Conversations about Space and Time Early Mediterranean Scripts

Research Means Looking at Things from a New Perspective

    Speaking Luwian Today
    Scripts Are Related
    Science in Transition

How Does Decipherment Work?

    The Generalist’s Approach
    Combining an Internal and an External Approach
    Why Decipherings Are Needed
    Talking about Methods
    Schools of Thought
    Understanding Linear A
    The Notorious Phaistos Disc
    Arthur Evans Caused Some Harm

Waves of Indo-Europeanization across the Mediterranean

    All Emerged from the Steppe
    It All Began 5000 Years Ago
    Another Wave of Indo-European Speakers
    Of Indo-Aryans and Hyksos
    Minoan Crete Was Multiethnic
    Immigrants Tended to Be Hostile
    How the Languages Arrived

The Earliest Cretan Scripts

    How the Script Came to Crete
    Linearizing Hieroglyphs
    Cretan Hieroglyphic and the Phaistos Disc
    Looking across the Border
    Let Atlantis Rest

The Lasting Success of Luwian Hieroglyphic

    Two Forms of Luwian
    Step by Step towards a Decipherment
    Why Not Read Luwian?
    Some Signs Are Polyphonic
    No Sign for i Anymore
    Recent Finds – Questionable and Unquestionable Ones
    Yet More Inscriptions Appear

Byblos Needs Its Own Script

    The Byblos Script
    What the Documents Say
    The Road to Decipherment

A Cypriot Admiral Calls for Help

    Different Approaches
    All about Business
    Hittite Ambitions
    A Spectacular Discovery

Origin and Motives of the Sea Peoples

    How the Situation Evolved
    Famines in Anatolia
    Where Was Haunebut?
    Weshesh, Sherden, Shekelesh – and All the Rest of It
    What Fred Thinks Happened
    Some Discrepancies
    What Eberhard Thinks Happened

The Etruscans Came from Asia Minor

    Connections with Anatolian Languages
    The Pyrgi Tablets
    A Whole Book: The Liber Linteus
    The Enigmatic Lemnos Stele
    Where Do We Go from Here?
    Don’t Forget the Rhaetians!
    What Are the Consequences?

Other Luwian Dialects, Such as Lydian, Lycian and Carian

    Lycian Can Be Read and Understood
    Three Signs in Lydian Should Be Corrected
    Sidetic Contains Signs from Cypriot Script
    Carian Has Not Been Deciphered Correctly
    Southwest Iberian Is Celtic
    The Alphabet Becomes Semi-Syllabic
    They Spoke Celtic, What Else!
    The King Is Named after the Silver
    Phoenician Port Towns Were Not Harmed
    The Celts Enter Iberia
    Iberia as a Sideshow
    A Dedication to Reinforce a Bilateral Treaty

Etymology or No Etymology – That Is the Question

Appendix

    Endnotes
    Further Reading
    Picture Credits
    Index
    About the Authors