The Cypro-Minoan syllabary (CM), more commonly called the Cypro-Minoan Script, is an undeciphered

syllabary In the Linguistics, linguistic study of Written language, written languages, a syllabary is a set of grapheme, written symbols that represent the syllables or (more frequently) mora (linguistics), morae which make up words. A symbol in a syllaba ...

used on the island of

Cyprus Cyprus (), officially the Republic of Cyprus, is an island country in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Situated in West Asia, its cultural identity and geopolitical orientation are overwhelmingly Southeast European. Cyprus is the List of isl ...

and at its trading partners during the

late Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

and early Iron Age (c. 1550–1050 BC). The term "Cypro-Minoan" was coined by

Arthur Evans Sir Arthur John Evans (8 July 1851 – 11 July 1941) was a British archaeologist and pioneer in the study of Aegean civilization in the Bronze Age. The first excavations at the Minoan palace of Knossos on the List of islands of Greece, Gree ...

in 1909 based on its visual similarity to

Linear A Linear A is a writing system that was used by the Minoans of Crete from 1800 BC to 1450 BC. Linear A was the primary script used in Minoan palaces, palace and religious writings of the Minoan civilization. It evolved into Linear B, ...

Minoan Crete The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age culture which was centered on the island of Crete. Known for its monumental architecture and energetic art, it is often regarded as the first civilization in Europe. The ruins of the Minoan palaces at K ...

, from which CM is thought to be derived. 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 Ugarit (; , ''ủgrt'' /ʾUgarītu/) was an ancient port city in northern Syria about 10 kilometers north of modern Latakia. At its height it ruled an area roughly equivalent to the modern Latakia Governorate. It was discovered by accident in 19 ...

on the

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

n coast. It is thought to be somehow related to the later

Cypriot syllabary The Cypriot or Cypriote syllabary (also Classical Cypriot Syllabary) is a syllabary, syllabic script used in Iron Age Cyprus, from about the 11th to the 4th centuries BCE, when it was replaced by the Greek alphabet. It has been suggested that t ...

. The Cypro-Minoan Script was in use during the Late Cypriot period from the LC IA:2 period until the LC IIIA period or roughly from 1500 BC until 1150 BC. This is mainly based with the stratigraphy of the

Kourion Kourion (; ) was an important ancient Greek city-state on the southwestern coast of the island of Cyprus. In the twelfth century BCE, after the Mycenaean Greece#Collapse or Postpalatial Bronze Age (c. 1200–1050 BC), collapse of the Mycenaean p ...

site but is in line with examples excavated at other sites.Daniel, J.F., "Prolegomena to the Cypro-Minoan Script", AJA 45, pp. 249–282, 1941

Language

It is not known which language is encoded by the Cypro-Minoan Script. It is also not known if that language changed over the four centuries the script was in use, if it remained static, or if it encoded multiple languages. All these possibilities are well attested with

cuneiform Cuneiform is a Logogram, logo-Syllabary, syllabic writing system that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. Cuneiform script ...

scripts, limiting usefulness of comparative

graphemics Graphemics or graphematics is the linguistic study of writing systems and their basic components, i.e. graphemes. At the beginning of the development of this area of linguistics, Ignace Gelb coined the term grammatology for this discipline;Gelb, ...

in decipherment. It can be assumed with relative certainty that the encoded language is not

Mycenaean Greek Mycenaean Greek is the earliest attested form of the Greek language. It was spoken on the Greek mainland and Crete in Mycenaean Greece (16th to 12th centuries BC). The language is preserved in inscriptions in Linear B, a script first atteste ...

, as attempts at decipherment based on that assumption have failed.

Variants

The Cypro-Minoan inscriptions were proposed to fall into three classes by Jean-Pierre Olivier (CM1, CM2, CM3). Subsequently,

Emilia Masson Émilia Masson (née Émilia Jovanovic-Slavinski; May 24 1940 - August 7 2017) was a linguist and epigrapher whose areas of research included the undeciphered Cypro-Minoan writing system from ancient Cyprus, and the ancient Anatolian language Hi ...

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. 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. Only the archaic CM found in the earliest archaeological context is indeed distinct from these three.Ferrara, Silvia, "Cypro-Minoan Inscriptions". Vol. 1: Analysis (2012); Vol. 2: The Corpus (2013), Oxford University Press and An earlier classification system divided texts into six classes, I through VI. Another proposed classification is based on differences between three geographic divisions 1) texts found at Ugarit, 2) texts found on the island of Cyprus, and 3) texts found in the final excavation level at

Enkomi Enkomi (; ) is a village near Famagusta in Cyprus. It is a short distance from a prominent 2nd millennium BC archaeological site also named Enkomi. Enkomi is under the ''de facto'' control of Northern Cyprus. In 1974, Enkomi had about 800 Gree ...

. Attempts have been made to separately decipher the latter variant. More recent scholarship has moved toward treating the corpus as a whole without the previous categorizations.

Corpus

Examples of the Cypro-Minoan Script began to appear in the early 1930s. These included several potmarks found in 1937 at

on the southwest coast of Cyprus. An unusual find was copper ingots recovered in 1960 from a Bronze Age shipwreck by underwater archaeology near

Cape Gelidonya Cape Gelidonya (, from , ''Chelidonia''; ), formerly Kilidonia or Killidonia is a cape or headland on the Teke Peninsula in the chain of Taurus Mountains, located on the southern coast of Anatolia between the Gulf of Antalya and the Bay of Finike ...

. Most of the ingots were marked with what are believed to be CM signs. In addition to the following it has also been suggested that there are Cypro-Minoan Script signs on several

cylinder seal A cylinder seal is a small round cylinder, typically about one inch (2 to 3 cm) in width, engraved with written characters or figurative scenes or both, used in ancient times to roll an impression onto a two-dimensional surface, generally ...

Tablets

The earliest known Cypro-Minoan inscription of any real length was a

clay tablet In the Ancient Near East, clay tablets (Akkadian language, Akkadian ) were used as a writing medium, especially for writing in cuneiform, throughout the Bronze Age and well into the Iron Age. Cuneiform characters were imprinted on a wet clay t ...

discovered in 1955 at the ancient site of

, near the east coast of Cyprus. It was dated to ca. 1500 BC, and bore three lines of writing. A number of other tablets were subsequently found including H-1885 (CM 0) which contained 23 signs and is dated to LC IB. Several Cypro-Minoan tablets were excavated at

in the 1950s, (RASH Atab 001 = RS 17.06), (RASH Atab 004 = RS 20.25, Aegean area), and one a surface find (RS 17.006, Residential Quarter). Two tablet fragments were also found (RASH Atab 002 = RS 19.01) and (RASH Atab 003 = RS 19.0). In total, eight full or partial tablets have been found with the three found at Enkomi, totaling over 2000 signs, making up a significant part of the known CM corpus.Schaeffer C. F. A., "Nouvelles découvertes à Ras Shamra-Ugarit et à Enkomi-Alasia (Chypre) en 1953", CRAI, pp. 97‑106, 1954

Vessels

Cypro-Minoan signs, usually ranging in number from one to four, are found on various types of vessels and are usually referred to as potmarks. These marks have also been found on structure walls. Three examples emerged at

Tiryns Tiryns ( or ; Ancient Greek: Τίρυνς; Modern Greek: Τίρυνθα) is a Mycenaean archaeological site in Argolis in the Peloponnese, and the location from which the mythical hero Heracles was said to have performed his Twelve Labours. It ...

, a large painted jug (TIRY Avas 002) with 4 signs, a clay boule (TIRY Abou 001) with 3 signs, and a Canaanite amphora (2 signs). In 2022 fragments recovered in the earlier excavations were joined to partially assemble another Canaanite jar (TIRY Avas 001) with 2 signs on one handle (already published) and one on the other handle (new). Cypro-Minoan signs were found on stirrup cups in Cannatello, Sicily. A number of potmarks were found on bronze bowls dated to the Late Cypriote III period (c. 12th century BC) on Cyprus as well as on one silver bowl found at

. Eighteen potmarks, incised after firing, on jar handles (along with one

ostracon An ostracon (Greek language, Greek: ''ostrakon'', plural ''ostraka'') is a piece of pottery, usually broken off from a vase or other earthenware vessel. In an archaeology, archaeological or epigraphy, epigraphical context, ''ostraca'' refer ...

bearing about 8 signs) were found at

Ashkelon Ashkelon ( ; , ; ) or Ashqelon, is a coastal city in the Southern District (Israel), Southern District of Israel on the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean coast, south of Tel Aviv, and north of the border with the Gaza Strip. The modern city i ...

. The ostracon dated to the 11th century BC, fifteen of the handles dated to the late Iron I period and the other three handles to the Late Bronze Age. Forty two potmarks were found on vessels in

Kouklia Kouklia (, ) is a village in the Paphos District, about east from the city of Paphos on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. The village is built in the area of "Palaepaphos" () (Paphos#Old Paphos, Old Paphos), mythical birthplace of Aphrodite, G ...

at the site of

Old Paphos Old or OLD may refer to: Places *Old, Baranya, Hungary *Old, Northamptonshire, England *Old Street station, a railway and tube station in London (station code OLD) *OLD, IATA code for Old Town Municipal Airport and Seaplane Base, Old Town, Mai ...

in western Cyprus. All but one were on handles with the remaining potmark on a rim. Thirty two of the marks are or include numerals. Other potmarks have been found at The Bamboula site, part of the Kition archaeological sites on Crete. Small numbers of CM potmarks have been found throughout the trading range. A compendium of known potmarks was assembled in 1974.

Clay balls

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.Ferrara, S., and M. Valério, "Contexts and Repetitions of Cypro-Minoan Inscriptions: Function and Subject Matter of Clay Balls", BASOR 378, pp. 71–94, 2017 Small quantities of CM inscribed clay balls have been found through the trading range including at

in Greece.

Clay cylinders

Three legible clay cylinders (#100, #101, #102) were found in the late 1960s at Kalavassos-Ayios Dimitrios, some of which bear lengthy texts of over 100 signs, along with the debris of other cylinders. 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. The longest legible Cypro-Minoan inscription yet extant is a cylinder (19.10 = ##097 ENKO Arou 001) found at

in 1967 with 217 signs, dated to the Late Cypriot IIA–B period (14th century BC). In total, six cylinders have now been found, one at

and five at Kalavassos-Ayios Dimitrios.Janko, Richard, "Eteocypriot in the Bronze Age? The Cypro-Minoan cylinder from Enkomi as an accounting document", Kadmos, vol. 59, no. 1–2, pp. 43–61, 2020

Decipherment

In 1944

Alice Kober Alice Elizabeth Kober (December 23, 1906 – May 16, 1950) was an American classicist best known for her work on the decipherment of Linear B. Educated at Hunter College and Columbia University, Kober taught classics at Brooklyn College from ...

, famous for her work on the decipherment of

Linear B Linear B is a syllabary, syllabic script that was used for writing in Mycenaean Greek, the earliest Attested language, attested form of the Greek language. The script predates the Greek alphabet by several centuries, the earliest known examp ...

, termed the status of Cypro-Minoan Script as: Cylinder seal antelope Louvre AM1639

Until the mid-1900s all the available Cypro-Minoan Script texts were very short, with many being singletons, from potmarks, clay balls etc. The CM1 exemplars totaled and the longest contained 8 signs. There were 31 CM2 texts. Two were long with 24 and 25 signs but all but one of those signs were numerals. For CM3 28 texts were available, one doubleton and the rest singletons. This lack of actual data resulted in much speculation and wishful thinking on the decipherment of the script. This included attempts by Jan Best, Ernst Sittig, and Vladimir Sergeyev. In the middle of the 1950s tablets (from Ugarit and Enkomi) with larger number of signs were found and then in the late 1960s clay cylinders (from Kalavassos-Ayios Dimitrios and Enkomi) were excavated with very long texts. This put the decipherment effort on a more scientific path. The advent of longer texts sparked work on decipherment, including by those who worked on the decipherment of Linear B,

Michael Ventris Michael George Francis Ventris, (; 12 July 1922 – 6 September 1956) was an English architect, classics, classicist and philology, philologist who deciphered Linear B, the ancient Mycenaean Greek script. A student of languages, Ventris had ...

and

John Chadwick John Chadwick, (21 May 1920 – 24 November 1998) was an English linguist and classical scholar who was most notable for the decipherment, with Michael Ventris, of Linear B. Early life, education and wartime service John Chadwick was born at ...

. Currently, the total number of Cypro-Minoan signs (approx. 4,000) in the corpus compares unfavorably with the number known from the undeciphered Linear A signs (over 7,000) and the number available in

when it was deciphered (approx. 30,000). It is also unclear how many syllabograms are represented in the corpus. Modern estimates have ranged from 57–59 up to 96. Without the discovery of bilingual texts or many more texts in each subsystem, decipherment is extremely difficult. According to Thomas G. Palaima, "''all'' past and current schemes of decipherment of Cypro-Minoan are improbable". Silvia Ferrara also believes this to be the case, as she concluded in her detailed analysis of the subject in 2012. Several attempts have been made to detail the available CM corpus. Jean-Pierre Olivier issued an edition in 2007 of all 217 of the inscriptions available to him. Silvia Ferrara detailed corpus as a companion volume to her analytic survey of 2012, followed by two volumes of her research, where she studied the script in its archaeological context. 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. In his 2016 PhD thesis, M.F.G. Valério produced a revised sign inventory and aimed to leverage previous hypotheses on decipherment and development of signs and values with a distributional analysis and comparative linguistic considerations. Unlike most other approaches on decipherment, he assumes a single script applied to a potentially broader range of languages, including Semitic (in Ugarit) and the indigenous language(s) of Cyprus, the

Eteocypriot Eteocypriot is an extinct non-Indo-European language that was spoken in Cyprus by a non-Hellenic population during the Iron Age. The name means "true" or "original Cypriot" parallel to Eteocretan, both of which names are used by modern scholars t ...

language, based on his readings. 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. Out of this analysis came a proposal that two-sign texts are actually abbreviation for longer texts. A complicating factor is that the ductus (inscription method) for signs varies depending on the material involved, which includes clay, ivory, metal, and stone. In 1998 a Cypro-Minoan Corpus project, which intended to create a complete and accurate corpus of CM inscriptions, and archaeological and epigraphical discussions of all the evidence, was announced. Nothing appears to have been published subsequently.
Smith, J.S. and Hirschfeld, N.E., "The Cypro-Minoan Corpus Project Takes an Archaeological Approach", Near Eastern Archaeology 62/2, pp. 129–130, 1999

Unicode

Cypro-Minoan was added to the

Unicode Unicode or ''The Unicode Standard'' or TUS is a character encoding standard maintained by the Unicode Consortium designed to support the use of text in all of the world's writing systems that can be digitized. Version 16.0 defines 154,998 Char ...

Standard in September 2021, with the release of version 14.0. The Unicode block for Cypro-Minoan is U+12F90–U+12FFF: