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Image shows the Minoan Phaistos Disk with phonetic sign assignments by Olmsted. Sign assignment charts here.
Linear A Developed From The Phaistos Disk (1900 BCE)
Linear A Developed From The Phaistos Disk (1900 BCE)
(August 17, 2025) The earliest large text of Mediterranean writing is the Minoan Phaistos Disk. It dates to 1800 BCE. Stamps were used to impress the signs upon the unfired clay disk before it was fired. The disk is a philosophical/religious debate about the cause of a drought. As in Sumeria and Egypt, temples were the main economic centers and they quickly adopted writing for both trade and religious purposes.
The Phaistos Disk was a phonetic writing system (AB, BU, ED which was simpler and thus better suited for trade than the cuneiform writing system based upon syllables (BAB, BA, AB). The Minoans were in contact with Assyrian traders in Anatolia by 2000 BC where they must have picked up the writing idea.
By 1500 BCE this writing system was further simplified by allowing the phonetic signs to have any trailing vowel sound, in effect, making them a consonant letter sign. This was the birth of the alphabet which first appeared in the Minoan trading concessions in the newly established New Kingdom period of Egypt.
Minoan Fresco from Tell El-Dab'a / Avaris (c1450 BCE)
Minoan Fresco from Tell El-Dab'a / Avaris (c1450 BCE)
(November 6, 2023) Egyptian pharaoh Ahmose (reigned c. 1539–1515 BCE) established the Egyptian 18th dynasty and the New Kingdom after he drove out the Hyksos with the aid of the Minoans (who probably saw them as a threat to their trade).
He destroyed all the buildings in the former Hyksos capital city of Avaris (renamed Per Ramessu) in the eastern Nile delta around 1521 BCE and replaced them with a trading port which included a trading colony of Minoans. This is indicated by wall frescos in the Minoan style like that shown above.
Minoan traders were likely responsible for the Wadi el-Hol inscriptions. Eygptian overseers were likely responsible for the official stele inscriptions at Serabit el-Khadim while early Israelites (who were doing most of the mining) were likely responsible for the graffiti inscriptions at Serabit el-Khadim. Sea people raiders were likely responsible for graffiti inscriptions found on temple statuettes at Serabit el-Khadim left behind after the mines were evacuated.
(Image taken at Heraklion Archaeological Museum by Martin Dürrschnabel via Wikimedia commons. Online at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Reconstructed_Minoan_Fresco_Avaris.jpg
References
References
Encyclopedia Britannica online.
Map of Nile Delta showing Hyksos Capital City of Avaris
Map of Nile Delta showing Hyksos Capital City of Avaris
This rebuilt city is probably identical with the later Biblical town Raamses/Ramesse from the time of the Ramesses Pharaohs.
Bronze Age Phoneme Sign Chart showing their Word Origin from Akkadian
Bronze Age Phoneme Sign Chart showing their Word Origin from Akkadian
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