144 



same as that of the remains discovered with it, it was made, 

 as Dr. Pernier thought, somewhere about B.C. 1600. 



We shall, however, have to forego all ideas of such an 

 early antiquity for the Disk, as many of the signs it contains 

 are but portraits of various animate and inanimate objects of 

 the period of Assyrian predominance in Cyprus, i.e., from 

 about b.c. 700 to 650, when the island was governed by rulers 

 mainly from Greece, doubtless Ionians.( 5 J In view of the fact 

 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. 



Mr. 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 the 

 Minoans of Crete, was in use in the Late Bronze Age (b.c. 1500 

 to 1200). Shortly afterwards, probably in the Period of 

 Transition from Bronze to Iron (b.c. 1200 to 1000), Greek- 

 speaking settlers from Greece proper, especially from Arcadia, 

 introduced the Greek language into the island; but it seems 

 that no inscriptions were made by them until about the 

 eighth century B.C., when, according to Mr. Markides, the old 

 Cypro-Minoan signs, which had been adapted for writing the 

 new tongue, were used. This system of writing is known as 

 Later Cypriote, and was in vogue, in the later centuries, side 

 by side with the Greek alphabet, down to the Middle Hellenic 

 Age. 



So far there have been recovered only about 32 Cypro- 

 Minoan signs, and I must point out that by no means all of 

 them can be traced in the 60 linear characters of the Later 

 Cypriote script ; this circumstance certainly indicates that the 



(5) For details of Cypriote history, see Table B. 



