144 
that it has always been regarded as being at least a thousand 
years older than this era, my assertion might at first perhaps be 
taken to be a rash one, but I feel confident that after the reader 
has made a careful study of the comparisons given in this 
brochure, he will agree with me both as to the dating of the 
Disk and as to the country of its origin 
How it came to Crete we shall probably never know. 
Nor shall we know how it came to be interred among pottery 
and other remains of the last era of the Middle Minoan period. 
That the interment was not accidental is quite evident, but 
the circumstance is really one that has been lost in the mists 
of antiquity. In passing, it might be as well to mention that 
the burial of objects of a given period in tombs, dwellings, 
etc., of an older date was not unusual among various nations 
of the past ; one calls to mind the vases of Chinese manufacture 
found in the sepulchres of Ancient Egypt. 
: r. M. Markides, the Curator of the Cyprus Museum, has 
kindly forwarded me particulars of the earlier and later forms 
of Cypriote scripts. The earlier form, termed Cypro-Minoan, 
from the fact that it was imported into the island by t 
Minoans of Crete, was in use in the Late Bronze Age (B.C. 
to 1200). Shortly afterwards, probably in the Period of 
* 
o-Minoan signs, which had been adapted for writing the 
new tongue, were used. This system of writing is known 4 
Later Cy nd was in vogue, in the later centuries, 
: ^ x Cypriote, a si - 
by side with the Greek alphabet, down to the Middle Hellenic 
us Ro far "eror era been recovered only about 32 all of 
— "4n... a signs, and I must point out that by no means | 
E them can be traced in the 60 linear characters of the Later 
