This is the first volume of a two-volume work, and the second volume, a Cypro-Minoan corpus (forthcoming at the time of writing), will undoubtedly shed further light on some issues confronted in the first volume. F. states in the preface that the two volumes are ‘intended to work in synergy’ (p. vii). However, the Analysis is a self-standing work in its own right and can be read in isolation. Readers may also consult HoChyMin (J.-P. Olivier, Édition holistique des textes chypro-minoennes [2007]) for most of the inscriptions referred to; F. includes a list of texts (Appendix 1) and some further details of her inscriptions that do not appear in HoChyMin (Appendix 4).
The book comprises an introduction and six chapters, divided into Part 1 ‘Function, Object and Context’ (Chapters 1–3), Part 2 ‘Inscription and Signary’ (Chapters 4–5) and Part 3 ‘Beyond Decipherment’ (Chapter 6). The title of the last part need not give cause for alarm, as no decipherment of Cypro-Minoan is attempted. On the contrary F. is insistent that the surviving inscriptions must be analysed without making assumptions about underlying languages. Overall, the volume gives an effective description and discussion of the small Cypro-Minoan corpus, which consists of 243 inscriptions by F.'s calculations, found all over Cyprus and at Ugarit in modern Syria, and covering a broad period from Late Cypriot I through to Cypro-Geometric II (sixteenth to the tenth centuries b.c.).
Chapter 1 sets out the history of scholarship and state of knowledge of Cypro-Minoan, including both epigraphic analyses from the time of Arthur Evans onwards and archaeological research, and conceptual economic and political models for understanding the backdrop to the use of writing in Late Bronze Age Cyprus. F. aims to correct the longstanding oversight that had seen the Cypro-Minoan inscriptions published disparately with epigraphic/palaeographic analysis often divorced from any understanding of their archaeological context (but often accompanied by assertions about underlying languages), as Palaima forcefully highlighted (T.G. Palaima, ‘Cypro-Minoan Scripts: Problems of Historical Context’ in Duhoux, Y. et al. [edd.], Problems in Decipherment [1989], pp. 121–87). This full contextual approach allows a number of new observations, and clearly fills a gap in the previous research on Cypro-Minoan. Since this volume arises from F.'s doctoral research, during which she conducted first-hand analyses of the inscriptions by ‘systematically autopsying, photographing and transcribing them’ (p. 2), the work underpinning it is independent of Olivier's HoChyMin, which provided a separate outstanding resource for studying the Cypro-Minoan corpus but with briefer accompanying analysis than is attempted by F. (who adopts Olivier's numeration).
Although F. plays down the extent to which it constitutes the aim of the book, presenting it as a result rather than a foregone conclusion of her research, a significant aspect of the publication is that it argues against the tripartite categorisation of Cypro-Minoan imposed by É. Masson in the 1970s (e.g. É. Masson, Cyprominoica [1974]). In part this is a consequence of following Palaima's criticism of previous studies, which also suggested a deconstruction of É. Masson's CM1/CM2/CM3 categories (CM2 being applied to three long clay tablets from Enkomi, CM3 to the inscriptions from Ugarit and CM1 to everything else). The categorisation has long held sway and was maintained in Olivier's HoChyMin, though not without criticism (op. cit., p. 21). Especially towards the end, F.'s conclusions are presented in the light of ‘the assumed invalidity of the tripartite classification’, and with an explicit aim ‘to emphasize the coherence of the Cypro-Minoan script’ (p. 256).
Chapters 2 and 3 represent the pinnacle of the achievement of this work, which lies in the careful and original contextual analysis of Cypro-Minoan. Chapter 2 deals with the ‘archaeological setting’, considering the initial adoption of the script and its uses throughout the Late Bronze Age at different sites across Cyprus. This allows previous unsubstantiated claims about the relationship between Cypro-Minoan and copper production, administrative uses of writing and connections with elite behaviour to be documented in detail. Chapter 3 looks at the Cypro-Minoan ‘floruit’ (LCIIIA), presenting meticulous accounts of the context of particular sets of inscriptions, most notably the small inscribed clay boules that are a peculiarity of ancient Cyprus.
In Chapter 4, F. turns to Cypro-Minoan epigraphy, and begins by returning to the question of É. Masson's CM1/CM2/CM3 categorisation, giving some preliminary criticism of its palaeographic and linguistic basis. What follows is another informative contextual analysis, with an emphasis on understanding palaeographic variation and the ways in which different writing media will affect the ductus of signs, with for example more angular/elaborate forms appearing on metal (sometimes as deliberate ornamentation) than on clay. A study of hands responsible for the inscriptions on clay boules is a valuable addition to the field, though a fuller exposition of the identification of these hands (as in Linear B studies, e.g. J.-P. Olivier, Les Scribes de Cnossos [1967]) would have been useful.
Chapter 5 looks at palaeography and the overall sign repertoire. However, there are some problems with the methodology employed in the analysis of signs and sign variants. The frequency with which particular signs appear in word-final (referred to as ‘coda’) or word-initial position is used to support a conclusion that we are dealing with either two variants of the same sign or two separate signs, but the significance of such statistics is never explained: in fact, frequency in word-initial position is relevant to sign value (indicating a vowel-only syllabogram), whereas frequency in word-final position is only relevant if underlying linguistic features are taken into account (e.g. in identifying a morphological ending; cf. P.M. Steele, A Linguistic History of Ancient Cyprus [forthcoming], Chapter 2, and Y. Duhoux, ‘Non Greek languages of ancient Cyprus and their scripts’ in Steele, P.M. [ed.], Syllabic Writing on Cyprus and its Context [2013], pp. 27–48). To take one example, the discussion of signs 023 and 024 involves consideration of such frequencies but does not state why this would be significant. Furthermore, the discussion completely ignores possible relations between signs 023 and 024 and later Cypriot Syllabic ti and le respectively, the latter being of great importance to our understanding of potential Cypro-Minoan sign values (never considered here) and internal distinctions within the signary; the importance of these aspects is emphasised by the case of the infamous Opheltau inscription (##170), which necessitates the reading of sign 024 as le.
What F. calls ‘the stubborn use of the singular’ (p. 263: ‘script’, not ‘scripts’) and the rejection of the CM1/CM2/CM3 categories are recurring themes, and will be received warmly by some and less so by others, but they are not fleshed out fully. In particular, F. does not critique the main reason why scholars have assumed the ‘CM2’ tablets represent a separate script: namely that they are sufficiently long (nearly 2,000 signs) to assume that most of the signs of their script are attested, and it is by comparison with this probably near-complete signary that the divergences (some significant) in the script(s) employed in other inscriptions can be judged (see Steele, op. cit., Chapter 1). The new standardised signary proposed, which is similar in many respects to that of Olivier's HoChyMin, is specified as a work in progress. It can be seen as a strength of the book that the rejection of the CM1/CM2/CM3 categorisation is not over-emphasised and is highlighted in the last chapter (which constitutes a summary and a section about prospects of future study) as requiring further research.
This is a well presented book and a significant contribution to the field of Cypro-Minoan studies. Some of its lines of argumentation might be seen as controversial, but its close analysis of the archaeological context of Cypro-Minoan inscribed objects is indispensable and has made available valuable information to students of this small corpus of inscriptions.
