Cyprus
AEGEAN: [Cyclades] [Crete] [Minoan] [Mycenaean]
See also: [Art Periods]
[Greece]
[Art History (index)]
[TIME LINE] (brought to you by Acme Time Conveyor Products)
[Cyclaedes]
Cyprus
Intro
Note that the island of Cyprus is on almost a straight line from
the Cyclades (150 miles / 180 dm) to Rhodes and then about twice
that distance on to Cyprus.
Also from the Greek Museum of Cycladic Art:
The Thanos N. Zintilis [collection] holds one
of the largest private collection of Cypriot
antiquities, second only to the one exhibited
in the Metropolitan Museum of Arts, New York.
A substantial part of this collection, amounting
to more than 700 items until recently exhibited
in the Allard Pierson Museum of Amsterdam, has
been loaned to the Museum of Cycladic Art for
a period of 25 years. The collection is being
exhibited in the third floor of the Museum
from 2004 onwards, and will be renewed
periodically.
The Zintilis Collection includes an impressive
array of archaeological objects of varied material
(stone, clay, glass, gold, silver, bronze) covering
all periods of Cypriot history from Chalcolithic
(4th millennium BC) to early Byzantine (5th c. AD).
It represents the most complete assemblage of
Cypriot antiquities currently available in a Greek museum.
-[Down loaded 2008.01.31 at 20:56 pct]-
From that same page, text of the gif:
Cruciform pendant of two super-imposed
figureines, made of light-green picrolite.
Height 7.5 cm. A rare exmaple of the
double figure ine within pre-historic
Cyprus. The out-stretched arms, the
squating position and the backward
tilted head suggest a moment of birth
giving. Form the district of Pahos.
Chalcolithic period (3500-2900 BCE).
Catalot number Col No. 667.
The Cypriot Script
As the AncientScripts.com site sez:
The island of Cyprus has been a focus of cross-cultural
interaction for many millenia. Its name stems from the
root as the English (as well as Latin and Greek) word
'copper'. However, Cyprus's ancient non-Greek,
non-alphabetic inscriptions are of tremendous importance.
While the earliest examples dating from as early as 1500
BCE cannot be read, comparisons clearly show that the
Cypriot syllabary seemed to have derived from Linear A,
and therefore is like a sibling to Linear B. For this
reason, sometimes the script at this very early stage
is called Cypro-Minoan, to distinguish it from the
Cypriot script used for writing Greek after the 12th
century BCE.
According to tradition, Greek settlers colonized Cyprus
around the 12th century BCE [1100cBCE], and they likely
adopted the Cypro-Minoan script for their own use. Not
surprisingly, the first readable text in the Cypriot
script appeared in the 11th century BCE to write the
name of the owner of a funerary object. Analysis of
this name reveals both a known Greek name and archaic
Greek declension patterns. The Cypriot script continued
to serve mostly for short dedicatory and funerary texts,
but there are instances of longer, historical texts
during the 5th century BCE.
-[Downloaded 2008.01.31 at 8:53 pct]-
From that site the following alphabet table appears:
See the above web site for mor details.
Primarily the alphabet is phonetic
The site also points out that Cypriot and Greek existed
co-inidentally. As it turns out the Cypriot script was
instrumental in Sir Arthur Evans' attempts to decode
Linear-B script. Note:
The language reprented by these blinguals is the
smae in the case of both scripts. [That is, the]
Greek-A dialect of Green [written] in the Cypriot
case. [An example of this is Urdu which is the
Hindi language written in the Arabic script.]
The historical reason for this, according to classicsts
of Evans' day, was that Greek speakers fleeing the
Trojan war had brought Greek to Cyprus. Since the
sounds of the Greek alphabetic signs were known,
the sounds of the Cyriot script could be deciphered
and matched to their corresponding sings. But, the
Cypriot script turne dout to be, not alphabetic, but
*syllabic*, with 56 signs - and inconveinet way to
represent Greek sounds; if manageable. The Cypriot
syllabary is a so-called "open" syllabary, in which
a sign stands not for a consant "C", but for a
consonant with an inherant vowel, "Cv".
[Note that] in a "closed" syllabary, a sign stands
for a consonant, and an inherent vowel and terminating
consonnt; viz: "Cvk" (C and k being the consonatns,
and "v' being the vowel.
...
According to Evans, Minoan-speaking people, possibly
traders to begin with, must have settled in Cyprus,
bringing their script with them from Crete. That was
why, he siad, some of the Cypriot signs looked so
similar to the Linar B sgins, despite being up to a
thousand or so years yonger than Linar B.
P. [Robinson, P. 81]
REF: Robinson, Andrew (2002). Lost Languages.
Nevraumont Publishing Company.
ISBN not-given; LCCN not-given.
-[www.AncientScripts.com]- (cypriot info page)
-[]-
The Usual Suspects
[Back to the TOP of this page]
Religion
[Back to the TOP of this page]
Chronology
Links
google: "cycladic art"
-[]-
-[]-
-[]-
-[]-
[Back to the TOP of this page]