Ancient CyprusAncient Cyprus

Glossary Society, writing and trade

Syllabary

Also called: syllabaries

A writing system whose signs each stand for a whole syllable, such as ka, pe or to.

Cyprus kept a syllabic writing tradition for well over a thousand years. The Bronze Age Cypro-Minoan script, still undeciphered, was followed in the Iron Age by the Cypriot Syllabary, which wrote Greek and the non-Greek Eteocypriot language. Because the Cypriot signs cannot show consonants on their own, Greek words were spelled with extra vowels: basileus, 'king', is written pa-si-le-u-se.

The Cypriot Syllabary stayed in use long after the rest of the Greek world had adopted the alphabet, into the Hellenistic period. Keeping it may itself have been a statement of Cypriot identity. See writing and literacy.

Full entry: Writing and Literacy in Ancient Cyprus

Related terms

  • Linear A

    The undeciphered script of Minoan Crete, used from about 1800 to 1450 BCE, to which the Cypro-Minoan script of Cyprus is most closely related.

  • Linear B

    The syllabic script of the Mycenaean palaces, used to write an early form of Greek on clay tablets and deciphered by Michael Ventris in 1952.

  • Arcado-Cypriot

    The group of ancient Greek dialects shared by Arcadia in the Peloponnese and by Cyprus, and the form of Greek written in the Cypriot Syllabary.

  • Idalion bronze tablet

    A bronze plaque of the fifth century BCE from Idalion, the longest known text in the Cypriot Syllabary, recording a king's contract with a physician.

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