Friday, January 07, 2011

The Origins of Writing in Western Civilization and the Kaulins Minoan Aegean Sign Concordance (MinAegCon™) - 1 - A Syllabic Grid of Mycenaean Greek Linear B Script, the Cypriot Syllabary, the Phaistos Disk, two Old Elamite Scripts, the Inscription on the Axe of Arkalochori, and Comparable Signs from Sumerian Pictographs and Egyptian Hieroglyphs

This posting starts a series of postings that I will be making throughout the year regarding my sign concordance of ancient scripts, a "meshing" of ancient pictographic, hieroglyphic and syllabic scripts which will provide everyone a highly useful tool for future and further study of the origins of writing on our planet by ancient cultures. There will also be new decipherments.

There is very little doubt, based on my work, that the scripts of antiquity in my concordance point to a single origin and that they all retain very visible elements of their common ancestry.

It is a very ambitious project, indeed, so ambitious that even I can say in advance that there will be many aspects of this work that will need to be improved in the course of time. And there will be errors. That is unavoidable. But this is the beginning. One has to start. You have to take the first step.
Crossposted from the Ancient World Blog.

The Origins of Writing in Western Civilization and the Kaulins Minoan Aegean Sign Concordance (MinAegCon™) [1]: A Syllabic Grid of Mycenaean Greek Linear B Script, the Cypriot Syllabary, the Phaistos Disk, two Old Elamite Scripts, the Inscription on the Axe of Arkalochori, and Comparable Signs from Sumerian Pictographs and Egyptian Hieroglyphs

by Andis Kaulins [2]


The origin of writing in Western Civilization was a technological quantum leap without which our modern world would not be possible. This publication unravels more of the mystery of how written script came to the Western world.


I. An Introduction to the Minoan Aegean Sign Concordance


A. Communication History and the David W. Packard Minoan Legacy


The importance of the study of ancient writing -- a fascinating field in its own right --is often underestimated. The origin of script impacts modern technology and the methods of modern digital science. Consider, for example, that David W. Packard, co-founder of Hewlett-Packard Co., wrote his dissertation on Minoan Linear A. [3]

Communication between human beings is the fundamental essence of the spoken languages of mankind. When those languages were put into written form, the scope of communication expanded beyond the immediate audience of listeners to all those humans who can read whatever is written. Modern communication depends a lot on literacy. Just think of Facebook and Twitter. Moreover, the written word not only communicates, but it also records human expression and knowledge for posterity.


[1] The acronym MinAegCon (TM) was coined as a trademark on December 27, 2010. A Google search gave no hits on that same day. MinAegCon can be used to cite to this work, together with the name of the author, location and year: Andis Kaulins, Germany 2011.
[2] J.D. (Doctor of Jurisprudence) Stanford University Law School. Former FFA Lecturer in Anglo-American Law, Legal Research and Legal Writing, University of Trier Law School. Co-author of the Langenscheidt & Routledge German-English, English-German Dictionary of Business, Commerce and Finance (4th ed. 2010). Author of: The Phaistos Disc: Hieroglyphic Greek with Euclidean Dimensions (Darmstadt, 1980), The Phaistos Disc: An Ancient Enigma Solved: Two corroborative Old Elamite scripts can be deciphered using the Greek syllabic values obtained for the Phaistos Disc by A. Kaulins in 1980, International Conference on the Phaistos Disk, London, Society of Antiquaries, Burlington House, October 31, 2008, Stars Stones and Scholars: The Decipherment of the Megaliths, Trafford, 2003 & 2006; Zum Ursprung des Horus-Glaubens im vordynastischen Ägypten (The Origin of the Cult of Horus in Predynastic Egypt), Efodon Synesis, 2005; Sternensteine - Darstellungen frühgeschichtlicher Astronomie am Beispiel der Externsteine (Star Stones - Prehistoric Astronomy and the Extern Stones), Forschungskreis Walther Machalett für Vor und Frühgeschichte, 2005; Die Himmelsscheibe von Nebra : Beweisführung und Deutung (The Sky Disk of Nebra: Evidence and Interpretation), Efodon Synesis, 2005; Der Bodenhimmel der Oesterholzer Mark um die Spitze der "Externsteinpyramide" (A Megalithic Sky Map at Oesterholz), Efodon Synesis, 2006; Das Tanum System - ein alteuropäisches Vermessungssystem? (The Tanum System: Ancient Seafarers as Megalithic Surveyors of Europe and Africa), Forschungskreis Externsteine., 2007; Der Osnabrücker Bodenhimmel (The Hermetic Planisphere at Osnabrück), Forschungskreis Externsteine, 2008.
[3] David W. Packard, Minoan Linear A, University of California Press in Berkeley, California, 1974.