Dealing, as the limits of the subject compel, only with the traces of inscriptions on remains from Mycenæ itself, the earliest to be noted is a stone pestle with one incised character which resembles a Cypriote sign. But one sign does not make an alphabet, and hence the satisfaction at the recent discovery of the handle of a stone vase, apparently of a local material, which has four or five signs engraved upon it, and of the handle of a clay amphora from a chambered tomb in the lower town of Mycenæ with three characters, while a tomb at Prousia, near Nauplia, yielded a genuine Mycenæan vessel with three ears, on each of which is graven a sign resembling the Greek H. These may not suffice to demonstrate the existence of a pre-Phœnician system of writing in Greece, but, taken in conjunction with the numerous discoveries of inscribed signs in Crete, they go far in support of it. What, then, are the facts as thus far, ascertained?
There have been discovered in Crete a number of objects bearing two sorts of writing, one hieroglyphic or pictographic; the other linear and approaching the alphabetic. The pictographic is the older of the two, dating from the earlier part of the third millennium before Christ. It was probably derived from a primitive picture-writing by the non-Hellenic inhabitants of the island, who were called Eteocretans, or "true Cretans," by the Dorians, whose invasion dates, according to the traditional Greek chronology, from about the middle of the twelfth century B.C. These "true Cretans" may not, however, be the aboriginal inhabitants, although as to this, and as to their language, we are in ignorance. The recent discovery of an inscription in an unknown language, written in archaic Greek characters, among the ruins of Præsos, the chief Eteocretan settlement, warrants the inference that the old script of the language had been abandoned for the Greek alphabet. That script, the use of which never passed outside the island, obviously had no influence on Mycenæan civilisation.
The linear system is syllabic; perhaps, in some degree, alphabetic. Its possible derivation from the hieroglyphic has been indicated, but although it is a conventionalised form of pictograph, Dr. Tsountas is positive in denying its connection with the Eteocretan. He suggests that its simplification took place in the East, and among a people or peoples not Greek. Thence it was carried into Greek lands, spreading more in the islands, at least in Crete, than in the Peloponnesus or other portions of the mainland, where, as shown above, the number of inscribed objects is exceedingly small. The question is far from ripe for solution, but Professor Flinders Petrie, with whom lies a large share of honour in contributing towards a settlement, courteously permits me to quote the following from a letter on the subject, dated 2nd September 1899: "A great signary (not hieroglyphic, but geometric in appearance, if not in origin) was in use all over the Mediterranean 5000 B.C. It is actually found in Egypt at that period, and was split in two, Western and Eastern, by the cross flux of hieroglyphic systems in Egypt and among the Hittites. This linear signary was developed variously, but retained much in common in different countries. It was first systematised by the numerical values assigned to it by Phœnician traders, who carried it into Greece, whereby the Greek signary was delimited into an alphabet. But the fuller form of the signary survived in Karia with thirty-six signs, and seven more in Iberia, thus giving values to forty-three. This connection of the Iberian with the Karian is striking; so is that of the Egyptian with the West rather than with the East. Signs found in Egypt have thirteen in common with the early Arabian, fifteen in common with Phœnician, and thirty-three in common with Karian and Kelt-Iberian. This stamps the Egyptian signary of the twelfth and eighteenth dynasties as closely linked with the other Mediterranean systems." In an important paper read at the meeting of the British Association, 1899, Professor Flinders Petrie remarks: "We stand therefore now in an entirely new position as to the sources of the alphabet, and we see them to be about thrice as old as had been supposed. That the signs were used for written communications of spelled-out words in the early stages, or as an alphabet, is far from probable. It was a body of signs, with more or less generally understood meanings; and the change of attributing a single letter value to each, and only using signs for sounds to be built into words, is apparently a relatively late outcome of the systematising due to Phœnician commerce." (_Jo. Anthrop. Inst._, Aug.-Nov., 1899, p. 205.)