Bronze Age Runes
(March 14, 2024) Runes are letters used in texts not having any inner word vowels. Letters are wildcard phoneme signs allowing for any vowel sound after its consonant sound. Phonemes are a consonants combined with a vowels like Ba, Bu, Bi, Ta, Tu, Ti, etc. Minoan writing started out as Phonemes which was later simplified towards runes.
The letters from Serabit el-Khadim below come in 2 contexts: Official Pronouncements and Graffiti. The Official texts are made by local Levantines while the Graffiti is made by the Aegean "Sea People" raiders looking for loot. This indicates that the priests, traders, and military of both Mediterranean groups were literate at the end of the Bronze Age.
Bronze Age Phoneme Sign Chart showing their Word Origin from Akkadian
Bronze Age Phoneme Sign Chart showing their Word Origin from Akkadian
Greek Lyre (Phoneme Ri)
Greek Lyre (Phoneme Ri)
Lyres are differentiated from harps by having a bottom sounding board which gives them a more resonant sound. These sounding boards may have holes in them like a modern guitar. This image appears on some Greek pottery dated to 460 BCE.
Photo from the University of Pennsylvania Museum at: https://www.penn.museum/sites/greek_world/pottery_big-29.html
Photo from the University of Pennsylvania Museum at: https://www.penn.museum/sites/greek_world/pottery_big-29.html
Ancient Sling (Phoneme Wa)
Ancient Sling (Phoneme Wa)
Ancient Bronze Axe Head (Letter P)
Ancient Bronze Axe Head (Letter P)