpg|thumb|The Archanes Script. MM IA / MMIB, 2100–1800 BC. [[Archanes]] type of Cretan hieroglyphs. Archanes Phourni. Archaeological Museum of Heraklion]]
 [[File:Cretan hieroglyphs2.png|thumb|Cretan hieroglyphs (1900–1600 BC) on a clay bar from Malia or Knossos, [[Crete]]. As exhibited at [[Heraklion Archaeological Museum]], Crete, Greece. Dots represent numerals]]
@@ Line 60: / Line 62: @@
 The glyph inventory in CHIC includes 96 [[syllabograms]] representing sounds, ten of which double as [[logograms]], representing words or portions of words.
-There are also 23 logograms representing four levels of numerals (units, tens, hundreds, thousands), numerical fractions, and two types of punctuation.
+There are also 23 logograms representing four levels of numerals (units, tens, hundreds, thousands), nine signs for numerical fractions, and two types of punctuation.<ref>Nosch, Marie-Louise, et al., "The materiality of the Cretan Hieroglyphic Script: textile production-related referents to Hieroglyphic signs on seals and sealings from Middle Bronze Age Crete", The social and cultural contexts of historic writing practices. Contexts of and relations between writing systems 2, pp. 73-100, 2021</ref>
 Many symbols have apparent [[Linear A]] counterparts, so that it is tempting to insert [[Linear B]] sound values. Moreover, there are multiple parallels (words and phrases) from hieroglyphic inscriptions that occur also in Linear A and/or B in similar contexts (words for "total", toponyms, personal names etc.){{sfnp|Karnava|1999}}
@@ Line 67: / Line 69: @@
 == Chronology ==
+[[File:The palace of Minos - a comparative account of the successive stages of the early Cretan civilization as illustrated by the discoveries at Knossos (1921) (14771199524).jpg|thumb|Cretan hieroglyphics as seen in seals (A) and tablets (B).]]
 {{Main|Minoan chronology}}
 {{See also|Linear A#Chronology|l1=Chronology of Linear A|Linear B#Chronology|l2=Chronology of Linear B}}
 The development of hieroglyphs passed three important stages:
-* Arkhanes script (signs look like pictograms, although their number and frequency rather suggest a syllabic script); this script was only described as a distinct stage in development of the Cretan hieroglyphic in the 1980s. Most of these seals contain a repetitive "Arkhanes formula" of 2–3 signs.{{sfnp|Decorte|2018}}
+* Archanes script (signs look like pictograms, although their number and frequency rather suggest a syllabic script); this script was only described as a distinct stage in development of the Cretan hieroglyphic in the 1980s. Most of these seals contain a repetitive "Archanes formula" of 2–3 signs.{{sfnp|Decorte|2018}}
-* Hieroglyphic A (best represented in archaeological records; similar to Arkhanes, but images of animals are reduced to heads only)
+* Hieroglyphic A (best represented in archaeological records; similar to Archanes, but images of animals are reduced to heads only)
 * Hieroglyphic B (mostly on clay, characters are essentially simplified, may have served as a prototype for Linear A and possibly the Cypro-Minoan script). Only this latter version of the hieroglyphic includes signs that can possibly match ideograms known from Linear A.
@@ Line 116: / Line 119: @@
 == References ==
-{{Reflist}}
+{{Reflist|20em}}
 === Works cited ===
@@ Line 122: / Line 125: @@
 * {{Cite journal |last=Best |first=Jan |year=2002 |title=The Lotus Flower in Cretan Hieroglyphic |journal=Kadmos |volume=41 |issue=1 |pages=131–136 |doi=10.1515/kadm.2002.41.s1.131 |s2cid=162230027 |issn=0022-7498 }}
 * {{Cite book |first=Rodney |last=Castleden |title=Minoans |publisher=Routledge |year=2002 |isbn=1134880642}}
-* {{Cite journal |last=Decorte |first=Roeland P.-J. E. |year=2018 |title=The First 'European' Writing: Redefining the Archanes Script |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ojoa.12152 |journal=Oxford Journal of Archaeology |volume=37 |issue=4 |pages=341–372 |doi=10.1111/ojoa.12152 |s2cid=59417289 | issn=0262-5253 }}
+* {{Cite journal |last=Decorte |first=Roeland P.-J. E. |year=2018 |title=The First 'European' Writing: Redefining the Archanes Script |journal=Oxford Journal of Archaeology |volume=37 |issue=4 |pages=341–372 |doi=10.1111/ojoa.12152 |s2cid=59417289 | issn=0262-5253 |doi-access=free }}
 * {{Cite book |last=Evans |first=A. J. |title=Scripta Minoa: The Written Documents of Minoan Crete with Special Reference to the Archives of Knossos. Vol. I. The Hieroglyphic and Primitive Linear Classes with an Account of the Discovery of the Pre-Phoenician Scripts, their Place in Minoan Story and their Mediterranean Relations |year=1909 |location=Oxford}}
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+* {{cite journal |last1=Ferrara |first1=Silvia |last2=Montecchi |first2=Barbara |last3=Valério |first3=Miguel |title=In Search of Lost Signs: A New Approach to the Issue of Writing and Non-Writing on Cretan Hieroglyphic Seals |journal=Oxford Journal of Archaeology |date=May 2023 |volume=42 |issue=2 |pages=107–130 |doi=10.1111/ojoa.12265 |s2cid=258091270 |language=en |issn=0262-5253|doi-access=free }}
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