The five chapters which make up this book began as lectures given by the author as part of the distinguished Evans-Pritchard Lectures in 2014. S. takes what she terms an ‘internal’ approach (p. 5) to locate the social and political causes for the complex use of scripts in ancient Cyprus. This is achieved with great clarity. Five chapters of approximately equal length are each based on a theme taken from a quote from E.E. Evans-Pritchard's own work, which S. dutifully records as an epigraph and signpost for the topic of each chapter. This works well and serves the didactic purpose of reminding the reader of the general sociological and anthropological principle that may be abstracted from a specific treatment of Cypriot linguistic history, even if S. declares that this is not a work of anthropology.
The epigraph that opens the first chapter expresses Evans-Pritchard's scepticism about the application of comparanda to solve problems that internal evidence cannot, of which S. herself remains conscious in this book (p. 4). The chapter asks why writing emerged on Cyprus in the late sixteenth or fifteenth century bc. This period may well correspond with the development of centralised and prosperous settlements on the island, but S. stresses that this does not of itself explain the purpose of the advent of writing (p. 11). The regulation of the copper trade is a likely hypothesis. S. rejects the view that, since few numerals are attested in the Cypriot epigraphy, there was unlikely an administrative purpose to writing on the island (p. 17). (This usually follows comparison with Linear B, which has a system of numerals.) S. is quite convinced that writing on Cyprus was somehow ‘borrowed’ from the Aegean practice, against the competing hypothesis that Linear A and Cypro-Minoan share an unattested parent script (p. 38).
Chapter 2 moves to the scarcely documented eleventh to eighth centuries. The important question here is whether or not the society in this period, the Cypro-Geometric, is marked more by continuity or disjuncture from the period that preceded it. Obviously this is not a problem confined to Cypriot studies as the eastern Mediterranean crises of the twelfth century have generally been subjected to more study in recent times. As for reading social change from the record of Cypriot script, the problem is compounded by the paucity of evidence. A new script, the Cypriot Syllabary, emerges in this period, and another, Phoenician, migrates to the island (p. 49). S. denies the suggestion that this ‘new writing system was originally created specifically for writing Greek’, since ‘non-Greek inscriptions written in the same script are already present in the 8th century’ (p. 48). Why then the end of Cypro-Minoan and its replacement by a new syllabary? A common view supposes that the disjuncture in the archaeological record of the eleventh century (e.g. changed mortuary practices) was the product of Hellenisation following the migration of Greek speakers from the Aegean (p. 52). A review of the epigraphic evidence leads S. to question whether or not the categorisation of the scripts (precisely, the supposed juncture between Cypro-Minoan and the later Syllabary) hides more than it reveals (p. 82). She concludes that a position of uncertainty is preferable to one that neatly classifies without a firm basis (‘we do not know exactly how the Cypro-Geometric inscriptions relate to earlier and later ones’: p. 83). The view is that the period may have been marked more by continuity than change, or at least that what change did occur was conditioned and limited by the existing position and structures. To use S.’s words, change came by ‘a marriage of different influences’ (p. 54), some domestic and some imported. The social consequence of this is actually rather profound. S. suggests that the continuity in the practice of writing during this period means that literacy must have been more widespread than merely the centres of power. Since Cypriot literacy did not end in the twelfth century (like it did in Greece), S. suggests that the broader population must have been literate for it to have survived political change. A further consequence is even more interesting: that the new script in this period was probably not the invention of a new centralised regime, but an evolution of the script by its users in the wider population, though the contours of that process of change can only be speculated on (pp. 93–4).
The third chapter takes a novel turn to look beyond the semantic content of the epigraphic record from early Cyprus, instead considering the evidence as artefact. The focus here is context as opposed to content, which liberates an analysis that would ordinarily stumble on the fact that we cannot actually read much of the extant epigraphy. The chapter surveys the problems for deciphering Cypro-Minoan in comparison to related scripts (Linear A/B, Cypriot Syllabary). Diagrams, figures and charts are used appropriately to make this clearer. The detailed analyses in this part may be of more interest to linguists than social historians, but S. does engage with this relationship throughout, speculating on the possible social, religious and economic purposes of undeciphered inscriptions.
In Chapter 4 S. turns to the typically Cypriot state of polyglossia, which survived most of the first millennium bc. The question here is whether or not language and script determined identity on Cyprus. The Cypriot Syllabary remained in use until the fourth century, long after the alphabet had spread through the rest of the Greek world. If that is not striking enough, it was used not only by Greek speakers but also to record other island languages, immediately revealing the Cypriot identity of a scribe (p. 149). A map on p. 159 shows how Greek, Eteocypriot (undeciphered) and Phoenician were all used across the island. S. takes this to doubt the possibility that settlements can fairly be described as being ‘Greek’ or ‘Phoenician’ in identity (p. 160), contrary to such categorisations in, for example, the Periplous of Pseudo-Scylax. The multilingual record leads S. to conclude instead that there was at least cohabitation of speakers of different languages in the cities and possibly even of people who spoke multiple languages (p. 175). How this relationship between languages was structured is more difficult to divine. S. offers the cautious and considered view that it is hard to be certain that people were commonly bi/multilingual, but the evidence does show that there was a high degree of social and political contact between different language speakers across the island. She argues that it was this ‘fragmented political geography’ that allowed the characteristic Cypriot ‘polygraphia’ for most of the millennium (p. 196).
The last chapter brings things together and considers the linguistic character(s) of Cyprus in relation to the island's neighbours. How and why did Cyprus maintain so many scripts in exception to the spread of the Greek alphabet? S. rejects the idea that this proves that the Cypriot Syllabary must predate the alphabet since it cannot have been chosen in favour of it (because it is an inferior way of recording Greek). She instead supposes that Cypriot polygraphia was ‘a deliberate choice … not based on any perceived relative efficiency … [but instead] one way of maintaining Cyprus’ independent status … culturally and politically’ (pp. 199–200).
This book offers an excellent treatment of the evolution of scripts in Cyprus and of the dependence of that history on the social and political identities of Cyprus. S. emphasises that the process of change was guided by the agency of the Cypriots themselves (p. 234), for whom language was an important and immediate mode of distinction and expression on the island. For this reason Cyprus kept its peculiar syllabic script for centuries after the spread of the alphabet on the Greek mainland (pp. 219–41). This study will not only interest Greek linguists but also any scholar who is interested in the relationship between writing and social/political forces.
