SigLA: The Signs of Linear~A. A~Palæographical Database

Salgarella, Ester; Castellan, Simon

doi:10.36824/2020-graf-salg

Cited by 3 publications

(8 citation statements)

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“…Since most of the documents in Linear A are administrative in nature (Salgarella and Castellan, 2020), the usage of signs that denote numerical values is very commonplace in the available texts.…”

Section: The Minoan Numbers: Integers and Fractionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Computational methods for undeciphered scripts

Corazza

2024

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The study of ancient, undeciphered scripts through computational means presents unique challenges that depend both on the nature of the problem and on the peculiarities of each writing system. This volume presents two computational approaches that were successfully applied to two writing systems from the Aegean and Cyprus; the success of these endeavors paves the way for new discoveries and methods. The first part features a discussion of the Linear A and Cypro-Minoan writing systems, as well as a background of the computational approaches used. The description of the paleographic and technical aspects is aimed at scholars of both disciplines and provides an extensive background, which is crucial to understanding the goals and methods of this study. The second part is a discussion of the experimental results, which includes a proposed decipherment of the Linear A fractions. Further, the experiments on Cypro-Minoan demonstrate that, contrary to previous hypotheses, it is a single writing system, rather than comprising three separate systems. The two experiments used completely different computational methods, since the method used to decipher Linear A is based on constraint programming, while the Cypro-Minoan experiments are based on a deep learning model. Michele Corazza is a research fellow at the University of Bologna in the field of natural language processing. After obtaining his master’s degree in computer science, he joined the WIMMICS team in INRIA Sophia Antipolis, France, working as a research engineer on the CREEP project, focused on the detection and prevention of cyberbullying online. During this collaboration he developed machine learning models that detect hate speech and cyberbullying on social networks in a multilingual setting. In 2019 he started a PhD at the University of Bologna, joining the INSCRIBE ERC project, which investigates the origin of writing. His PhD studies focused on the development of computational methods based on writing systems in the Aegean and Cyprus, in particular Linear A and Cypro-Minoan. After defending his thesis in 2023, he joined the HyperModeLex ERC project, which is focused on developing AI models to aid in the European legislative process.

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Section: The Minoan Numbers: Integers and Fractionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Computational methods for undeciphered scripts

Corazza

2024

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“…Linear A is an undeciphered script that was discovered by the British archaeologist Sir Arthur J. Evans during his excavations in Greece in the late 1800s and early 1900s. It was used during the period c. 1750-1450 BCE (Robinson 2009), and is classified as a logosyllabary (Salgarella and Castellan 2021a;Salgarella 2022). This script is mainly associated with Crete, but was also used on other islands in the Aegean sea as well as on Mainland Greece.…”

Section: Linear a Scriptmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It was in use on Crete and Mainland Greece during the period c. 1400-1190 BCE (Salgarella 2020). It is classified as a logosyllabary (Salgarella and Castellan 2021a).…”

Section: Linear B Scriptmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Systematic Review of Computational Approaches to Deciphering Bronze Age Aegean and Cypriot Scripts

Braović,

Krstinić,

Štula

et al. 2024

Computational Linguistics

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This paper provides a detailed insight into computational approaches for deciphering Bronze Age Aegean and Cypriot scripts, namely the Archanes script and the Archanes formula, Phaistos Disk, Cretan hieroglyphic (including the Malia Altar Stone and Arkalochori Axe), Linear A, Linear B, Cypro-Minoan and Cypriot scripts. The unique contributions of this paper are threefold: 1) a thorough review of major Bronze Age Aegean and Cypriot scripts and inscriptions, digital data and corpora associated with them, existing computational decipherment methods developed in order to decipher them, and possible links to other scripts and languages; 2) the definition of 15 major challenges that can be encountered in computational decipherments of ancient scripts; and 3) an outline of a computational model that could possibly be used to simulate traditional decipherment processes of ancient scripts based on palaeography and epigraphy. In the context of this paper the term decipherment denotes the process of discovery of the language and/or the set of symbols behind an unknown script, and the meaning behind it.

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“…Chadwick, 1967). Due to the fact that an evidently remarkable amount of the Linear B graphics succeeded Linear A (Mylonas, 1956), many Linear A and Linear B signs bear resemblance to one another and are thus termed 'homomorphic signs' (Salgarella and Castellan, 2021); both Linear A and Linear B are more 'linear' and less pictorial in nature (Chadwick, 1967). There is quite a significant amount of Linear A ideograms bearing resemblance to the ones from Linear B, while the numeral systems of the two writing systems are similar (Davis, 2010).…”

Section: The Linear a Writing Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Steele and Meissner, 2017). Based on the resemblances of Linear A signs to Linear B signs, or the homomorphy-homophony principle (Salgarella and Castellan, 2021), the sound values of their Linear B counterparts have been conditionally allotted to the Linear A signs (Nagy, 1965), which will thus allow a tentative reading of the sequences of the Linear A signs. Each Linear B phonogram represents either a single vowel (V), for example 'A', 'O', or a consonant coupled with a vowel (CV) (Beattie, 1956), for example 'TU'.…”

Section: The Linear a Writing Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding linear a through the lens of maritime history during the bronze age

Tan¹

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Last but not least, I would like to show my appreciation to CoHASS for giving me this amazing opportunity to experience working on a Master thesis. I must also say that I actually enjoyed grading the undergrads' essays much more than I would have expected. Even though the past two years hasn't been a bed of roses, especially with the ups and downs in my life, I probably would not want to trade this experience with anything else. "When life is sweet, say thank you and celebrate. And when life is better, say thank you and grow." All in all, danke to all the important people in my life and the eventful experiences presented to me. The Kimberly right now would not have been the same without you. To life, and the people around me, I dedicate this thesis.

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SigLA: The Signs of Linear~A. A~Palæographical Database

Abstract: As the principal component of the multiple script Japanese writing sys tem (JWS), morphographic kanji function as the core units of graphematic rep resentation for a considerable proportion of the Japanese lexicon (

Cited by 3 publications

References 1 publication

Computational methods for undeciphered scripts

Computational methods for undeciphered scripts

A Systematic Review of Computational Approaches to Deciphering Bronze Age Aegean and Cypriot Scripts

Understanding linear a through the lens of maritime history during the bronze age

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