Pippa Steele
Research Fellow at the Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge, and Senior Research Fellow at Magdalene College.
From April 2016 to March 2021, director of the European Research Council funded project 'Contexts of and Relations between Early Writing Systems' (CREWS). See the project blog at https://crewsproject.wordpress.com/
From October 2012 to March 2016, British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow (held at Cambridge), working on a project entitled 'The History of the Greek Language in the Eastern Mediterranean During the First Millennium BC'. Previously Lumley Research Fellow in Classics at Magdalene College, Cambridge, 2010-13.
In May 2014, gave the Evans-Pritchard Lectures at All Souls College, Oxford, on a theme of 'Society and Writing in Ancient Cyprus' (and now working on the manuscript of the arising monograph).
For further information on publications, see the CV section. Please feel free to get in touch if you cannot find an article or review I have written, and I will see whether I am able to send an offprint.
Research interests include the scripts and languages of ancient Cyprus, the Aegean and the eastern Mediterranean; Mycenaean Greek, the Linear B documents and the Mycenaean administration; language contact in the ancient world; ancient Greek epigraphy and dialectology.
From April 2016 to March 2021, director of the European Research Council funded project 'Contexts of and Relations between Early Writing Systems' (CREWS). See the project blog at https://crewsproject.wordpress.com/
From October 2012 to March 2016, British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow (held at Cambridge), working on a project entitled 'The History of the Greek Language in the Eastern Mediterranean During the First Millennium BC'. Previously Lumley Research Fellow in Classics at Magdalene College, Cambridge, 2010-13.
In May 2014, gave the Evans-Pritchard Lectures at All Souls College, Oxford, on a theme of 'Society and Writing in Ancient Cyprus' (and now working on the manuscript of the arising monograph).
For further information on publications, see the CV section. Please feel free to get in touch if you cannot find an article or review I have written, and I will see whether I am able to send an offprint.
Research interests include the scripts and languages of ancient Cyprus, the Aegean and the eastern Mediterranean; Mycenaean Greek, the Linear B documents and the Mycenaean administration; language contact in the ancient world; ancient Greek epigraphy and dialectology.
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Books by Pippa Steele
Contexts of and Relations between Early Writing Systems (CREWS) is a project funded by the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 677758), and based in the Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge.
This book is published under a CC BY licence. This excludes illustrations and other material owned by third parties, which remain the copyright of their original owners.
Chapter 1 available with open access here: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/284465
ISBN: 9781785706448, Oxbow Books
http://www.oxbowbooks.com/oxbow/understanding-relations-between-scripts.html
Details
Understanding Relations Between Scripts: The Aegean Writing Systems arises from a conference held in Cambridge in 2015. The question of how writing systems are related to each other, and how we can study those relationships, has not been studied in detail and this volume aims to fill a gap in scholarship by presenting a number of case studies focused on the writing systems of the Bronze Age Aegean. These include Cretan Hieroglyphic, Linear A and Linear B, used predominantly in Crete and mainland Greece, as well as the Cypro-Minoan script of Cyprus. Most of these systems (the only major exception being Linear B) remain undeciphered to some degree but we nevertheless have considerable evidence for their development and use.
Each contributor focuses on a different theoretical problem and/or set of scripts. Important questions include: How and why did writing emerge in Crete in the Middle Bronze Age? What is the relationship between writing and art? Why did different writing systems co-exist with each other? What changes were made when a new system was developed from an old one? Can our understanding of how different systems are related to each other help us to reconstruct the values of script signs? The contributors tackle such questions by employing a variety of methods, from epigraphic and palaeographic analysis to typological comparison and contextual study.
The result is a coherent volume that will not only enrich our understanding of the ancient Aegean writing systems in particular, but will also provide an important example for future studies of writing across the world.
Table of Contents
List of figures
Preface
Abbreviations
Chapter 1. Introduction: the Aegean writing systems
Philippa M. Steele
Chapter 2. Another beginning’s end: secondary script formation in the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean
Silvia Ferrara
Chapter 3. Cretan ‘Hieroglyphic’ and the nature of script
Roeland P.-J.E. Decorte
Chapter 4. Linear B script and Linear B administrative system – different patterns in their development
Helena Tomas
Chapter 5. Reconstructing the matrix of the ‘Mycenaean’ literate administrations
Vassilis Petrakis
Chapter 6. From Linear B to Linear A: the problem of the backward projection of sound values
Philippa M. Steele and Torsten Meißner
Chapter 7. Processes of script adaptation and creation in Linear B: the evidence of the ‘extra’ signs
Anna P. Judson
Chapter 8. Script comparison in the investigation of Cypro-Minoan
Miguel Valério
Chapter 9. Is there anything like a Cypro-Minoan 3 script?
Yves Duhoux
Chapter 10. Script and language on Cyprus during the Geometric Period: an overview on the occasion of two new inscriptions
Markus Egetmeyer
Bibliography
Papers by Pippa Steele
Contexts of and Relations between Early Writing Systems (CREWS) is a project funded by the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 677758), and based in the Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge.
This book is published under a CC BY licence. This excludes illustrations and other material owned by third parties, which remain the copyright of their original owners.
Chapter 1 available with open access here: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/284465
ISBN: 9781785706448, Oxbow Books
http://www.oxbowbooks.com/oxbow/understanding-relations-between-scripts.html
Details
Understanding Relations Between Scripts: The Aegean Writing Systems arises from a conference held in Cambridge in 2015. The question of how writing systems are related to each other, and how we can study those relationships, has not been studied in detail and this volume aims to fill a gap in scholarship by presenting a number of case studies focused on the writing systems of the Bronze Age Aegean. These include Cretan Hieroglyphic, Linear A and Linear B, used predominantly in Crete and mainland Greece, as well as the Cypro-Minoan script of Cyprus. Most of these systems (the only major exception being Linear B) remain undeciphered to some degree but we nevertheless have considerable evidence for their development and use.
Each contributor focuses on a different theoretical problem and/or set of scripts. Important questions include: How and why did writing emerge in Crete in the Middle Bronze Age? What is the relationship between writing and art? Why did different writing systems co-exist with each other? What changes were made when a new system was developed from an old one? Can our understanding of how different systems are related to each other help us to reconstruct the values of script signs? The contributors tackle such questions by employing a variety of methods, from epigraphic and palaeographic analysis to typological comparison and contextual study.
The result is a coherent volume that will not only enrich our understanding of the ancient Aegean writing systems in particular, but will also provide an important example for future studies of writing across the world.
Table of Contents
List of figures
Preface
Abbreviations
Chapter 1. Introduction: the Aegean writing systems
Philippa M. Steele
Chapter 2. Another beginning’s end: secondary script formation in the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean
Silvia Ferrara
Chapter 3. Cretan ‘Hieroglyphic’ and the nature of script
Roeland P.-J.E. Decorte
Chapter 4. Linear B script and Linear B administrative system – different patterns in their development
Helena Tomas
Chapter 5. Reconstructing the matrix of the ‘Mycenaean’ literate administrations
Vassilis Petrakis
Chapter 6. From Linear B to Linear A: the problem of the backward projection of sound values
Philippa M. Steele and Torsten Meißner
Chapter 7. Processes of script adaptation and creation in Linear B: the evidence of the ‘extra’ signs
Anna P. Judson
Chapter 8. Script comparison in the investigation of Cypro-Minoan
Miguel Valério
Chapter 9. Is there anything like a Cypro-Minoan 3 script?
Yves Duhoux
Chapter 10. Script and language on Cyprus during the Geometric Period: an overview on the occasion of two new inscriptions
Markus Egetmeyer
Bibliography
This paper considers the methods employed to attempt to explain the above discrepancies, which often involve assumptions about the phonological repertoires of languages underlying the undeciphered Aegean syllabic scripts (especially Linear A and Cypro-Minoan), and suggests a new approach based on a survey of both sign forms and sign values across the scripts.
If you would like to be added to our mailing list, please send an email to me at pms45@cam.ac.uk, or to one of the other convenors (see the Convenors tab on the website).
'Multilingualism and Exchange', a Research Group taking place in 2014-15, will conduct seminars and roundtables throughout the academic year. It will unite scholars of different disciplines to discuss the intellectual and commercial trajectories of goods, travellers and texts which enabled contact between early languages in western Europe and the Mediterranean (c.1000 B.C. - c.1500 A.D.). We intend to explore how far multilingualism was affected by mobility and exchange, considering the phenomenon in the light of the varying international structures of trade, religion, scholarship,and diplomacy which underpinned it. The seminar series will interrogate the nature and extent of linguistic contact involved in the transmission of material culture, seek to reconstruct the networks which permitted this transmission to take place, and examine the impact of mobility on cultural identity.
Faculty of Classics, Cambridge
Friday 20th – Saturday 21st March 2015
Attendance at the conference is free of charge and all are welcome. Please contact Philippa Steele (pms45@cam.ac.uk) to register your interest in attending, as spaces will be limited.
http://www.cambridgeadventurer.net/urbs/