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"Someone Will Succeed in DecipheringMinoan" Cyrus H. Gordon and Minoan

By Gary A. Rendsburg The excavations of HagiaTriada produced about 170 Minoantexts. The abbreviationHT before cited texts refersto this corpus.(Photo A LTHOUGHCYRUS H. GORDON'SEARLIEST PUBLISHED WORK ON courtesy DavidI. Owen.) Minoan appeared.in 1957,his rumination on the problem began as early as 1931.In June of that Fast forwardto the year 1956.In the intervening years Gor- year the young Gordon was sailing to the Near East don had produced three editions of his standard works on for his first visit. His own words tell the story: the Ugaritic language (Gordon 1940;1947; 1955c), as well as a standard translation of the Ugaritic myths and epics (Gordon One June night as we were sailing along the coast of , 1949).As is well known, Gordon's work on Ugaritic did not I was sitting with a group of companions on deck, and I end with his contributions on the language and the literature. was impelled to express my thoughts somewhat as fol- Gordon saw that Ugarit was much more than a major lows: "The Minoan inscriptions from this island are the source of Canaanite literatureproviding invaluable material main challenge to the decipherers of tomorrow. Some- for the background of the Hebrew Bible.For Gordon,Ugaritic one with the necessary knowledge will succeed, through was a bridge which spanned the worlds of the Hebrews and hard and honest work, in deciphering Minoan."In retro- the . Thus, during this same period Gordon pro- spect,I realizethat is no way to talk to travellingcompanions duced his seminal works on the common background of on a moonlit night in the Mediterranean,but I was shamed the two cultures (see most importantly Gordon 1955a).More- and silenced by a middle-aged businessman named Mr over,it became clear to Gordon that the hub which connected Davis,who looked at me with disgust and said,"You sound these worlds was Crete (kptris the home of Kothar-wa-Hasis, like a high school valedictorian."I mention the incident the Ugaritic god of arts and crafts; his correspondent in the only to bring out the fact that my active concern with Greek pantheon is Hephaistos, whose home is also Crete;the the problem twenty-five years later had a quartercentury Philistines of the Bible emigrated to Canaan from Caphtor; of brooding (much of it subconscious) behind it (Gor- and so on). Others in this special issue are discussing Gor- don 1971:154-5).1 don's work on Ugaritic and on the common background of

36 BiblicalArchaeologist 59:1 (1996) Greekand Hebrew civilizations,so there is no need for me to say more on these :I; i subjects. Still, it is worth pointing out Ve the obvious, that no portion of Gordon's L ?c,,r t~L ?` Cc world is unconnected from the other ?, pu. ~j~'~j~I~~ :~dc~:?:( ?5~-~ I~ r~? .. . 1,L i. y This scholar'swork on ?? ~Fi?? -: ',~ portions. singular .,.. ;rt~" \?? Minoan did not surface ex nihilo;it can C`v ? i u r only be understood in light of his work L- r. '" r- -T?~*; _~ on Ugariticand Aegean interconnections. -2- I`: .. "~~ `; r~--cu re L;r .-J1'4 C r"?h I In 1956 Michael Ventris and ~?`r-t~L'I; John -5 .r. r?~ ; ~ .E, Chadwick their i .Y-Y';P published important a rr ~t- """"""""""""""""""""~rd~;~4k T CI? I u * book Documentsin MycenaeanGreek (Ven- c ~y c- -?~ n tris and Chadwick 1956). A bit of I ?-- R-r C?? ~kt~; .;dp.zr?- ~LL :iI ?.! .. 4-kL RT .\1? background is necessary to bring us to - 41i!? ... f:e 12111~1 ~.a; ~-~Ya~w~P~~ this important event in modem archae- ?(,??,: ?. ologicaland philologicalresearch. Starting

iu '~7L~P in 1893 and for several decades there- .. .P~LT~,~?? ?I :(?5~ i4 I ~ LC after,Sir excavated at various L I) ?P?'r~3Ld ; ?1?~~ L: sites on Crete and there discovered the .1.'? great Bronze Age civilization of ancient A Partialview of the remainsof the palace at ,the major Minoancenter excavated Crete which he called Minoan after by SirArthur Evans between 1899 and 1935. Locatedon the north coast of Crete,Knossos,the the legendary king (Evans 1921- largest Minoanpalace site, producedclay tablets inscribedwith LinearA as well as tablets 36 is his most comprehensive work). bearing LinearB. Among his important finds were sev- V A partialgrid of the Minoansyllabary (Gordon 1966:Plate XI). Other signs appear in the eralhundred day tabletsbearing texts, but these are of certain reading based on their close similarityto the LinearB signs used in two different,yet very similar,scripts. to represent MycenaeanGreek. Evans called the older of the two scripts Linear A and the more recent one Lin- ear B.2Due to the number of it was A E I 0 U signs, assumed by all scholarsthat both scripts were (i.e.,non-alphabetic). A half-century after Evans's exca- pa 4 vations, these scripts remained undeciphered.It was the young and bril- ta [ liant Ventris who changed the picture. T ta #c toe t (or) to f tu (or) He was an architectby training, but he had studied classical languages. Ventris d D dea asdi do dau made it his life goal to decipher the Cre- tan ; he succeeded in the 1950s K a @ ke n (or) ko i kuu (orP) by solving the variety and he Q q q then was in his e C joined enterprise by Chadwick, a ,a professional philologian. M ma mit mu *r (or) Ventris and Chadwick concluded that the language of the Linear B material N na | noo4 was Greek,not the classicalGreek of the .0Ino nu N Iron Age, but an earlier form from the ra 2 (or) LateBronze Age which they called Myce- R u ra re ri ro t ru naean Greek.Their work was welcomed ? . S enthusiastically, and it opened major sa Y 8se u new vistas in the study of the language and culture. Tragically, the young Ventrisdied in an automobile W wa PR we 2 accidentin 1956,but he had accomplished his life goal.Accordingly, the appearance Y ya of Documentsin MycenaeanGreek in 1956, with a full and detailed analysis of the

BiblicalArchaeologist 59:1 (1996) 37 A Thisinscription comes from a magic bowl found at Knossos (Gordon1966:Plate IX). The firstthree signs are a-ga-nu (or a-ka-nu) correspondingto Hebrewand Aramaic'aggan "bowl,"used in the 4 1 r7A Aramaicmagic bowls of the first millenniumCE. < Linedrawing of an Eteocretanunilingual text from Praisos (Gordon1966:Plate III), written in boustrophedonformat. At the end of line 4 are the letters KAEX Y EX(both sigma'sare partially -^ TnA1/A1 Al fl A broken)corresponding to the Hebrewidiom kol wa-1f"every man."Word dividers are used very inconsistentlyin the text. decipherment, was truly a major event. Gordon continued his work on Minoan and soon identi- Gordon obtained his copy of the Ventris-Chadwick fied two more words: ga-ba"all" and a-ga-nu"bowl." Because book in December 1956 and immediately set sight on deci- these two words were known from Akkadian,Gordon arrived pheringthe LinearA material.In otherwords, at the culmination at the more specific conclusion that Minoan was East Semitic of a decade of researchon the interconnectionsbetween , (Gordon 1957a).Just as Akkadian texts were found far afield Ugarit,and Israel,with Crete as the hub, it was Gordon'sgood in Anatolia,Ugarit, Egypt, and so on, so could "Akkadian"texts fortune now to be stimulated onward by the work of Ventris be found on Crete, albeit written in a different script, and Chadwick.Gordon's method, like that of everyoneinvolved namely that of LinearA. In the meantime,other scholarsbegan in Minoan studies, was to apply the values of the Linear B to contribute details that Gordon incorporated into his pic- scriptto the LinearA material.As noted above,since the scripts ture.Thus it became clear that ku-ni-su,written with the wheat are very similar,the values of the former,i.e., the known, could determinative, was the same as the Akkadian word kunnisu, be utilized to elucidate the latter,i.e., the unknown. and that the word for "and"was u, also known from Akka- Actually, already Ventris and Chadwick realized this dian. was the case. Indeed they had begun to read some words in Gordon continued along the East Semitic path for sev- LinearA, though they realizedthat these words were not Greek eral years,until he received copies of two books published in as in LinearB, but belonged to some other language.For exam- 1961:W C. Brice'sInscriptions in theMinoan Linear Script of Class ple, Ventris and Chadwick noted that five words for different A (1961)and Sidney Davis'The PhaistosDisk and the Eteocretan kinds of vessels in LinearA were su-po,ka-ro-pa, pa-pa, su-pa-ra, Inscriptionsfrom Psychro and Praisos (1961). The first of these vol- and pa-ta-qe,all of which are accompaniedby pot pictograms.3 umes was especially important. Until this time Gordon and They also realized that the word for "total"in Linear A was others had worked from Evans's original publications of ku-ro,a fact forthcoming from the repeated use of this word Linear A. Brice'swork was a great improvement, because it at the end of administrative tablets. included not only photographs but clear line drawings and Forsomeone familiarwith the Semiticlanguages, and espe- valuable indices. In Gordon'swords: "The very appearanceof cially for someone who had worked intensively on Ugaritic Brice'scopies was enlivening" (Gordon1971:163). More impor- for twenty years,the identificationof four of these words came tantly,Brice's volume allowed Gordon to read more of the texts rathernaturally. Thus it is hardly surprising that Gordon saw than had been possible previously.Among the new words that in three of the vessel names the equivalents to Ugariticsp, krpn, Gordon identified were ki-re-ya-tu"city" and re (i.e., le) "to." and spl,and in ku-rothe equivalent to Semitic kull"all, total" In addition, he noticed that a from Knossos bore the (note that r and I are not distinguished in the Linear A and inscription ya-ne,no doubt the word for its contents "wine." B scripts, as is also the case to some extent in Egyptian and It was these words, and others like them, that led Gordon to Eblaite).It was these four words which formed the basis for realize that he had been off course for the past few years. Gordon'sclaim that the language of the LinearA tablets was For these words do not appear in Akkadian, they are strictly Semitic. The result was a short article in the journal Antiquity West Semitic.Gordon's next important article included all this (Gordon 1957b), hailed by its editor O. G. S. Crawford as information and argued strongly for the West Semitic iden- "'hot news' of a startlingnew discovery"(Crawford 1957:123). tificationof Minoan (Gordon1962b). From that point on Gordon Moreover,to move beyond the pure linguistic issue, Gordon's continued to produce a stream of articleson the subject,argu- work in identifyingLinear A as Semiticmeant thatthe Minoans, ing persuasively that the language of Minoan Linear A was the creatorsof the high civilization of ancient Crete,must have a West Semitic dialect. been Semites. Davis' book sent Gordon in a differentdirection. Although

38 BiblicalArchaeologist 59:1 (1996) OX 1 A Z IT Ai~P~ I o'i '~jAllY4 mA MlplvLVs?l' tiMA Z o OoA ? r Oct T4 10 T A One of the first Minoanwords to be read was the word ku-ni-su "emmerwheat," correspondingto the Akkadianword kunnisu.It ~ IATli'Tt appearstwice, for example, in HagiaTriada (HT) 86 (Gordon 1966:PlateVIIl). The first three signs (read left-to-right)are the syllablesku, ni, and su; they are followed by the wheat determinative and an undeterminedsign. TPO"I/ on a wine from Knossos is an which "III] V Appearing pithos inscription 0 // ) includesthe word (note the word dividerson f two-syllable ya-ne 0 r either side), correspondingto Hebrewyayin and Ugariticyn. The PjTP6 discoveryof this word and other strictlyWest Semiticwords led 0ot AA Gordonto realizethat the language was not, as he first had thought, Akkadian.Gordon began to assertthe West Semiticidentification of Minoan(Gordon 1966:Plate X). A Linedrawings of the two bilingual Eteocretan-Greekinscriptions from Dreros(Gordon 1966:Plate II). In the first inscription,the first two lines are the Eteocretanversion runningright-to-left and written I with word dividers;the last three lines are the Greekversion written I Nt i a (startingright-to-left) and without word dividers.In the second inscription,the first line (except for the last three letters) preservesthe end of the Eteocretanversion running right-to-left; then the Greekversion follows with the three letters at the end of the first line and continuing in boustrophedonstyle over the next two lines. Onlyone word divideris used, after the first legible letter (sigma) in the Eteocretantext.

texts represented a West Semitic language, Gordon began to make sense of the Eteocretan texts as West Semitic as well (Gordon 1962a).The Eteocretan texts, in fact, are not unlike Phoenician and Punic texts written in Greek and letters (see Gordon 1968). Gordon synthesized his work on Minoan and Eteocre- tan in a comprehensive work entitled Evidencefor theMinoan Language(1966). Together, about fifty or so words are identified in these texts, not including various personal names well The large, labyrinthinepalace at Knossosincluded magazines lined known from Ugariticand Hebrew.More significantly,as demon- with huge, elaboratelydecorated pithoi. Photographfrom the strated already in some of the earlier articles, entire phrases Beegle Collection. in Minoan now could be read, and in the case of the Eteo- cretan texts,entire texts could be read. Davis argued that Minoan was Hittite, and thus disagreed Gordon, of course, never views language as a means unto with Gordon's conclusion, he made an important contribu- itself, but sees it as the key to understanding culture and to tion. Davis wished to see one continuum for a whole series of realizing "the big picture" (Gordon 1955b).For him, the evi- inscriptional material found on Crete. He believed that the dence of languagefrom Cretepointed to the presenceof Semites Linear A tablets, the Disk (a unique text), and the on the island throughout antiquity. The Minoans were much later Eteocretan material all represented the same Semites who had migrated from the mainland of the Near language. For Davis this language was Hittite, which Gor- East (perhaps from the Levant, perhaps from the Egyptian don could not accept.But Davis' approachled Gordon to tackle Delta) sometime during the Bronze Age. As the Bronze Age the Eteocretan texts. These texts required no decipherment came to a close, they were pushed out of Crete by the increas- per se, for they are written in the ,although the ing presence and power of the Mycenaean Greeks. The language is not Greek. Moreover,two of the Eteocretan texts descendants of the people who wrote the LinearA tabletswere are bilinguals, with the Greek supplied alongside the Eteo- part of the Sea Peoples movement (Philistines and others) cretan.Armed with his renewed understandingthat the Minoan who returnedto the mainland,first attemptingto attackEgypt,

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, .

A map of Cretewith the location of the varioussites at which were found either Minoanor Eteocretantexts. then settling on the Levantine coast. But other "latter-day European, especially Hittite and other , Minoans"remained on Creteand continuedto use theirSemitic for the interpretationof Linear A. But others simply rejected language into late antiquity. The Eteocretan tablets date the notion that Minoan was Semitic on the grounds that it from ca. 500 BCEto ca. 300 BCE,and there is evidence from simply could not be so. Many of these were the same indi- Nero's time concerning the Semitic language of Crete as viduals who rejected Gordon's contributions to the well (Gordon 1981). and Biblequestion, so it was hardlysurprising that they rejected As the reader is no doubt aware,Gordon's decipherment the idea that the pre- of Crete was Semitic. of Minoan as Semitic created a majorcontroversy. Some schol- Throughoutall of this,however, it is importantto keep in mind ars were willing to accept the view that Minoan was a crucial point. Those who rejected Gordon's position typi- Semitic.A good example is Armas Salonen (1966),who incor- cally were scholars in the field of , with no training porated the Minoan evidence into his important book Die whatsoever in Semitic or other Near Eastern languages. The Hausgeriiteder alten Mesopotamier and classified Minoan as a fact is that the average classicist knows Greek and Latin,but Semitic language in the index. Another example is Frederik does not know any Semitic or other Near Eastern lan- E. L. ten Haaf (1975),who proposed reading Hagia Traida guages; whereas the averageSemitist knows not only various text11b as a recordof commodity distributionsto officialswith Semiticlanguages, but also Greekand perhaps other languages titles such as "r "chief,ruler" and rozmn"prince, ruler" (to give such as Latin, Hittite, Sumerian, Egyptian, and so on. Thus, the more familiar Hebrew forms). the classicists, and they typically were the ones rejecting the Tobe perfectly honest, however,most of the scholars who view that Minoan is Semitic,were in no position even to judge supported the position that Minoan is Semitic were Gordon's the matter. own students (M. C. Astour, D. Neiman, G. A. Rendsburg, R. The following story related by George Bass is illustra- Richard, J. M. Sasson, R. R. Stieglitz, and E. Yamauchi; for tive: partialbibliography see Gordon1971:168 n. 32).Loyalty to one's mentor no doubt played a role here,but an equally important The hostility goes deeper. I'm going to talk about this factoris the trainingthat Gordon'sdisciples received.Gordon's because we'retoo polite as scholars.I get very angry.Twenty unique view of the ancient world, with sightlines recogniz- years ago I sat next to a scholar who is an extremely ing interconnectionsover large swaths of both time and place, well-known classicalarchaeologist-one of the best in the was transmitted to his students in the classroom. Thus, world-whose knowledge of Greek and German and any when they became scholars in their own right, they were in other language is pathetic. Although he is a good archae- a unique position both to understand Gordon'sapproach and ologist,he can barely read any languageother than English. to accept his conclusions. He was sitting next to me at a lecture by Cyrus Gordon, Other scholarswere less than accepting.4Some researchers snickering all the way through.Of course he didn't under- at least offered alternative views, looking typically to Indo- stand it. But he'd been taught to snicker. It angered me

40 BiblicalArchaeologist 59:1 (1996) view was not a misrepresentationof the facts;it was perfectly correct that Minoan displayed isoglosses connecting it with different (see my earlier remarks on how Gordon himself had looked first at WestSemitic, then at Akka- dian, and then back to West Semitic).However, the truth is that any given Semitic language has isoglosses going in different directions connecting it to all other Semitic languages. It is helpful to compare the approach taken by scholars I regarding Eblaite.When this Semitic language first came to i light in the 1970s,it was clear from the start that certain fea- III/ tures of Eblaite showed an affinity with Akkadian, while at the same time other features of the language showed a close relationship with West Semitic. Scholars debated-and con- tinue to debate--the position of Eblaitewithin Semitic,but no one denies that Eblaite is Semitic because it cannot be fitted ?IUY/) neatly into our preexisting notions about the subdivisions of the . One hardly needed the discovery of Iy Eblaite to demonstrate the weakness of the aforementioned argument regarding Minoan, but now that we have Eblaite before us, the contrast is bright. Indeed, my colleague David I. Owen saw immediately that the discovery of Eblaitecould influence the way people viewed the Minoan problem. In a letter to Gordon dated December 12,1976,Owen wrote,

Eblaite has those numerous intra-Semiticfeatures that so often confuse us in Linear A. There is a regular r/l inter- The second half of HT88, depicted here (Gordon1966:Plate VIII), is a change! No need to look to Egyptian. There are both list of six individualitems which then are totaled at the end. Note the East and West Semitic features in the verbal system. In fact six single strokes indicatingthe numeral "one" in lines 3-5 of this many of the criticisms of your decipherment by Semitists text. The sixth "one" is followed by the signs ku-ro,corresponding to no longer will hold water in view of the Eblaitetexts (Gor- Hebrewkol "all,total," and the six strokesgrouped together to don 1980:209n. 20). indicate "six."Parallels to this accountingsystem occur in the Bible; see especiallythe list of defeated kings in Joshua 12:1-24. The greatestpraise for Gordon' work on Minoan was forth- coming in a rather bizarre way. In 1972Jan Best wrote of his twenty years ago; it angers me today (Bass 1989:112). acceptanceof Gordon'sdecipherment of Minoan, calling Gor- don "the first and most ardent advocate" of the Semitic I continue with another story to demonstrate the point. identification of the language (Best 1972:13).But in the years Recently there was an exchange on one of the computer net- to follow Best produced a series of works in which he pre- works about the whole question of LinearA. A leading scholar sented himself as the decipherer of Minoan as Semitic, with of Aegean archaeology and epigraphy was among the no reference whatsoever to Gordon'sprior work (Best 1982). participants in the exchange. He not only was quoted by Such academic dishonesty required a strong reproach,and I others as a great authority on the subject,he clearly presented was happy to comply with a detailed review article of Best's himself as such as well. In a private e-mail message to him, I monograph (Rendsburg 1982).Gordon wrote a shorter piece asked him whether or not he knew any Hebrew or other (Gordon 1984).I repeat here a sampling of what I wrote: Semitic language in order to judge the matter objectively.He replied to me that he did not. the material presented is virtually the same as that pub- To be fair,it is important to note that some scholars who lished by Gordon, and yet Gordon's Minoan studies go do know Semitic, including some leading researchers in the uncited... [Best] repeats without acknowledgement mate- field, also rejected Gordon'sposition. Their objection was that rial published by Gordon more than two decades in Gordon'swork on LinearA, some elements of Minoan link ago...Clearly,Best's actions cannot be tolerated,least of all up with Canaanite (Ugaritic,Phoenician, Hebrew, etc.),some in the scholarlycommunity which has broughtto the mod- with Aramaic,some with Akkadian, and so on. Thus, Minoan em world a better understanding of our classical,biblical, could not be identified with any Semitic language, and there- and Near Easternheritages (Rendsburg 1982:79,86, 87). fore Gordon's interpretation was deemed a failure. The close-mindedness of this approach is readily apparent.This My denunciation of Best was an absolute necessity, and

BiblicalArchaeologist 59:1 (1996) 41 I am glad that I took the initiative to pen it. Yet while his personally with Kjell Aartun and Rudolf Macuch, two lead- dishonesty needed to be denounced, Best's appropriationof ing European Semitists engaged in the study of Minoan. Gordon'swork represented praise of the highest type, albeit The former'srecent book (Aartun 1992)is another example of in a strange and of course most unprofessional manner. a scholar's acceptance of Gordon's basic understanding of The applicationof Minoan and Eteocretanto biblicalstud- Minoan as Semitic. ies merits our final attention. Obviously, as the least known Finally, as I write these words I am in contact with of the Semiticlanguages, Minoan/Eteocretan cannot be expected Gordon about his most recent horizon in the field of to shed majorlight on problemsconfronting the biblicalscholar. Minoan studies. Gordon informs me that he accepts the view And yet occasionally small rays of light nevertheless shine of Harold Haarmann (1990)and Marija Gimbutas (1991:308- forth. I include here a small sampling. 21) that the Minoan Linear A script derives from the Old Gordon (1966:27)noted that the use of ku-ro"all, total" at European script of the Danube valley of the Neolithic and the end of Minoan administrativetexts is paralleledby the use Chalcolithicages. The following scenario thus results.The Old of k81or hakk0l"all, total" at the end of several biblical lists European/Linear A script developed in southeastern Europe (Joshua 12:24,Ezra 2:42). R. R. Stieglitz (1971)noted several in the NeolithicAge and remained in use in the region through other examples of the phenomenon (Genesis 46:26, 2 the LateBronze Age (in its LinearB form).Semites who arrived Samuel 23:39).What has not been pointed out yet, as far as I on Crete earlier in the Bronze Age (Early Bronze? Middle know, is the overall structuralsimilarity between the Minoan Bronze?)utilized this script for writing their Semitic language. and biblical lists. Most striking is the parallelbetween the sec- It is obvious that almost forty years after his initial steps in ond half of Hagia Triadatext 88 and the list of conqueredkings Minoan studies, Gordon continues to view the field as fer- in Joshua 12:1-24.Both texts present lists of individual items tile ground for future discovery. There is much more to be followed by the notation for "one";at the end of the list appears done on the Linear A texts, the Phaistos Disk awaits inter- the word for "all,total" and the total number of items.Remark- pretation(though see now Aartun1992), and the newly posited ably,most biblical scholars assume that the Joshua list is a late connection with the Old European script opens still further addition to an earlier version of the conquest narrative and avenues. Sixty-five years afterGordon sailed past Crete on his thus assign the list to either so-called Dtr2 or so-called P firstvisit to the Near East,the inscriptionsfrom the island con- (see Boling and Wright 1982:322).But the Minoan parallel tinue to allure. argues for the antiquity of the Joshua list. Not only is it inte- gral to the book of Joshua, it should be considered an early Notes source.Note furtherthat the expressionkol malkim (v.24)lacks the definite article, another in 1This passage appears within an autobiographicalsection of Gordon'sbook expected linguistic point 144-68. treatment herein is favor of the list's ForgottenScripts (Gordon 1971),roughly pp. My antiquity. greatly indebted to these pages. However, this material was not included Dealing with Late BiblicalHebrew, I was able to cite Eteoc- in the revised version of the book (Gordon 1982). retan evidence as tangential support for a point regardingthe 2 history of the Hebrew language. Avi Hurvitz earlier demon- The Cretan site that yielded the largest number of Linear A tablets (about 170 in was Triada. strated that the kol X we-X syntagma was a feature of Late total) Hagia Biblical Hebrew (Hurvitz 1972:70-73).In my discussion of 3 are used to the class of words that a ? Pictograms special signs identify par- the evidence, I put forwardthe phrase KAEu Y Eu(=kol wiFT) ticular word belongs to. Students of Egyptian will be familiar with this attested in an Eteocretan inscription from ca. 500 BCEas an system, for pictograms or determinatives are used widely in this language. additional example of this usage (Rendsburg 1980:69;for the Students of will be familiar with the basic system too, though determinatives are used in a more limited in and text see Gordon 1966:10). way Akkadian, Eblaite, other languages. As a third example,I cite another of Gordon'sobservations. In the above cited Eteocretan phrase, the word for "man"is 4 In what follows I desist from mentioning the names of individual schol- written EZ, as opposed to the expected i (compare ir "city"). ars who opposed Gordon'sview. Here then we have a parallelto the initial element in the name 5 The name is attested in too as i'bcl 1965/ The "Eshbaal"(1 Chronicles 8:33,9:39), literally "Man-of- Ugaritic (Gordon 67:367). )e1bacal with ' indicates that the first element in the name Eshbaal can- Baal," to the more familiar spelling corresponding ibolet "Ishbosheth" not be equated with it, the particle of existence in Ugaritic, as often is (2 Samuel 2:8 etc.),literally "Man-of-Shame" (Gordon 1992:193).5 suggested by scholars. In the years following 1966,Gordon's work on Minoan and Eteocretan lessened. The major contribution had been made in the period 1957-66.However, I know from personal expe- Bibliography rience that his interest in the subject never waned. During my years as a graduatestudent with Gordon in the 1970s,his sem- Aartun, K. inars were with information about the Semitic 1992 Die MinoischeSchrift: Sprache und Texte,Vol. I. Wiesbaden: Otto Har- peppered rassowitz. language of Crete. And from recent discussion and corre- Bass, G. E spondence with my mentor,I know that he remains an active 1989 Responses. Arethusa,Special Issue. Fall:11l-13. participant in developments. In 1991he visited Oslo to meet

42 BiblicalArchaeologist 59:1 (1996) Best,J. Hurvitz, A. 1972 SomePreliminary Remarks on theDecipherment of Linear A. Amster- 1972 Beyn Lashonle-Lashon. Jerusalem: Bialik. dam: Adolf M. Hakkert. 1982 Talanta:Proceedings of the Dutch Archaeological and Historical Society. Rendsburg, G. A. Vol.13: Supplementum Epigraphicum Mediterraneum. Middelie: Studio 1980 Late Biblical Hebrew and the Date of 'P' Journalof theAncient Near Pieter Mulier. EasternSociety 12:65-80. 1982 On Jan Best's "Decipherment" of Minoan Linear A. Journalof the Boling, R. G. and Wright, G. E. AncientNear Eastern Society. 14:79-87 1982 Joshua.Anchor Bible. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Salonen, A. Brice,W. C. 1966 Die Hausgeriteder alten Mesopotamier. 3 vols. Helsinki: Finnish Acad- 1961 Inscriptionsin the MinoanLinear Script of ClassA. New York: emy of Sciences. Oxford University Press. Stieglitz, R. R. Crawford, O. G. S. 1971 Minoan and Biblical Totals. StudiMiceni ed Egeo-Anatolici14:217-18. 1957 Editorial Notes. Antiquity31:121-3. Ventris, M. and Chadwick, J. Davis, S. 1956 Documentsin MycenaeanGreek. London: Cambridge University Press. 1961 ThePhaistos Disk and the Eteocretan Inscriptions from Psychro and Praisos. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press.

Evans, A. 1921-36 The Palaceof Minos at Knossos.4 vols. London: Macmillan.

Gimbutas, M. 1991 The Civilizationof the Goddess.San Francisco: Harper.

Gordon, C. H. 1940 UgariticGrammar. Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute. 1947 UgariticHandbook. Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute. 1949 UgariticLiterature: A Comprehensive Translation of the Poetic and Prose Texts.Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute. 1955a Homer and the Bible. HebrewUnion College Annual 26:43-108. 1955b Language as a Means to an End. Antiquity29:147-9 1955c UgariticManual. Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute. 1957a Akkadian Tablets in Minoan Dress. Antiquity31:237-40. 1957b Notes on Linear A. Antiquity31:124-30. 1962a Eteocretan.Journalof Near EasternStudies 21:211-14. 1962b Minoaca. Journalof Near EasternStudies 21:207-10. 1965/67 UgariticTextbook. Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute. 1966 Evidencefor theMinoan Language. Ventnor, NJ: Ventnor Publishers. 1968 Northwest Semitic Texts in Latin and Greek Letters. Journalof the AmericanOriental Society 88:285-9 1971 ForgottenScripts: The Story of theirDecipherment. Harmondsworth: Penguin. 1980 New Light on the . Pp. 205-9 in Proceedingsof the FourthInternational Cretological Congress. Vol. I. . 1981 The Semitic Language of Minoan Crete. Pp. 761-82 in Bono HominiDonum: Essays in HistoricalLinguistics in Memoryof J. AlexanderKerns, edited by Y. L. Arbeitman and A. R. Bomhard. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 1982 ForgottenScripts: Their Ongoing Discovery and Decipherment. New York: Basic Books. 1984 Reflections on the Decipherment of Minoan. Orientalia53:453-5. 1992 The Mediterranean Synthesis. Pp. 188-96in TheCrisis Years: The 12th edited A. Ward and M. S. CenturyB.C., by W. Joukowsky.Dubuque, A. is of Near Eastern Studies at Cornell IA: Kendall/Hunt. Gary Rendsburg professor University. He is a specialist in the Northwest Semitic languages and associated literatures. Rendsburg earned his Ph.D. in 1980 at New ten Haaf, E E. L. YorkUniversity, where his mentor was Cyrus H. Gordon. Dr. 1975 A Note on the Linear A Tablet HT 11.Kadmos 14:175-6. Rendsburg edited the 1980 Festschrift, The BibleWorld:Essays in Honor of Cyrus-H. Gordon (KTAV). He is the author of three books, including Haarmann, H. LinquisticEvidence for theNorthern Origin of SelectedPsalms (Scholars 1990 Writing from Old Europe to Ancient Crete-A Case of Cultural Press, 1990),and dozens of articles covering a wide range of issues Continuity.Journal of Indo-European Studies 18:251-75. relevant to the study of the Hebrew Bible.

BiblicalArchaeologist 59:1 (1996) 43 This book contains little (if any) hard possibility for uniqueness in the biblical text. on the very edge of existence. archaeological data on Israelites and their Indeed, in Chapter Three,Simkins takes Simkins does an admirable job of com- natural surroundings. For specifics on that, to task those who would emphasize the dif- piling a huge number of texts which the readerwould be far better served to read ferencesbetween the Hebrew Bibleand other demonstrate a variety of perceptions about David Hopkins' The Highlands of Canaan ancient Near Eastern texts. He alleges the environment and its relationship to (Decatur, GA: The Almond Press, 1985), ulterior motives to those who perceive the Israelites at various points of their his- which Simkins cites often in his own work. differences, but sometimes his examples tory, while emphasizing thoughout the Rather,Simkins constructsa number of mod- of continuities seem lifted from their con- distinctions always maintainedbetween cre- els for evaluating any particular culture's texts in orderto support his presuppositions. ator and creation. He establishes well that interaction with its environment (usually Many of his conclusions thus derived pro- the environment is not just an occasion- illustratedby helpful diagrams),then applies vide no room for alternative interpretations. ally changing backdrop to the "real story," those measures to ancient Israel. He is very In Simkins' depiction of virtually all Yah- but that it is itself a significant presence on careful to explain what he is doing every weh's battles as "cosmogonic struggles," the stage. Simkins is accurate in his con- step of the way, so that even if the reader there are no comparison/contrast evalua- cluding chapter when he states that, "these disagrees with Simkins' interpretations or tions in regard to other ancient texts; rather models [introduced throughout the book] methodology, she or he still understands there are absolute statements such as (in ref- take seriously the Bible's numerous refer- Simkins' conclusions and how he arrived at erence to the Re(e)d Sea episode of the ences to the natural world and enable the them. Exodus), "these battles are modelled after interpreter to place these references within In his early chapters,Simkins establishes God's victory over chaos in the primordial a meaningful framework" (p. 255). that humans can relate to the environment battle of creation" (p. 112). Period. Both the beginning and the end of the in harmony, mastery, or subjugation con- These critiquesaside, Simkinseffectively book address the present state of the envi- texts-a standard for evaluation which he establishesa model for understandingIsraelite ronment and reflect on various theological uses throughout the book. He urges the perspectives on the natural world in which perspectives dealing with the earth itself reader not to projectmodem concepts back- humans and the naturalworld areboth seen attributed to Scripture. Simkins rebuts the wards, but to try to let the texts speak for to be of the same order,though distinct from concept that it is Judeo-Christian theology themselves. He pulls in creation accounts one another,and certainly,both distinct from which has createdthe currentcrisis and offers from a variety of other ancient Near East- Yahweh.At several points, Simkins despairs some suggestions for dealing with the earth ern cultures in order to create a broader over those who interpret the background of based on a broader perception of the bibli- context within which to examine the Gene- Israel only in historicalterms, seeing the nat- cal perspective regarding nature. But this sis records.Though he has produced a helpful ural world merely as a backdrop. He cites book is much more than a pop volume compilation of texts, Simkins' enthusiasm theophanies as prime examples of Israel designed to offer some simple answers for for parallels leads to too many conclu- relating to God within the natural realm and those Jews and Christians who feel a vague sions which only allow for the biblical text creates helpful diagrams indicating ancient sense of guilt about the environment.Simkins to be seen in the mold of other . For Israel's concepts of sacred space. Simkins has crafted a map and a compass that will example, Simkins writes that it is only the demonstrates how such concepts as "Zion" enable the reader to navigate more per- process of abstraction which has over the and "our land" had actual geographical ceptively and accurately what the Bible has years separated Yahweh's production by antecedents in the land of Israel. to say about the natural world. Those who divine fiat from the underlying notion Threats to Israel's security were often read Creatorand Creationwill never again that intercourse was involved in the pro- portrayed in environmental terms, Simkins read Scripture with a lack of attention to its duction of the earth and all that is in it (p. notes in examiningthe words of the prophets, relationships to the natural realm. 80). Though Simkins warns often against though I do not feel that projecting escha- anachronism, ethnocentrism, and any num- tological content into environmental threats David Embree ber of other dangers, it seems that he has a would have been necessary to terrify these SouthwestMissouri State University modern penchant for denying any frontierspeople who virtually always lived

Corrigendaand Obscurus inadvertent font loss. With the correct Professor Tsumura for the unfortunate way fonts in place, Rendsburg notes Gordon's that the background of his article obscured Biblical 59:1(1996) Archaeologist observationthat in the Eteocretanphrase KA the text of the article itself. Design should In "Someone Will Succeed in Decipher- El Y EL, "the word for 'man' is written enhance the reading experience, not turn ing Minoan"(p. 42, para.5, line 3), Professor's EE, as opposed to the expected IE (compare it into a optic endurance examination.Please Rendsburg'sthird example of an application IP 'city')." The phrase thus offers a parallel also acceptour pledge not to use backgrounds of Minoan and Eteocretanto biblical studies to the Eshbaal-Ishbosheth correspondence. in this fashion again. was rendered less than comprehensible by We apologizeto our readersand to author

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