Download Was There a Script in Final Neolithic Greece?

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SBnereN AcepsN,Iy oF SctnucBs eNo Anrs, NovI S,q,o BRANCH
INIsrtrurE oF AncuRBoMYTHoLocY
Signs of Civilization
Neolithic Symbol System of Southeast Europe
@ 2009 by the following:
Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Novi Sad Branch
Institute of Archaeomythology
Individual authors
Copyright of Signs of Civilization poster by
Aleksandar Kapuran
Andrej Starovi6
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rsBN 0-9815249-L-5
CONTENTS
Preface
vii
History and Acknowledgments
viii
of
t
xi
Signs of Civilization: An Introduction
On the Semantics of Neolithic
Vassil Nikolov
I
xx
Contributors to this Volume
Altars
I4l
Pintaderas:
145
System
16I
Towards'An Iirterpretation of
Questions and Possibilities for their Use
Tanya Y. Dzhanfezova
xxi
Signs of Civilization Symposium Poster
I29
About the Origin and Evolution
Neo-Eneolithic Signs and Symbols
luliu Paul
I
Non-Verbal Messages on Anthropomorphic
Figurines of the Vinda Culture
Bogdan Brukner
I
The Trypillia-Cucuteni Sign
on Painted Pottery
a Taras Tkachuk
The Vinda Signs in Archaeological Contexts:
Ritual or Domestic Symbols?
Signs and Sign Systems of the Trypillia
t
Andrej Starovi1
t
The Danube Script and Other Ancient Writing
Age
187
Incised Symbols in Neolithic and Bronze
Greece and their Relation to the Old European Script
Harald Haarmann
I
The Danube (Old European) Script:
Ritual Use of Signs in the Balkan-Danube
Region c. 5200-3500 BC
I
Shan M.
Was There a Script in Final Neolithic
I
Life
63
Symbols and Signs of the Cucuteni-Tripolye Culture
87
I
I
\
t:
Game
One Chalcolithic
Stefan Chohadzkiev
t
Signs
201
209
The Old Fairy Waiting, Pen in Hand,
tr3
Netherworld
Adrian Poruciuc
1n the
I
I
*r
):l
Gareth Owens
I
Lazarovici
Challenging Some Myths About the
T[rt6ria Tablets: Icons of the Danube Script
Marco Merlini
Greece? I93
The Connections Between Old European
and Lithuanian Sash Ornamentation
Vytautas Tumdnas
Gheorghe Lazarovici
C ornelia-Magda
Adamantios Sampson
49
M.Winn
Database for Signs and Symbols of Spiritual
MikhailVideiko
t7
Systems: A Typology of Distinctive Features
I
Culture I79
(s400-2750 BC)
trl
213
CoxTRrBuToRs To THrs VoruME
+
Bogdan Brukner (Serbia), Serbian
Academy of
Sciences and Arts, Novi Sad Branch.
Stefan Chohadzhiev (Bulgaria), Department
of
Archaeology, Veliko Tarnwo University,
Veliko
Tarnovo.
Iuliu Paul (Romania), pre_ and proto_Historical
Research Centre,,,1 Decembrie
l91gi, Uniu.rrity,
Alba Iulia.
Adrian poruciuc (Romania), Center
for
Indoeuropean and Balkan Studies,
Literature, ,Al.
Tanya Y. Dzhanfezova (Bulgaria),
Department of
Archaeology, Vetiko Tarnovo University,
Veliko
Tarnovo.
Harald Haarmann (Finland), Institute
of
Archaeomythology, European Branch.
C^ornelia-M agda Lazarovici (Romania),
Institute
of Archaeology, Iagi.
Gheorghe Lazar ovici (Romania), prehistory
Department,,,Eftime Murgu,, University,
Regifa.
Marco Merlini (Italy), prehistory Knowledge
Project; Virtual Museum of European
Roors;
F-M.U. S.E.U.M project, Rome.
I.
nuJty of
Cuza,, University, Iagi.
Adamantios Sampson (Greece),
Department of
Mediterranean Studies, Universiiy
ri" Aegean,
Rhodes.
"f
Starovid (Serbia), Earty Neolithic
'
Collection, National Museum,
fi"fg.uA;.
1ig*:
Tkachuk (Ukraine), Deparrment
of
Tu"-ur
Archaeology, National preserve
of Monuments,
Ancient Galich', Ivano _Frankivsk.
Vytautas Tirmdnas (Lithuania),
Lithuanian Institute
of History, Department of Ethnology,
Vlfniur.
Mikhail Videiko (Ukraine), Institute of
Archaeology, National Academy
of Sciences, Kiev.
Joan Marler, (USA), Institute of
Archaeomythology, S ebastopol.
Nikolov (Bulgaria), National Institute
of
JasSit
Arcnaeology with Museum, Sofia.
r
- .
Gareth Owens (Greece), ERASMUS
Instirute,
European Union Lifelong Learning
f.gru_..,
Technological Educational Institut!,
CrJt.,
tvt. M. Winn (USA), Department
of
fna.n
Anthropology, University of S
outhern fvfirrirrlppi
(emeritus).
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Was There a Script in Final Neolithic G reece?
GARETH OWENS
This study concerns the question of whether there was a "script" in use in Greece in the Final Neolithic Period,
c. 45oo-j200 BC, and ihether this may have influenced the scripts of the Bronze Age Aegean. Did the IndoEuropean speakers of Bronze Age Crete inherit, adopt and adapt a script from their linguistically related neighbors
in tnL xeoftthic Balicanr, *uri as the Mycenaean Greeks would subsequ.eptly inherit, adopt and adapt a script
from their linguistically related neighbors on Minoan Crete?
-r
INTRODUCTION
I
his study concerns the question of whether there
was a "script" in use in Greece during the Final Neolithic
period, c. 4500-3200 BC, and whether this may have
influenced the scripts of the Bronze Age Aegean' For
many years the earliest writing was assumed to have
originated in Uruk, in Sumeria, Mesopotamia c' 3100
BC. Evidence from Egypt has now dated writing to
c. 3400-3200 BC, while evidence from the Indus Valley
suggests a date of 3500 BC forthe developmentof writing
there.l According to E. Grumach and J. Sakellarakis
(1966), the earliest evidence for writing in Europe
comes from Minoan Crete on "Cretan Hieroglyphic"
sealstones from Archanes Fourni, c. 2000 BC'2
In the 1980s, a system of writing was noticed in
the Balkans of the Final Neolithic period. This was
identified as "pre-writing" by Shan Winn (1981) and
1 For the latest developments in Early and Proto-Writing'
see
the Internet, the Modern Library of Alexandria, and especially
the work of Dr. Dreyer of the German Archaeological
Institute in Egypt and the work of Dr. Meadow of Harvard
University in the Indus Valley, both predating the creation
of writing in Sumeria. Curioser and curioser. It is perhaps
with an open mind that one should consider the Danube/Old
European Script of the European Neolithic.
2 It is of interest to note that
the Minoan Linear A and "Cretan
Hieroglyphic" Script, along with the masons' marks and
potters' marks all constitute the Minoan system/code of
Figure
1z The
Renfrew 1973:
Tdrtdria Tablets, Transylvania (after
177,
fi7.
38).
communication throughout the Bronze Age Aegean and
beyond. It may help to see the Danube/Old European Script
in a similar framework-'scripts' and 'marks' constituting a
system/code of communication in the European Neolithic'
See also Merlini (2008: 53-60)' His database for the Danube
Script, DatDas, will undoubtedly start to bring light where
there was chaos, much as the "GORILA" f,ve volume
collection (Godart and Olivier 1976-1985) did for Minoan
Linear A. The Danube/Old European Script of Neolithic
Southeast Europe has become "studiable."
Gareth Owens: Was There a Script in Final Neolithic Greece?
193
'7uIJAgE\t
Emilia Masson (1984) who considered whether this
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northern Greece, as well as with Troy and Poliochni
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Thessaloniki's excavations at Dispilio on the shore of
Kastoria Lake in Macedonia. northern Greece. was
first published.8 This was dated by the Dimokritos
Laboratory in Athens to c. 5260 BC according to C-14
readings. The "inscription" from Dispilio (Figure 2) was
subsequently republished a number of times (see, e.9.,
Hourmouziades 1996, 2002), along with what seems
These tablets are extensively discussed by Hood (1967 : 99111) and Renfrew (1973a: 73-4, 106, 793-4,204, fig. 38).
See also Renfrew (1973a, Pl. 8) for "proto-writing" from
Bulgaria (Gradesnica and Karanovo) c. 4000 BC. It may be
of note that two of the three Tdrtlria Tablets have suspension
holes as do many "Cretan Hieroglyphic" clay documents.
5
Winn (2008:126-142), who now accepts the Danube
Script as writing.
7
See also
194
in
INSCRIPTIONS FROM THE FINAL
NEOLITIIIC IN GREECE
ln 1994, the "inscription" from the University of
r
(b) Hourmouziades (1996) draws dubious
"parallels' with
the Dispilio 'inscription' (A) by designating (B) as Minoan
Linear A and (f ) as Old European Inscriptions.
4
of Sitagroi and Nea Nikomedeia
g
lr
Figure 2a-b: (a) Drawing of the Dispilio 'inscrip-tion' from
Kastoria c. 5260 BC (from TA NEA Newspaper 1994: 3);
3
communities
on Lemnos.6 There are more than one thousand
widespread signs from more than one hundred sites
in the Balkans during the Transitional Copper Age.7
As copper working spread south from the Balkans
to Greece, why not the idea qf a "script," too? The
writing in question, however; is perhaps symbolic and
religious, not a true "script," as such.
v
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Romania (Turdag,
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4
Balkans comes from places
Tilrtdria, Gulmenila) and Bulgaria (Grade5nica,
Karanovo), along with Vinda in Yugoslavia, which
have connections with the Neolithic farming
v
v
,^
constituted a Vinda "script." They each concluded that
the Vinda signs represented a "precursor" to writing.
In 1961, at Tdrtdria in Romania, three baked clay
tablets were found which were initially considered
by some to have similarities with inscribed artefacts
from Mesopotamia, but are now generally seen as
local documents.3 The Tdrtdria Tablets (Figure 1)
are now dated to the Vinda culture, c. 5300 B.C., i.e.,
within the European Neolithic period (see Lazarovici
and Merlini 2008: 39 -52).4
It therefore appears that the Tdrtdria Tablets and
associated signs of proto-writing from the Balkans,
dated to the Neolithic period, are up to two thousand
years before the appearance of writing in Mesopotamia,
Egypt and the Indus Valley.s Proto-writing in the
See Dimakopoulou (1996: l9I-7) for the Final Neolithic/
Chalcolithic/Transition Period and Kourtessi-Philippakis
(1996: 178-182) for developments to the North.
6 See Renfrew et al. (1986) for a discussion of this important
site in Macedonia. See also Srejovii (1988) for Vinda and
related sites.
See Starovie Q004) who states that the number of sites
with script finds has now risen to more than one hundred.
Signs of Civilization: Neolithic Symbol System of Southeast Europe
to be another 'inscribed' object (Figure 3). Thus, the
question was raised as to whether there may have been a
script in Final Neolithic Greece, as there appears to have
been in the neighboring contemporary Balkans and as
there later was in Bronze Age Greece and Crete.
In
1997, the Hellenic police confiscated a
"Neolithic Treasure" which was put on display at the
Athens Archaeological Museum. This "Neolithic
Treasure" consisted of 53 gold objects (it is not
known if they were found together) which could be
dated to the Final Neolithic/Chalcolithic/Transitional
Period c. 4500-3200 BC. One of these, #72,has marks
which some would consider possibly to be signs of a
script.e The most likely provenance of these objects is
considered to be Macedonia or Thessaly in northern
Greece. The same Neolithic gallery of the Athens
Archaeological Museum, re-opened in the summer
of 2004, contains clay stamps from Sesklo. Their
existence presupposes a developed network of social
and communal institutions. The owner of a stamp may
have held a position in society,and might have used the
the stamp to safeguard a private or communal product'
The designs of the stamp are geometric, chiefly zigzag lines. Particularly interesting is a stamp on the top
of a large spool, of which the cylindrical body is also
full of incisions, perhaps early signs or symbols.l0
BALKAN "SCRIPTS'' AND MINOAI\
LINEAR A
In 1992, J. T. Hooker, in discussing the Early Balkan
"scripts" and the ancestry of Linear A, disagreed with
the theory put forward by Harald Haarmann (1989), who
had looked in detail at "Old European3'inscriptions, and
who advocated cultural memory and diffusion as the
explanation as to why about half of the signs of Minoan
Linear A seem (according to him) to be similar to signs
8 For the Dispilio-Kastoria "inscription," see TA NEA
Newspaper (1994):3. See also Hourmouziades (1996:5)
for the "inscription" and rather dubious "parallels" with
what are claimed to be Minoan Linear A and Old European
Inscriptions; as well as Mikelakis (2000:16-19) and
Hourmouziades (2002: 259-61) with references to other
"inscriptions" and inscribed ostraka.
9
See Dimakopoulou (1998), especially nos. 12, 16 and 53,
for the possible "inscriPtion."
Figure
3z
Another "inscribed" obiect from Dispilio (after
Hourmouziades 2002).
of the Old European/Danube script. Haarmann
(1995,
1998) continued his discussion about the nature ofthe
Old Euroiean civilization and its script, and believed
that in Minoan Crete, writing was "revived" in the late
third millennium BC (see Haarmaan 2008: 6l:76).11
He claimed that the Old European heritage was best
preserved in the system of Linear A, with half of its sign
inventory reflecting an Old European origin' In 1999, the
present author, while discussing the earlier scholarship
on Balkan Neolithic Scripts, did not accept the direct
to Minoan Script, while
that the idea of writing
possibility
the
keeping open
might have travelled from the Balkans to Greece and
Crete during the Final Neolithic period along with other
descent theory from Balkan
technology such as metalworking (see Owens 1999b).
BALKANS, GREECE AND CRETE WITHIN
THE FRAMEWORI( OF INDO.EUROPEAN
It may be of interest to chart scholarship over the last
quarter of
a
centuy on the subject of a Neolithic "script"
10 The Sesklo seals (6012,6013,6016 and 12521) arc Middle
Neolithic while the possible inscribed stamped spool (16600)
is from Thessaly of the Late or Final Neolithic period' One
sign does seem to resemble the trident sign from Linear A'
l1 Although the present author disagrees with Haarmaan on
many points concerning the Aegean scripts, in a spirit of
constructive criticism and international collaboration' his
conceptual framework however is to be welcomed in trying
to bring order to the overall Picture in Neolithic and Bronze
Age Southeast EuroPe.
Gareth Owens: Was There a Script in Final Neolithic Greece?
195
and civilization in the Balkans.r2 In 1973 there were
different views as to whether the users of a script in the
Final Neolithic would have been Indo-European speakers.
Marija Gimbutas and James Mallory both saw the Balkan
Neolithic civilization as pre- and non-Indo-European.
Gimbutas dated the expansion
of the
Indo-European
Kurgan people in three waves spanning from the 4s to
the 3rd millennium BC, later revising this to also include
the 5th millennia B.C. Mallory placed it at the earlier end
of this timescale while Renfrew, on the other hand, was
beginning to question the whole dating of prehistory.
In
1987, Renfrew published the results
of hii
own reconstruction by concluding, in Archaeology
and Language (1987: 288), "It seems likely that
the first Indo-European languages came to Europe
from Anatolia around 6000 B.C., together with the
first domesticated plants and animals, and that they
were in fact spoken by the first farmers of Europe."
Mallory (1989) has offered a revised version of the
traditional position advocated by Gimbutas, and he
would date the Indo-European expansion in the late
fifth millennium BC.13 The last decade and a half has
also seen a number of works which have contributed.
to varying degrees, to an increased understanding of
Neolithic civilization.
ln 1996, the best introductory and comprehensive
work on Neolithic Greece was published by the
Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens.la This work,
12See Gimbutas (I973:l-20), Mallory Q973:21-65), and
Renfrew (L973a) for the state of play some thirty years
ago. In addition, see Renfrew (1973b: 263-76). The
ideas in Renfrew's 1973 paper were further developed in
Archaeology and Language some 15 years later. See also
Gimbutas 7977 for her revised position.
13 See Renfrew (1987), for the more controversial position,
and Mallory (1989) for the revised traditiondl poritiorpon the
Indo-European problern held a decade ago. Mallory asked
(1989:180) "ifthe Indo-Europeans were in Cret6'Sinbe 6000
B.C., why can't we read LinearA?" See Owens (1996a:163206, Pls. XVI-XXD for the present author's opinion
that it is possible to both "read" and more importantly to
"understand" Linear A.
title of the exhibition and book was translated from
Greek as "Neolithic Culture," whereas POLITISMOS
14 The
could have been better translated as "civilization." The
exhibition was in Athens, February 1996 to May 1997, and
the catalogue was published in 1996. This work offers a
framework in which Greece can be placed and understood
by pre-historians. historians (see Theocharis 197 3 I l98l).
t96
Neolithic Culture in Greece (Papathanassopoulos
1996) covered subjects such as habitation,
agriculture, tools, pottery, stone vessels, weavingbasketry, metallurgy, figurines and models, jewellery,
exchanges and relations, burial customs and perhaps
most importantly, in regard to writing, seals-as
well as an extensive catalogue of 333 objects. This
work offered a panorama of Neolithic civilization in
Greece, based upon more than one thousand sites,
by a new generation of scholars, and was the first
attempt at such an overview in almost a quarter of a
century since the works of D. R. Theocharis.
Reference should also be made to the important
work of D.
Schmandt-Besserat (1978) who
systematically studied thousands of clay tokens from
the Neolithic period and claimed to have identified an
administrative system that could be described as prewriting.l5 The largest collection of fourth millennium
tokens is from Uruk which has also produced the
first evidence of writing in Mesopotamia c. 3100
BC., thus supporting the link from tokens to writing
and indeed justifying the term "pre-writing." For the
"inscriptions" from Final Neolithic Greece, along
with the Tdrtdria Tablets and Vinda Signs from the
"proto-writing" is perhaps
more appropriate as they may well be the first stages
of a script as opposed to the administratively related
but distinct token svstem.16 '
Balkans_, however, the term
15 See the work
of
Schmandt-Besserat over a decade and
a
half from "The Earliest Precursors of Writing" (1978: 5059), culminating in How Writing Carne About (1992), with
her important conclusions based upon a large data
base
of tokens. In addition, see Robinson (1995), for a well
illustrated account of writing over the last 5000 years, and
(1995:52-67) on Proto-Writing; and F. Coulmas (1989) for
a discussion of the relation between writing and language
and (1989: 1-54) for "Theoretical Perspectives on Pre- and
Proto-Writing." See R. Rudgley (1998), in which he uses
archaeology and anthropology to argue that the Stone Age
civilization was much more advanced than is commonly
credited. This work is interesting but takes the argument
further than the evidence allows.
16 Whether these scripts will ever be deciphered is quite
another matter. See Pope (1999); Robinson (1995; 68155) for sections on Cuneiform, Egyptian Hieroglyphs,
Linear B, Mayan Glyphs and Undeciphered Scripts; and
Coulmas (1989:. 205-24) for discussions on achieving a
decipherment.
Signs of Civilization: Neolithic Symbol System of Southeast Europe
'
In the latter half of the 1990's at the end of the
twentieth century AD, the question of whether the
Neolithic ancestors of the Minoans were likely to
Was there a "script" in Final Neolithic Greece and, if
so, did this t'script" influence Minoan Crete? Did the
Indo-European speakers of Bronze Age Crete inherit,
have been speaking an Indo-European language has
adopt and adapt a script from their linguistically
related neighbors in the Neolithic Balkans, much as
the Mycenaean Greeks would subsequently adopt and
adapt a script from their linguistically related Minoan
recently been discussed by Owens (1996a, 1997,
1999 a & b, 2000) and Renfrew (1998).1? The latter
in discussing the present author's position, wrote:
The suggestion that Minoan should be regarded
as an Indo-European language has indeed been put
neighbours on Crete?
forward by a number of scholars, more recently Owens
ACKNOIYLEDGEMENT
(1996a: 194). He accepts.the likelihood that the Minoan
The aulhor expresses gratitude to Kalliope
language of the Late Bronze Age was the descendent
(Crete), Gillian Trench (Oxford) and Simon Bennett
(London) for many stimulating discussions over the
years and for information on world developments in
the history of writing. I also thank colleagues in the
of the Proto-Minoan spoken by the first, Neolithic
inhabitants of Crete, brought by them from western
Anatolia. His position is thus to be distinguished from
that of scholars such as Palmer (1958, 1965) who relate
the Minoan language to the Luwian of the later Bronze
Age of western Anatolia, the presence of which in
Crete would be the product of more recent population
movements (Renfrew 1998: 259).
The present author ended his paper on "Evidence
forthe MinoanLanguagd' (Owens 1996a)$fsuggesting
Proto-Indo-European-Pelasgian-Anatolian
language was spoken in the Neolithic Aegean, i.e.,
Neolithic Anatolia, Crete, Hellas and Thrace.r8
that a
CONCLUSION
One may perhaps conclude, in a cyclical rather than in
a linear manner, by re-stating the question in the title.
17 See C. Renfrew, "Word of Minos: The Minoan Contribution
to
Mycenaean Greek and the Linguistic Geography of
the Aegean Bronze Age," Mycenaean Seminar given in
London (5-ll-97). A summary was published in 1998 in
the Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 42: 225. See
Renfrew (1998:.239-64) for a revised version of this paper.
See Owens (1997: LO3-40) and (1999a:15-55) as well as
(2000:237-54) for productive comments on and constructive
Nikolidaki
Archaeology Department of Belgrade University,
Serbia, for their hospitality in May 2003, and I
thank.the organizers of the "Signs of Civilization
Symposium' May 2004 in Novi Sad which,
unfortunately, I was unable to attend due to my
having to do military service in the Hellenic Army as
a Hoplite upon being awarded Hellenic Citizenship.
I also most warmly thank Joan Marler and Miriam
Robbins Dexter of the Institute of Archaeomythology
for their kind understanding, exceptional patience
and international spirit of collaboration, between
the New and Old Worlds, of which Marija Gimbutas
would have been most oroud.
criticism of Yves Duhoux's paper on the Minoan language(s)
(1998, 1-40).
Of course there are still many unresolved issues in [ndoEuropean studies and many of them are discussed in two texts
edited by J. P. Mallory and D.Q. Adams: Encyclopedia of IndoEuropean Culture (7997) andthe Oxford Introduction to Protorlndo-European and the Proto-Indo-European WorM (2006).
18
Gareth Owens: Was There a Script in Final Neolithic Greece?
r97
StcNs oF CrvrLrzArIoN
Neolithic Symbol System of Southeast EuroPe
+
On May 25-29,2004, researchers in various disciplines from
Eastern and Western Europe and North America met in Novi
Sad-in
the heanland of the Neolithic Vinda
culture-to
take part in the international symposium, "Signs
=,
of Civilization," sponsored by the Institute of
Archaeomythology and the Serbian Academy
of Sciences and Arts, Novi Sad Branch.
The symposium was motivated bY two
questions: What is the general state of
interest and accumulated
among archaeologists
knowledge '
*e
and other
investigators concerning the
signs and symbols of
Neolithic
:
Europe? And what is the prevailing
attitude among specialists concerning
the conffoversial idea that an early form
of writing developed in Southeast Europe
during the 66 and 5ft millennia BC?
This volume contains the collected papers
from the Novi Sad symposium which represent a wide
spectrum of approaches to the study of Neolithic systems of visual
communication. The symposium was
a
testament to the necessity
of
international collaboration which encourages respecfful
discourse between colleagues who hold a variety of different
perspectives. The subject of the signs and symbols of Neolithic
Europe-and specifically the emergence of early writing-is
a potent subject for future elaborations which will continue to
benefit from international, interdisciplinary cooperation
between researchers in a broad range offields'
Serbian Academl of Sciences and Arts, Novi Sad Branch
Institute of ArchaeomYthologY
rsBN 0-9815249-1-5