Design and Origins of Linear A Picture-Based Signs

In the second millennium BCE three main scripts were used in the Aegean. Since the time of the first discoveries, spanning the late 19th and early 20th centuries, scholars have been at great pains to explain how they relate to each other. Sir Arthur Evans treated this issue in strict evolutionary terms, from the ‘primitive pictographic system, the hieroglyphic’ to the ‘advanced linear systems of Classes A and B’. Evans’ terminology has become conventional, and the three scripts are still generally called ‘Cretan Hieroglyphic’, ‘Linear A’, and ‘Linear B’. Nevertheless, the Cretan Hieroglyphic graphic repertoire is not entirely picture-based, likewise Linear A is not entirely linear or geometric. Indeed, the selection process for their sign shapes is at the centre of an ongoing debate. The aim of this paper is to investigate Linear A picture-based phonetic signs by distinguishing those that seem to originate with Cretan Hieroglyphic from the ones that do not, at least on the evidence available so far. The shapes of the latter group will thus be compared to Egyptian scripts and to Egyptian and Aegean material cultures in order to shed new light on their origin and relationship with phonetic values.