Brent Davis

... She has recently finished a book on teaching writing to adults, Managing Writing. BrentDavis graduated from Stanford University in 1978 with an AB in Linguistics. ... Brent Davis graduated from Stanford University in 1978 with an AB in Linguistics. ...

ABSTRACT In 2013, an ivory bowl was discovered in a chalky matrix in the Early Iron Age (Philistine) levels in Area A at Tell es-Safi/Gath. Conservation revealed it to be a shallow vessel with a single lug handle, decorated in the interior and on the base with an incised twelve-petal lotus-rosette surrounded by five concentric circles. Applying an object biography approach, we investigate the history and far-flung socio-cultural connections of the Tell es-Safi/Gath bowl, which is unique within Philistia. Specific reference is made to parallels in the ivory hoard from the Late Bronze/Iron Age transition (c. late twelfth century/early eleventh century bce) palace at Megiddo, Stratum VIIA. It is proposed that the Tell es-Safi/Gath bowl was one of a set manufactured somewhere in Canaan. The vessel became separated from the set, ending up as a foundation offering at this Philistine site.

This article examines the syntax (word order) of the so-called 'Libation Formula', a sequence of Linear A 'words' found on many Minoan ritual stone vessels, in an effort to uncover some of the characteristics of the language behind the script. The conclusions suggest that this language is a non-Indo-European, non-Semitic, verb-initial language, perhaps with VSO word order.

Libation is depicted on Sumerian votive plaques, and mentioned in the Pyramid Texts, and thus is one of the oldest ritual practices attested in the eastern Mediterranean. The practice was ubiquitous throughout the region from at least the Early Bronze Age, and there is substantial evidence associating libation with Minoan feasting and food preparation. In this paper, I compare this evidence with evidence for libation in other cultures, in an attempt to interpret some of the possible meanings of libation within the context of the Minoan feast.

Inscribed Minoan stone vessels are ritual gifts that index their dedicants’ intention that both their gift and their name should survive permanently at the place of dedication. These vessels contained offerings, yet the vessels themselves were also offerings, serving as permanent records of a ritual act. These rituals were most likely communal, incorporating group feasting and drinking. The seasonality of these rituals suggests that they were focused on the cycle of life: fertility, birth, death and renewal. Offerings left with the vessels suggest that these rituals also addressed other, more personal concerns. As for Linear A itself: the language behind the script appears to contain a fairly standard phonemic inventory, though there are hints of additional, more exotic phonemes. The morphology of the language appears to involve affixation, a typical mode of inflection in human languages. The presence of significant prefixing tends to rule out PIE as a parent language, while the word-internal vowel alternations typical of Afroasiatic verbal inflection are nowhere to be found in this script. In the end, Linear A appears most likely to represent a non-IE, non-Afroasiatic language, perhaps with agglutinative tendencies, and perhaps with VSO word order.