Image Details

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK/Bridgeman Art Library

The oldest of the scripts found on Crete is probably Cretan hieroglyphics, misleadingly named by Arthur Evans because the pictorial signs reminded him of Egyptian hieroglyphs (the two forms of writing are unrelated). Still undeciphered, the Cretan hieroglyphic script is found primarily on seal stones, such as the four stones from Knossos. The script, probably used mainly for record-keeping, disappeared after about 1650 B.C.