Eteocypriot in the Bronze Age? The Cypro- Minoan cylinder from Enkomi as an accounting document

Abstract

Abstract The terracotta cylinder from Enkomi is the longest extant text in Cypro-Minoan 1, but its content is completely unknown. Scholars have held that it uses two different signs for word-dividers. However, it is here argued that one set of these signs is actually numerals, and that this is an accounting-document which uses single-sign abbreviations as on the classical Idalion tablet. Analysis of the resulting ‘entries’ on the cylinder yields sign-groups with terminations in -o-ti resembling those in the corpus of classical Eteocypriot texts; this similarity suggests linguistic continuity from the Bronze Age to the classical period.