Writing and Pre-Writing in Early Archaic Methone and Eretria

This chapter concentrates on the important collections of early graffiti and non-alphabetic marks recently published from Methone and Eretria, and dating to the late eighth and early seventh centuries. It picks up Jeffery's emphasis on the materiality of writing, examining their placing on the whole pot or sherd, and it asks what these new graffiti contribute to our views about the spread of the early alphabet. It makes particular use of the graffiti which are not alphabetic, but which seem from placing and appearance to be engaged in a similar form of marking and communication to the obviously alphabetic marks. It argues that these early graffiti do not show the alphabet as necessarily trying to recreate sound or speech, but do show why there was such an impetus to take over the alphabet. In Methone and Eretria we see the 'seed bed' for the rapid spread of the alphabet.