The Akkadian of this lexicon was spoken by Neolithic farmers who migrated to Europe from the Middle East starting around 6500 BCE. This lexicon combined with the new genetic migration information demonstrates that Europe had its own ancient Pagan civilization just as important and innovative as any other ancient civilization. This lexicon begins…[Read more]

The text signs on this comb are Minoan Linear A and not the Proto-Canaanite of Serabit el-Khadim as claimed in its 2022 archaeology report. Like most pre-classical linear texts found by archaeology, the language of this text is Akkadian which was the language of the Neolithic farming culture which spread into Europe from the Near-East starting…[Read more]

This article analyses orthographic variation in the Linear B tablets from the Mycenaean palace of Pylos. Despite the general consistency in spelling found in Linear B texts from all sites, variation was in certain cases both permissible and entirely normal, even within the work of a single writer. Examining the patterns of orthographic variation…[Read more]

Heroes and Demons entered the northern Mediterranean culture between 600 and 500 BCE when the culture was transforming from the magical Ancient Pagan Paradigm to a lordified Paradigm which forced deity personification making them lords in a royal pantheon instead of powers. This caused an explosion in the number of deities and other divine realm…[Read more]

Introduction to “Diversity in Writing Systems: Embracing Multiple Perspectives”, a special issue of Written Language and Literacy containing six papers from the Association of Written Language and Literacy’s 2019 conference of the same time.

This is the accepted version; the published version is available at…[Read more]

The commercial level trading which emerged at the start of the Bronze Age was made possible by a common written language. That language was Akkadian in its syllabic (cuneiform) form, its phonetic form (Phaistos Disk and these Minoan Linear A tablets) and all the early alphabetic texts prior to the rise of Greek and Latin. These translated Minoan…[Read more]

The existence of Akkadian in the Mediterranean is due to the commercial trade which developed during the Bronze Age. Such trade required a common written language in order to function. Translations of archaeological texts using the strict scholar’s standar d show that this first Mediterranean wide language was Akkadian before it was replaced by G…[Read more]

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.

The final publication is available at http://www.degruyter.com.

This article presents the collation map, a diagrammatic method for visually mapping the texts of complex medieval Western manuscripts against their material structures. Beginning with an overview of collation formulae – currently the most frequently used method of representing collation – the article argues that the collation map is a more use…[Read more]

Review of the 6th edition of the Linear B tablets from Knossos in transcription.
This is the accepted manuscript; the published version is available at https://doi.org/10.1017/eaa.2020.32.

This chapter examines the ways in which the Linear B ‘extra’ signs – syllabograms which can in certain circumstances replace the ‘core’ signs of the Linear B syllabary – are often used as evidence for the process by which this writing system was created from its parent writing system, Linear A, and thus, by extension, for reconstructing aspects of…[Read more]

The essay positions John Heartfield (1891-1968) as the kind of artist — or better, image-maker or imager — that Vilém Flusser described in his book, Into the Universe of Technical Images. The photomontages, for which Heartfield is best known, overturn the media priorities of the newspaper in which they appear. More like theatre or film, they…[Read more]

Though John Ruskin (1819 – 1900) is remembered principally for his work as a theorist, art critic, and historian of visual culture, he wrote exhaustively about his health in his correspondence and diaries. Ruskin was prone to recurring depressive and hypochondriacal feelings in his youth and adulthood. In 1871, at the age of 52, he developed an i…[Read more]

Мало тога је познато о месопотамском образовању до краја 3. миленијума пре Христа. Из доступних података може се извести закључак да је у време Треће династије Ура (21. век пре Христа) писање учено “на послу”, у једном шегртском односу према искуснијем писару, истим начином којим су се учили и остали занати. Много већим бројем података распо…[Read more]

Дело које се налази пред читаоцима представља својеврсну новину на овим просторима. Приручник ове врсте, колико је мени познато, није до сада постојао на српском језику. Ова чињеница је, пре свега, последица недовољне заинтересованости, самим тим и неупућености у проблеме једног тако значајног цивилизацијског феномена као што је клинасто писмо.…[Read more]

Најстарији клинописни записи, пореклом из древног сумерског града Урука, датирају се на око 3200 година пре Христа. Почеци клинастог писма, међутим, сежу дубоко у прошлост, хиљадама година пре његове званичне појаве. Порекло му лежи у древном систему бројања и рачунања, коришћеном од стране раних пољопривредних култура древног Блиског истока…

During the final decade of his productive life, Moshe Gammer (1950-2013) edited the first major English-language series on Daghestani philology. This chapter examines key aspects of Gammer’s legacy, while offering an overview of Daghestani philology from the colonial period to the present, and outlining how this field of inquiry enables us to r…[Read more]

During most of Antiquity, the Greek-speaking kingdoms in Cyprus used syllabic writing systems for the Cypriot dialect. Paphos, which was one of the most powerful kingdoms in the island, used a special variant of the Cypriot syllabary. Although the circumstances seemed to favour the adoption of the Greek alphabet as a writing system, the Paphians…[Read more]

Besides glosses and other textual annotations, early medieval Latin manuscript commonly feature technical signs, annotation symbols and sigla that reflect readership or provide a framework for interpretation and use. The early medieval Insular book users were particularly keen on using such devices. This article maps the usage of technical signs…[Read more]