Sort It, See It, Say It. Digital strategies to revive a Bronze Age Aegean Script

A Bronze Age script of the Aegean family, ‘Minoan’ Linear A (ca. 1800-1450 BCE) may not be known to many a reader, except by name. Perusing the cumbersome, five-volume, old-fashioned corpus (GORILA), as well as mastering the prior knowledge necessary to interpret Linear A inscriptions still falls within the purview of specialists.

This paper aims to present three digital strategies I have been developing to revive and enliven the kaleidoscopic nature of this script and the objects it is attested on, and to disseminate its knowledge beyond academia with a view to engaging a wider (educated, yet not specialist) audience.

* Sort It – LAIF – Linear A Inscription Finder

How to sort (and sort out) Linear A inscriptions? LAIF (under construction) is a digital catalogue of all extant Linear A inscriptions, for ease of information retrieval, processing and analysis, aimed at specialists and amateurs alike.

* See It – SigLA – The Signs of Linear A: A Palaeographical Database

Once sorted, where to see Linear A inscriptions? Open access, digital, usable within and beyond academia, SigLA (2020) is a substantial academic contribution to knowledge and a major public benefit. Like never before, all users (specialists and not) can now see and engage with interactive Linear A inscriptions (line-drawings by Salgarella), and read signs and words by themselves.

* Say It – Aegean Connections

Once sorted and seen, what to say about the wider historical context in which Linear A inscriptions were used? Growing public interest in Aegean scripts, coupled with paucity of reliable open-access resources, encouraged me to start a Podcast on Aegean Studies (2024-ongoing) to bridge the gap between academics and the general audience.

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