Divinity Atlas

Sacred Correspondences
Scripts & Magical Alphabets

The Cypro-Minoan Syllabary

Aegean Script Family

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Origin c. 16th to 11th centuries BCE, Cyprus

The Cypro-Minoan syllabary is a Bronze Age script used on Cyprus from around the sixteenth to eleventh centuries BCE, believed to derive from Linear A carried to the island through Minoan contact, and used to write an as yet unidentified language, likely not Greek. Its own undeciphered status is compounded by a small surviving corpus, but it is understood to be the ancestor of the later Cypriot syllabary, which was in turn eventually used to write Greek on the island, connecting the Aegean scribal tradition across more than a thousand years.

Facts
Origins
Origin Period
c. 16th to 11th centuries BCE, Cyprus 1
Place of Origin
Cyprus. 2
Historical Origin
Derived from Linear A and used on Cyprus and at Ugarit; like Linear A, it remains undeciphered. 2
Identity
Script Type
Syllabary (undeciphered): a small surviving corpus in an as yet unidentified language, likely not Greek. 1
Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

Cyprus, Countries

This source names Cyprus directly: "is a Bronze Age script used on Cyprus from around the sixteenth to eleventh centuries BCE, believed to derive from Linear A carried to the island through Minoan contact, and used to write an as yet..."

Source Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference)Encyclopaedia Britannica editors

Related To

Sources
1. Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference)
Encyclopaedia Britannica editors, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 2024s.v. Cypro-Minoan scriptView the Source
2. The Decipherment of Linear B
John Chadwick, Cambridge University Press, 1958
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