Cypro-Minoan syllabary
The term "Cypro-Minoan" was coined by Arthur Evans in 1909 based on its visual similarity to Linear A on Minoan Crete, from which CM is thought to be derived.
[1] Approximately 250 objects—such as clay balls, cylinders, and tablets which bear Cypro-Minoan inscriptions, have been found.
Discoveries have been made at various sites around Cyprus, as well as in the ancient city of Ugarit on the Syrian coast.
Some early, failed, attempts were made at decipherment by assuming it is similar to Mycenaean Greek.
Subsequently, Emilia Masson proposed dividing them into four closely related groups: archaic CM, CM1 (also known as Linear C), CM2, and CM3 (also called Levanto-Minoan), which she considered chronological stages of development of the writing.
[3][4] These classifications based on the chronological nature of the archaeological context were contested by Silvia Ferrara who pointed out that CM1, CM2, and CM3 all existed simultaneously, their texts demonstrated the same statistical and combinatorial regularities, and their character sets should have been basically the same; she also noted a strong correlation between these groups and the use of different writing materials.
[11][12] An unusual find was copper ingots recovered in 1960 from a Bronze Age shipwreck by underwater archaeology near Cape Gelidonya.
[15] The earliest known Cypro-Minoan inscription of any real length was a clay tablet discovered in 1955 at the ancient site of Enkomi, near the east coast of Cyprus.
[16] A number of other tablets were subsequently found including H-1885 (CM 0) which contained 23 signs and is dated to LC IB.
[31][32] Eighteen potmarks, incised after firing, on jar handles (along with one ostracon bearing about 8 signs) were found at Ashkelon.
[40] About 92 small clay balls measuring 1.5–2.3 centimeters in diameter, each bearing 3–5 signs in Cypro-Minoan, have been uncovered at Enkomi and Kition.
[41][42][43] Small quantities of CM inscribed clay balls have been found through the trading range including at Tiryns in Greece.
[45] It is likely that the balls and cylinders are related to the keeping of economic records on Minoan Cyprus, considering the large number of cross-references between the texts.
[46] The longest legible Cypro-Minoan inscription yet extant is a cylinder (19.10 = ##097 ENKO Arou 001) found at Enkomi in 1967 with 217 signs, dated to the Late Cypriot IIA–B period (14th century BC).
It contained an additional 27 inscriptions and also used statistical and combinatoric methods to study the structure of large texts and to detect regularities in the use of the signs.
[54] All of these efforts covered only multi-sign texts, mainly tablets, cylinders, and clay balls where the signs were adjacent and on the same line, totally somewhat over 250 in number.
Subsequently, work has been done to extend this to single sign text examples, which mainly includes potmarks and further analyze them.
[55] A complicating factor is that the ductus (inscription method) for signs varies depending on the material involved, which includes clay, ivory, metal, and stone.
