Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-31T23:37:44.312Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The early history of the Greek alphabet: new evidence from Eretria and Methone

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 September 2016

John K. Papadopoulos
John K. Papadopoulos*
Affiliation:
Department of Classics, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles, 308 Charles E. Young Drive North, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA (Email: [email protected])
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Inscriptions on new archaeological finds in the Aegean, examined alongside linguistic evidence relating to Greek and Phrygian vowels, are here used to explore the origins and spread of the Greek alphabet. The ‘invention’ of vowels happened just once, with all of the various Greek, Phrygian and Italic alphabets ultimately deriving from this single moment. The idea spread rapidly, from an absence of writing in the ninth century BC to casual usage, including jokes, by 725 BC. The port of Methone in the northern Aegean emerges as a probable candidate for the site of origin. A place where Greeks and Phoenicians did business together, with international networks; was this where Semitic, Greek and Phrygian letters first coalesced?

Keywords

AegeanGreekalphabetwritinginscription
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 90 , Issue 353 , October 2016 , pp. 1238 - 1254
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd, 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bartoněk, A. & Buchner, G.. 1995. Die ältesten griechischen Inschriften von Pithekoussai (2. Hälfte des VIII. bis 1. Hälfte des VII. Jh.). Die Sprache 37: 129–37.Google Scholar
Bessios, M., Tzifopoulos, Y. & Kotsonas, A.. 2012. Methone Pierias I. Thessaloniki: Centre for the Greek Language (in Greek).Google Scholar
Bietti Sestieri, A.M. 1992. The Iron Age community of Osteria dell'Osa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Blakely, S. 2012. Daimones in the Thracian Sea. Archiv für Religionsgeschichte 14 (1): 155–82.Google Scholar
Bourogiannis, G. 2015. Instances of Semitic writing from Geometric and Archaic Greek contexts: an unintelligible way to literacy?, in Garbati, G. & Pedrizzi, T. (ed.) Transformations and crisis in the Mediterranean: ‘identity’ and interculturality in the Levant and Phoenician west during the 12th–8th centuries BCE: 159–70. Pisa & Rome: Fabrizio serra Editore.Google Scholar
Bricker, V.R. 2004. Mayan, in Woodard, R. (ed.) The Cambridge encyclopedia of the world's ancient languages: 1041–70. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Brixhe, C. 2004. Phrygian, in Woodard, R. (ed.) The Cambridge encyclopedia of the world's ancient languages: 777–78. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Brixhe, C. & Lejeune, M.. 1984. Corpus des inscriptions paléo-phrygiennes. Paris: Éditions recherche sur les civilisations.Google Scholar
Clay, J.S., Malkin, I. & Tzifopoulos, Y.. Forthcoming. Panhellenes at Methone: Graphê in Late Geometric and Protoarchaic Methone, Macedonia (ca. 700 BCE). Berlin: de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Coldstream, J.N. 1977. Geometric Greece. London: Ernest Benn.Google Scholar
Csapo, E. 1991. An international community of traders in late 8th–7th century BC Kommos in southern Crete. Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 88: 211–16.Google Scholar
Csapo, E., Johnston, A.W. & Geagan, D.. 2000. The Iron Age inscriptions, in Shaw, J.W. & Shaw, M.C. (ed.) Kommos IV: the Greek sanctuary, parts 1–2. Princeton (NJ): American School of Classical Studies at Athens.Google Scholar
de Sélincourt, A. 2003. Herodotus: The Histories. (Revised by J.M. Marincola.) London: Penguin.Google Scholar
DeVries, K. 1980. Greeks and Phrygians in the Early Iron Age, in DeVries, K. (ed.) From Athens to Gordion: the papers of a memorial symposium for Rodney S. Young: 33–49. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.Google Scholar
Faraone, C.A. 1996. Taking the Nestor's cup inscription seriously: conditional curses and erotic magic in the earliest Greek hexameters. Classical Antiquity 15: 77–112. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/25011032 Google Scholar
Fletcher, R. 2008. Fragments of Levantine Iron Age pottery in Chalcidice. Mediterranean Archaeology 21: 3–7.Google Scholar
Hoffman, G.L. 1997. Imports and immigrants: Near Eastern contacts with Iron Age Crete. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Isserlin, B.S.J. 1982. The earliest alphabetic writing, in Boardman, J., Edwards, I.E.S., Hammond, N.G.L. & Sollberger, E. (ed.) The Cambridge ancient history. volume III, part 1: 794–818. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521224963.022 Google Scholar
Janko, R. 2015. From Gabii and Gordion to Eretria and Methone: the rise of the Greek alphabet. Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 58 (1): 1–32. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.2041-5370.2015.12000.x Google Scholar
Jeffery, L.H. 1967. ΑΡΧΑΙΑ ΓΡΑΜΜΑΤΑ: some ancient Greek views, in Brice, W.C. (ed.) Europa: Studien zur Geschichte und Epigraphik der frühen Aegaeis: 152–66. Berlin: de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Jeffery, L.H. 1982. Greek alphabetic writing, in Boardman, J., Edwards, I.E.S., Hammond, N.G.L. & Sollberger, E. (ed.) The Cambridge ancient history, volume III, part 1: 819–33. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jeffery, L.H. 1989. The local scripts of Archaic Greece (with supplement by A.W. Johnston). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Johnston, A.W. 1983. The extent and use of literacy: the archaeological evidence, in Hägg, R. (ed.) The Greek Renaissance of the eighth century BC: 63–68. Stockholm: Swedish Institute at Athens.Google Scholar
Johnston, A.W. 1993. Pottery from Archaic Building Q at Kommos. Hesperia 62: 339–82. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/148198 Google Scholar
Johnston, A.W. 2005. Kommos: further Iron Age pottery. Hesperia 74: 309–93. http://dx.doi.org/10.2972/hesp.2005.74.3.309 Google Scholar
Kasseri, A. 2012. Phoenician trade amphorae from Methone, Pieria, in Kephalidou, E. & Tsiafaki, D. (ed.) Kerameus paides: 299–308. Thessaloniki: Society of Andriote Scholars.Google Scholar
Kenzelmann Pfyffer, A., Theurillat, T. & Verdan, S.. 2005. Graffiti d’époque géométrique provenant du sanctuaire d'Apollon Daphnéphoros à Erétrie. Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 151: 51–83.Google Scholar
Krebernik, M. 2007. Buchstabennamen, Lautwerte und Alphabetgeschichte, in Rollinger, R., Luther, A. & Wiesehöfer, J. (ed.) Getrennte Wege? Kommunikation, Raum und Wahrnehmung in der alten Welt: 108–75. Frankfurt: Antike.Google Scholar
Loprieno, A. 2004. Ancient Egyptian and Coptic, in Woodard, R. (ed.) The Cambridge encyclopedia of the world's ancient languages: 160–217. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Michalowski, P. 2004. Sumerian, in Woodard, R. (ed.) The Cambridge encyclopedia of the world's ancient languages: 19–59. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Morris, S.P. & Papadopoulos, J.K.. 1998. Phoenicians and the Corinthian pottery industry, in Rolle, R., Schmidt, K. & Docter, R.F. (ed.) Archäologische Studien in Kontakzonen der antiken Welt (Veröffentlichung der Joachim Jungius-Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften Hamburg 87): 251–63 Hamburg: BPR.Google Scholar
Naveh, J. 1982. Early history of the alphabet: an introduction to west Semitic epigraphy and palaeography. Jerusalem: Magnes.Google Scholar
Papadopoulos, J.K. 1994. Early Iron Age potters’ marks in the Aegean. Hesperia 63: 437–507. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/148209 Google Scholar
Papadopoulos, J.K. 2014. Greece in the Early Iron Age: mobility, commodities, polities, and literacy, in Knapp, A.B. & van Dommelen, P. (ed.) The Cambridge encyclopedia of the Bronze and Iron Age Mediterranean: 178–95. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CHO9781139028387 Google Scholar
Papadopoulos, J.K. Forthcoming. To write and to paint: more Early Iron Age potters’ marks in the Aegean, in Clay, J.S., Malkin, I. & Tzifopoulos, Y., Panhellenes at Methone: Graphê in Late Geometric and Protoarchaic Methone, Macedonia (ca. 700 BCE). Berlin: de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Peyraube, A. 2004. Ancient Chinese, in Woodard, R. (ed.) The Cambridge encyclopedia of the world's ancient languages: 988–1014. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Powell, B.B. 1991. Homer and the origin of the Greek alphabet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511552700 Google Scholar
Powell, B.B. 2002. Writing and the origins of Greek literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ridgway, D. 1996. Greek letters at Osteria dell'Osa. Opuscula Romana 20: 87–97.Google Scholar
Rose, C.B. & Darbyshire, G. (ed.). 2011. The new chronology of Iron Age Gordion. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.Google Scholar
Sams, G.K. 2012. The new chronology for Gordion and Phrygian pottery, in Rose, C.B. (ed.) The archaeology of Phrygian Gordion, royal city of Midas: 56–66. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.Google Scholar
Sass, B. 2005. The alphabet at the turn of the millennium: the west Semitic alphabet ca. 1150–850 BCE: the antiquity of the Arabian, Greek and Phrygian alphabets. Tel Aviv: Emery and Claire Yass.Google Scholar
Tiverios, M.A. 2004. The university excavations at Karabournaki, Thessaloniki, and the presence of Phoenicians in the north Aegean, in Stampolidis, N.C. & Giannikouri, A. (ed.) The Aegean in the Early Iron Age: 295–306. Athens: University of Crete (in Greek).Google Scholar
Tzifopoulos, Y. 2013. Letters from the ‘underground’: writing in Methone, Pieria, late 8th–early 7th century BC. Thessaloniki: Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki.Google Scholar
Vainstub, D. 2014. A Phoenician votive inscription on a figurine from Stageira and the root ṬN’ in Lemaire, A. (ed.) Phéniciens d'Orient et d'Occident: mélanges Josette Elayi: 345–50. Paris: Jean Maisonneuvre.Google Scholar
Woodard, R.D. 1997. Greek writing from Knossos to Homer. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Woodard, R.D. 2004. The Cambridge encyclopedia of the world's ancient languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Woodard, R.D. 2014. The textualization of the Greek alphabet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Young, R.S. 1969. Old Phrygian inscriptions from Gordion: toward a history of the Phrygian alphabet. Hesperia 38: 252–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/147421 Google Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Papadopoulos supplementary material

Papadopoulos supplementary material 1

Download Papadopoulos supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 242.3 KB