INvention of SCRIpts and their BEginnings

Project Information

INSCRIBE

Grant agreement ID: 771127

DOI

10.3030/771127

Project closed

EC signature date 7 June 2018

Start date 1 October 2018

End date 30 September 2024

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 1 463 337,00

EU contribution

€ 1 463 337,00

Coordinated by

ALMA MATER STUDIORUM - UNIVERSITA DI BOLOGNA
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 4 - INSCRIBE (INvention of SCRIpts and their BEginnings)

Reporting period: 2023-04-01 to 2024-09-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

INSCRIBE focuses on the invention of writing from a global multi-disciplianry perspective and seeks to apply decipherment strategies for scripts that are still undeciphered (especially the earliest in Europe, from the Aegean). The methods applied range from an in-depth archaeological, linguistic, paleographic, anthropological and cognitive perspective, to the application of state-of-the-art technological strategies tied to digital humanities and computer science. INSCRIBE engages in combinatorial, complementary methods geared to addressing: 1. how, when, why, how many times and through what trajectories writing was invented in the history of humankind; 2. The potential of decipherment of scripts whose language is still unidentified (mainly the Aegean scripts, Cretan Hieroglyphic, Linear and Cypro-Minoan).

The implications for today’s society are manifold: 1. Establishing the precise number of inventions of writing, in the first instance, can help us establish whether convergences mirror universal features (how do we select icons to be part of graphic repertoires? What is the interface between art and language? Do specific linguistic mechanisms, such as rebus, play similar roles? Do emojis, for instance, follow similar paths to the earliest scripts?). The cognitive ramifications are all-too-important, because the interface between visual perception and the environment clearly play a significant role in the ways in which scripts are first created. This research question has never been tackled in the scholarship.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

INSCRIBE has hired 2 Assistant Professors (2019-2022), 5 Post-Docs and 3 PhDs. Here is a full list of the activities carried out so far:

Progress in Project WPs:
The team has started addressing specific strands related to WP1, WP2, WP4, and is in the process of addressing WP3. WP4 was unfortunately halted after the SARS-COV2 outbreak, but we resumed full flow at the beginning of 2022. Museum permissions have been granted to access the material (namely Cretan Hieroglyphic, Linear A and Cypro-Minoan inscriptions) housed in the Museum of Heraklio, Crete and the Louvre Museum, Paris. These visits are geared towards the first-ever creation of 3D models of all inscriptions (mainly tablets) written in the Aegean undeciphered scripts.

Dissemination:
1. The PI was involved in the first creation of the INSCRIBE website (https://site.unibo.it/inscribe/en) and the dissemination activities through 3 media outlets (Facebook, Instagram and Twitter).
2. The PI published tw books with the largest Italian publishing house, La Feltrinelli, entitled La Grande Invenzione, which has been a world-wide bestseller, translated into 8 languages and many countries, with major publishing houses (USA, UK, Spain, Germany, France, Greece, China). The book received significant resonance in the press, and the PI was interviewed several times on TV and radio in international newslets. The book collectively and worldwide sold ca 50.000 copies. A second book with La Feltrinelli, entitled Il Salto. Segni, Figure, Parole: Viaggio all'origine dell'immaginazione, was published in 2021 and translated into French and German. A third book has been commissioned by Feltrinelli, provisional title is: Islands. Lines, Confines and Scripts.
3. During the SARS-COV2 pandemic, the PI transposed all activities on online platforms, and created a series of seminars, SCRIBO (Ancient Scripts in Bologna), a first-ever series uniquely dedicated to ancient writing systems and their decipherment. SCRIBO launched in early May 2020 and has run 3 very successful editions. A fourth edition ran 12 June 2023 as a hybrid event, the title is Beyond SCRIBO: Talking Images.
4. In collaboration with the Museum of Heraklion, on Crete, a Workshop ran on the 23 September 2023 entitled New Prospects on the Aegean Undeciphered Scripts: Cretan Hieroglyphic and Linear A, with collaborators of INSCRIBE and top international researchers in the field.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

In terms of different strands of INSCRIBE, the major breakthroughs can be summarized as follows:


WP1: From a linguistic perspective we have published an article in the top-tier journal in the field that aims to assess how writing is invented globally (‘Rebus and acrophony in invented writing’ in Writing Systems Research 11/1). The PI published two books focused on this strand of her research. A focus is ongoing in relation to China and Mesopotamia, considering these 2 inventions of writing individually with 3 Research assistants, with two articles in submission for two top-tier journals.

WP2: Several articles have been published in top-tier international journals on the earliest writing system from Europe, the Cretan Hieroglyphic script, still undeciphered. We have proposed the first standardised repertoire of signs, up to this point a lacuna in modern scientific output. We have also reconstructed the relation to the coeval writing system from Crete, Linear A, that too still undeciphered, in terms of graphic shapes of its signs vs à vis Cretan hieroglyphic.

WP3: INSCRIBE has applied for the first time in the history of the discipline complex methods drawn from computer science, geared towards the decipherment of the Aegean scripts of the II millennium BC. We have analyzed the fraction system of Linear A and produced an article submitted to the very top-tier publication, the Journal of Archaeological Science. This article is fundamental to the aims and results of the project as it has reached a milestone: the decipherment of the fraction values of the Linear A script: this means that we have been able to definitively establish their mathematical values. This is a major breakthrough in the field. An article published in Plos One charts the possibilities and potential of applying unsupervised neural networks to the undeciphered Cypro-Minoan script. The article received a global press release and much resonance in the media.

WP4: The first-ever 3D models of the Aegean and the Rongorongo inscriptions have been produced with a high definition laser scanner and are now part of an online database. We so far have created 3D models for ca 10 very complex Rongorongo tablets and more than 400 Aegean inscriptions.

INSCRIBE questioning