6.4: Stone
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On Crete writing is found on stone artefacts of various types. The Archanes script is found on three seals made of steatite (Godart 1999; Olivier and Godart 1996: #201, #203, #251; Schoep 2006: 45). This is a stone that is widely used on Crete as it is fairly soft and therefore easy to work. Two other seals with the Archanes script are made of marble and agate; as these stones are harder to work they may be later in date (Olivier and Godart 1996: #205, #292). Soft stones such as steatite or serpentine were used to make the earliest seals with inscriptions in Cretan Hieroglyphic. When the introduction of the horizontal bow-lathe in the 17th century bc made it possible to inscribe harder stones, red carnelian or green jasper also occur (Rehak and Younger 2001: 403). Serpentine and steatite were locally available on Crete, and there are a few sources of marble (Warren 1969: 134–135, 138–141). Green jasper (also known as antico verde ) was imported from the Greek mainland, while agate and carnelian may have come from Egypt. Most of the seals inscribed with Cretan Hieroglyphic have three or four faces, of which one or two carry writing. Seals were used to impress clay and the fact that the earliest writing on Crete is found on seals implies the use of clay sealings and possibly other types of documents made from clay from the time that writing was invented on Crete.
Inscriptions in Linear A are found on a number of stone vessels that have been classified as libation or offering tables (Schoep 1994; Warren 1969: 62–68; Figure 5 ). These offering tables belong to a fairly well-defined type; they are usually square in shape and have a round bowl in the centre. They are made of serpentine, steatite or limestone. The inscription is sometimes on the wide flat rim surrounding the bowl, but in some cases it is found on the sides of the table. A sharp, pointed implement was used to scratch the inscriptions onto the surface of the stone. The stone vases with inscriptions in Linear A date to the period of the new palaces. They have most often been found in cultic contexts, but some examples have been found in domestic contexts (Schoep 1994: 11). This practice of inscribing stone contrasts in material, purpose and context with the use of (recycled) clay in the administrative system of the palaces, surfaces fashioned expressly to carry writing.
On the Greek mainland writing is found on stone only very rarely. A fragment of schist with two Linear A signs was found at Ayios Stephanos in Lakonia (Janko 1982). It probably dates to the early Mycenaean period. The nature of the object is obscure, but it may be a weight. Two Linear A inscriptions on grave markers dating to the beginning of the Late Bronze Age have been illustrated by Evangelia Protonotariou-Deilaki (1990: fig. 28). One comes from Argos, the other from Grave Circle A at Mycenae.
Although perhaps not ‘writing’ strictly speaking, mention can also be made of the so-called mason’s marks which first appear at the beginning of the Middle Minoan period. These are signs that have been inscribed on stone building blocks, which would have been mostly, but not always, invisible after the building had been completed. Mason’s marks include the depiction of stars, double axes, branches and tridents, and they can be compared to signs in the Archanes Script, Cretan Hieroglyphic and Linear A. They have also in a few isolated cases been found on the Greek main-land. At Peristeria in Messenia two mason’s marks of Minoan type, a double axe and a branch, had been cut into the facade of Tholos 1, a monumental burial structure, while three, one trident and two branches, have been identified on stone blocks at Mycenae; a double axe occurs on a building block on a wall below the palace at Pylos (Hood 1984: 36; 1987).