According to the title, this volume (for volume 1 see CR 63.2) should be the ideal supplement and conclusion of J.-P. Olivier's publication, Édition Holistique des textes chypro-minoens (2007) (henceforth HoChyMin). In fact, however, this volume is not an epigraphic corpus, as F. herself clearly states: ‘In brief rather than offering an analysis of the Cypro-Minoan inscriptions in terms exclusively relating to the signs that they carry (though aspects of sequence repetition, sign morphology are at times treated here too) this book offers a study of their existence as artefacts'. However, it is not clear what kind of corpus is taken into consideration, as the focus, in any case, is on the inscriptions.
In Chapter 1, ‘Introduction: an Archaeological Corpus’, F. examines the historical background of the Cypro-Minoan inscriptions and lays out the volume's structure, the reasons behind certain choices, such as the enumeration of inscriptions, and additionally presents 25 inscriptions (ADD ##218–43) that are not included in HoChyMin. As far as the drawings are concerned, F. specifies that she did not produce the drawings herself; instead, the overwhelming majority is by D. Tsouris, an archaeological illustrator. This fact constitutes a drastically diverse choice with regard to the choices made by the editors of corpora (or inscription collections, as they are sometimes referred to) of other Aegean scripts, where the inscriptions (in Cretan Hieroglyphic, Linear A and Linear B) are drawn by the hand of an epigraphist (L. Godart) and corrected by another epigraphist (J.-P. Olivier).
Chapter 2, ‘The Inscriptions’, includes all the information one would expect to find in a corpus (already included in their greater part in HoChyMin), but with particular attention to the archaeological contexts. Each inscription entry retains HoChyMin serial enumeration (except for the inscriptions added: ADD ##218–43), followed by its provenance designation, the complete HoChyMin identification code, the repetition of the serial number and the object's inventory number. The transcription, which is mediated through a font, is not always provided; when it is provided, however, its minute size renders the identification of signs a difficult task. The object's location is then given, then the archaeological context, eventual typological and epigraphic remarks, the find-spot reference, the excavation and when it took place, the chronology and dimensions of the document, the bibliography and the page number of the catalogue where the inscription is illustrated. This section, which is precise and useful, is, however, separated from the figures and the photographs of the inscriptions; F. also chose not to follow the example inaugurated by the editors of the Aegean scripts corpora (J. Chadwick, L. Godart, J. Killen and J.-P. Olivier, among others), who present the photograph, drawing, transcriptions and the apparatus criticus of each inscription on the same page.
In Chapter 3, ‘Catalogue’, the absence of a clear identification code for each catalogue entry, as, for instance, ‘ENKO Avas 004’ in HoChyMin, is immediately noticeable; such a catalogue entry is established in all the corpora of Aegean studies and it has become rather indispensable, since it provides quickly and efficiently the inscription's find-spot, the type and the material of manufacture of the object, which functions as the inscription bearer. The enumeration in the Catalogue is instead to be found under the photograph and drawing of each inscription. If we consider as an example entry no. 1, we are presented with the following caption under the drawing: ‘1.Tablet 1885 (##001)’, in which ‘1’ represents a new, different but unnecessary enumeration of the documents (which is the same as in HoChyMin until ##217), ‘1885’ is the object's museum inventory number (already noted in the previous chapter under each inscription entry, therefore useless in this context), and ‘##001’ is a part of the HoChyMin enumeration. In other words it would have been better to use the same enumeration of Olivier ## 001 ENKO Atab 001 (CypMus 1885) adding the new entries.
The photographs are mostly of extremely poor quality and, as a consequence, the inscriptions are barely visible. The drawings aim to serve an archaeological publication and, although they are of excellent quality as far as the objects are concerned, they are totally unsuited for the rendering of the inscriptions: the drawing hardly ever corresponds with the outline of the signs themselves. In many instances (nos 110, 126, 133, 127, 221, etc.) the drawings do not reproduce the photograph of the object in the volume, giving the impression that they are freehand drawings, executed on the basis of observation of the original objects and not of the photographs. This is a substantial deviation from other corpora of Aegean inscriptions, in which the editors favoured a drawing technique based on more than 30 years of scholarship. This technique consists of the execution of a drawing on the basis of a photograph and the subsequent correction of the drawing by re-visiting the original inscription; the photograph after which the drawing is executed is also reserved for the publication.
In certain instances (see nos 149 and 150, but also others) there is a photograph of a whole pottery vessel, as well as a close-up photograph of the inscription, but the drawing is obviously executed after the photograph of the whole pot and not of the close-up photograph. As a consequence, the drawing of the object takes up a page, but the scale of the reproduction of the inscriptions prevents the reader from clearly appreciating and making use of the signs for the sake of palaeography.
Regarding the objects with convex faces, for example the handles of pots (e.g. nos 126, 143, etc.), F. does not follow the example of HoChyMin, where the signs are photographed separately one by one, in order to avoid projection errors, and are subsequently pasted together. The signs in the drawings are therefore out of focus.
For some inscriptions (e.g. no. 157) the drawing is missing; in other cases (nos 096, 104, 106, 111, 112, 124, 160, 168, 189, 190, 193, etc.) the photograph is absent, although it is already published in HoChyMin. In many instances (e.g. nos 169, 170, 231) the scale of the photograph of the inscription is not the same as the one used for the drawing.
As I indicated at the start of this review, priority is given to the object itself rather than the inscription it hosts. Two whole pages are dedicated to a cover fragment that attests to only one sign (no. 191), whereas two cylinder inscriptions (nos 101 and 102), which together amount to some 40 signs, are presented in a single page; as a consequence, the signs that were already visible with difficulty are drawn in a dimension of a few millimetres, whereas the unique sign of inscription no. 191 measures 3 cm.
The volume closes with two appendices, bibliographical references and an addendum that includes the recent find of a ‘boule’ from Tiryns in the Peloponnese (TIRY Abou 001). Appendix 1, in the column ‘Context-Possible Function’, provides interpretations of the context and/or the function of the object which, in almost half the instances, are dubious. In the column ‘Possible Subject Matter’ an interpretation of the inscription is offered, which appears plausible almost exclusively for the personal names and rarely for the numerals. Appendix 2 is a ‘List of Sign Variants’. Finally, the colour photographs of some 30 inscriptions are given outside the text.
Chapter 2 offers a series of extremely useful information that serves the archaeology of inscribed objects greatly, as opposed to Chapter 3 with the photographs and drawings of the inscriptions, for which F.'s choices, in stark contrast to the tradition established through the corpora of Aegean scripts, can by no means be ratified. In this respect, the ideal reference for the Cypro-Minoan scripts, although an incomplete volume, still remains the Édition Holistique des textes chypro-minoens by J.-P. Olivier.
