Section I - CONCEPTUAL AND HISTORICAL FRAMEWORK

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1 CONVEYING MEANING IN WRITING

Scholarly work on the definition and origin of writing has been pursued in the last decades in different
cultural frameworks and disciplines. If writing is considered routinely the invention responsible for the great
divide in human culture between prehistory and history,1 scholarship acknowledges that there are no fully
satisfying answers to the key questions about how and why it was developed and even what exactly it is.

1.A Assessing signs: Concepts and sounds

The main challenging and long-standing divergence about the definition of writing technology is if it was
invented to express the sounds of a language in a way that allows for an indirect transmission of information
or in order to fix, store and convey mainly concepts and ideas.
The straightforward answer from the traditional approach hangs the nature of writing to the loop of rope of
the spoken language. Writing is a communicational system that supposedly secures a series of phonetic
sequences (single sounds, syllables, or words) of an individual language on an established space (possibly on
a surface) utilizing more or less permanent marks “in such a way that it can be recovered more or less
exactly without the intervention of the utter” (Daniels 1996: 3).
According to this restricted canon, ars scribendi is the practice of memorizing and expressing ideas
connected to an individual language and systematically interrelated with the respective spoken language
through a graphic manifestation (Kammerzell 2007). Therefore, understanding a text primarily means
retranslating it into the represented oral language (Damerow 1999). Recording speech, writing cannot accept
pictography2 and ideography3 as its internal components (Bloomfield 1933: 283; DeFrancis 1989: 20-64;
Lounsbury 1989: 203; Coe 1992: 13; Unger and DeFrancis 1995). Trigger proposes to refer to pictography
and ideography as recording and reserve the term writing for systems that represent language (Trigger 2004:
44).
According to another and broader definition, the intent of writing is different. It is a system of
intercommunication aimed to store and transfer specific information in a conventional manner by means of
visible marks so that it can be reused (Gelb 1963: 253; Haas 1976; Salomon 2001; Sampson 1985). In order
to define what writing is, no connection with the spoken code of a language is necessary. The association
with ideas and concepts is enough. Of course, the knowledge conveyed through the oral language could be
represented by means of a text. Nevertheless, creating a text refers primarily to fix concepts and this process

1
The conception according to which ars scribendi is a key diagnostic criterion to oppose history to primitivism and
civilization to barbarism is a well studied and discussed issue in Historical epistemology. I am interested here to
underline that this idea is usually connected with the concept of uniform, progressive, and necessary evolution and with
the opinion that writing has to be treated as a technological achievement. Lewis H. Morgan, a nineteenth-century
anthropologist and ethnologist with a major influence on the start-up of the sociological discipline, in his best-known
book Ancient Societies distinguished the evolution of human culture into three basic stages set up by technological
inventions and their effects on culture, subsistence, marriage, family, and political organization. Along a rigid
succession, the proposed stages are savagery, barbarism, and civilization. Fire, fish diet, bow, and arrow typify the
savage era. Pottery, domestication of animals, irrigated agriculture, metalworking epitomize the barbarian era. The
phonetic alphabet is emblematic of the civilization era (L.H. Morgan 1877: 12).
After a century, Gerhard Lenski, another very influential scholar on American sociology, in his Power and Prestige
(1966) and Human Societies: An Introduction to Macrosociology (1974) connected humankind evolution to the amount
and utilization of information and knowledge. The more information and knowledge (especially the technological
know-how capable to shape and exploit the natural environment) a given society has, the more advanced it is.
Therefore, he used the progresses in the history of communication in order to identify four stages of human
development. In the first stage, information is passed by genes (in Human Societies, he designated it as “the common
genetic heritage of human beings”). In the second stage, humans can learn and transmit information through experience.
The third is characterized by the start-up in using signs and developing logic. In the fourth, humankind becomes able to
create symbols, develop language, and invent writing.
For further evolutionary theorizations on writing as primary innovation distinguishing civilization from primitivism, see
Childe (1950), Sjoberg (1960: 32-34, 38), Gelb (1963: 221), and Goody (1986).
2
Stylized and simplified signs to represent in picture things or beings.
3
Signs of naturalistic root, generally stylized images, that conventionally express (individually or grouping) abstract
concepts (beyond names, objects and quantities) according to a definite inventory.
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does not depend on how they may be expressed in spoken language and by its organizational rules. What
actually stimulates the use of writing is its peculiar relationship with culture, which is the mission to
establish graphic sequences of ideas, namely connections of concepts. This is a mental process that does not
necessarily have (but could have and often have) to cope with the translation of speech sounds into visual
marks, but with the cultural milieu of a society.
Knowledge may have an oral expression and a written one; writing may embed information persistently from
an oral language, but may also directly represent information. “Historical epistemology poses the questions
of when, where, why and how writing was invented in view of the broader perspective of studying writing as
a means of representation and the historical transmission of knowledge that may or may not be intimately
linked to language as a means of oral communication” (Damerow 1999).
From an abstract and ahistorical point of view, the boundaries of the traditionally defined technique of
writing are clear: it does not belong to writing any sign that does not represent the sounds of a language on a
surface. However, when we “write English, Italian, or German”, i.e. we record graphically these languages,
we use marks such as $, &, @ and many others that do not represent linguistic elements. Even the most
developed form of ‘speech writing’ is not capable to record the entirety linguistic code.
From an historical point of view, writing is not a means developed toward an abstract optimum to serve the
generic universal human need to build a linguistically based script, but a social process of knowledge
representation based on human interaction and historical depth. It cannot be considered an incidental
condition of the early systems of writing either that they represent knowledge in various ways that do not
necessarily presuppose the ability to express oral language, or that they were initially used predominantly or
even exclusively in specific domains such as to document administrative activities or to communicate with
divinities. The use of signs for writing was oriented to the meaning of words (not their sounds) and to the
distinction between concrete ideas and abstract concepts. The restricted context of application, which
influenced the formal structure and semantics of the early scripts, is constitutive of their origin. The earliest
experiments with ars scribendi, when it was utilized to store and transmit ideas rather than the sounds of
language in which ideas were expressed, have to be considered as formative stages of development and not
“pre-writing”.
The definition of writing that is detached from its dependence on spoken language has a broad corpus of
studies. Linguists like Haas (1976), Cardona (1981; 1990), Gaur (1984-1992), Twyman (1986), Larsen
(1988), Crump (1990), and Haarmann (1995; 1998a; 2002c), semioticians like Harris (1995; 2000) and
Rotman (sketching a “semiotic model of mathematics,” 1993, 1995), anthropologists (Aveni 1986; Wrolstad
and Fisher 1986), graphic designers (Kress and van Leeuwen 1996), art historians (Elkins 1999; Boone and
Mignolo 1994) and scientists (Drake 1986; Owen 1986) are proposing a broader view of writing. It “focuses
more on writing’s communicative function and less on its relation to language ... The point being made is
that writing should be recognized and studied as graphic communication system rather than solely as a
speech-recording system” (Boone 2004).

1.B Constitutive features of writing

At first, it is necessary to assess the concept of writing, because the absent or retarded acknowledgment of
some ancient scripts such as the Indus script, the Danube script or in the recent past the Maya script is due to
the inadequate definitional approach to writing technology. Writing technology is assigned a position among
the different channels of a modeled communication system. This signifies that it does not convey packages
of information in isolation, but regarding to a certain cultural milieu. It is component of a complex network
of communication codes that include a mimicry system, a spoken language, information storage devices such
as Ancient Near Eastern “tokens” or Peruvian quipus, and a graphic information processing. The latter is
made up of symbols of identification (e.g. heraldic insigna), numerical systems (e.g., calendrical notation,
measures and weights), and sign systems for specific uses, such as mathematics, traffic signals, laundry
symbols, hazard symbols...
One should not expect that a particular sign system would fit into a specific class straightforwardly. There is
nothing that forbids the users combining several communicational codes within a single document, from
integrating elements of dissimilar graphic systems or from utilize an element of a graphic system into
another. Characters of a script may be used as livestock brands; written texts can be produced in a way that

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their association with the original message becomes completely superseded by other factors as in Arabic
calligraphy or Concrete Poetry.
In the figure below, a typology of communication channels is delivered as example.

Fig. 1.1 – A typology of communication channels.

(Adapted after Haarmann 1997: 673).

According to the system developed by the author, there are five essential features of ars scribendi that
distinguish it from other communication channels employing signs used to store and transmit information.
Even if one of the following criteria is missing, then one is in presence of another means of communication.

A. The principle of one-to-one equivalence. A sign stands for a single idea or a sound; an idea or a sound is
indicated by a single sign (Merlini 2004a). In pictographic writing, the formula contemplates one iconic sign
to render one idea or concept. In syllabic writing, the formula is one sign (iconic as in Mycenaean Linear B
or non-iconic as in cuneiform writing) as an equivalent for one syllable of a given language. In alphabetic
writing, the formula is one abstract letter representing one sound of a given language (Haarmann 2008a: 24).
The most ancient phase of writing technology demonstrates – in Mesopotamian, Chinese and Indus
civilizations – the correspondence between a sign and an idea. A sign was not associated with a set of ideas,
but with only one. For example, the controvert Walam Olum, that narrates the epic of the Leni-Lenape
Native Americans from the creation of the world to the first contact with the Europeans in 1620, is usually
considered a sequence of pictographs. However, it cannot be viewed as representative of a writing system,
because a single sign can express an entire sentence (Haarmann 1995; Merlini 2004a).

B. Writing expresses necessary concepts and only optionally the sounds of a language. The single idea
represented by a sign is not unavoidably the graphic echo of the spoken language; it does not inevitably have
a linguistic significance. If the written communication records ideas and not necessarily words, this implies
the possibility of reading a text in a visual way, leaving aside its oral translation. Writing can be either
completely or predominantly unrelated to language or it may be strictly language-oriented (Haarmann 2008a:
16-17).
The dismissal of the concept of writing as a more or less truthful mirror of the spoken language, in order to
link it to the world of ideas, breaks away from the traditional concept that signs are equivalent to sounds.
Being acculturated to the western Latin-based writing systems, a Pavlovian reflex pushes us to make effort to
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capture a sound in any written character. This attitude makes difficult to conceive the option to read visually
a text independently from its possible oral translation. However, as Aveni cautions "if we desire to
understand the meaning of literacy in the context of other cultures, we must be careful not to confuse our
tools and methods, our aims and goals, our world or cosmic view, with those of the people we study" (1986:
253).
The non-fatal chain from signs to sounds of a language is not a theoretical utterance, but a historical
observation made evident by a comparative view on the ancient scripts. The earliest experiments with
writing and the increasing integration of its signs in coherent systems for readability were not intended to
reproduce the segmental structure of the spoken language (word, syllable, or letter) or to express its
grammatical system. Our ancestors were rather anxious to embed in the space the content of their thoughts.
Lodging oral speech on clay or paper was a secondary goal, which prevailed only successively and in more
developed phases. The Indus and the Danube civilizations declined before their systems of writing reached
this step of maturity. Cuneiform and classic Chinese indicate that a written system, once hooked by the
sphere of sounds, tends to employ a sign for a word, then for a syllable, finally for a single phoneme. 4 The
alphabet (the identity of a single graphic character and a sound) corresponds to the last case. The beginning
of writing does not coincide with that one of the alphabet, which also is not the measuring stick for all
writing systems. The unnecessary correspondence between signs and speech sounds retrogresses the alphabet
to only one amongst the numerous written codes and evidences that the invention of writing preceded its
arrival by thousands of years.5 Instead, there is no point in organizing hierarchically the writing systems from
less to more evolved, because each society directly expresses or adopts from the outside those types of
writing that are suitable and necessary. For example, the Japanese system of writing is not alphabetic, but
syllabic. However, it is employed by one of the most technologically advanced and successful country in the
contemporary world. To sum up, according to a comparative view of ancient scripts, the earliest experiments
with writing were not intended to reproduce the segmental structure of the spoken language (word, syllable,
or letter) or to express its grammatical system. The description of writing as a graphic system which
replicates the linguistic system is a historically hindsight judgment (Harris 1986).
Even if the elementary principle of writing is not phonetic, assuming that the writer conveys a single concept
through a single sign, it is not said that the reader cannot associate that sign to a sound (e.g., a word) of
her/his own idiom. In ancient writings, the representation can be non-phonetic, but the reception can be
phonetic. The sender can communicate a nugget of wisdom through signs that express its heart without the
necessity to use words. The reader, however, is not mute. He conceptualizes ideas while reading, and speaks
using language. Concepts communicated by signs are decoded and expressed according to the reader’s
orality. Therefore, the sender elaborates and transmits a message in a completely different manner from how
the reader receives and decodes it.
Even in the Neolithic and Copper Age civilization that developed along the Danube and tributaries, the acts
of writing and reading can be compared to a coin with two sides, and yet it is always the same object. In fact,
the relationship that the writer has with the act of writing has to be distinguished from that one the reader has
with the text while decoding the message. In the first case, the content plays a pivotal role and its phonetic
rendering is a more or less significant option. In the second case, the oral actualization could be not less
important. Once the distinction between writer/concept and reader/concept plus sounds has been made, one
has to consider that if there might be content without a tangible phonetic expression, there is no phonetic
expression without content. The writer uses the ideas and the reader uses the words, exactly like the two
faces of a coin (Merlini 2004a).
If the reader follows often the phonetic principle, why would the writer not have to do correspondingly the
same? Since writing aims to express contents, the utilization of words and sentences is not required. Signs
are directly able to communicate ideas through single distinct marks that conventionally indicate each of
them. For example, a pictogram can be used to express the concept of “plow” regardless of the fact that the
word for this farming implement varies in different languages (plow/plough in English, aratro in Italian, or
charrue in French). Similarly, a child understands the concept of mother long before he/she pronounces the
word “mom” for the first time. It simply means that he/she has finally associated that figure to a sound. Even
before doing so, he/she knew exactly what the mother is for him/her.

4
See § 2.B.g “Writing fixes thought, not only sounds”.
5
See § 2B.i “The beginnings of writing and alphabet do not coincide”.
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Going on with examples from the ancient systems of writing, the Indus civilization wrote mainly according
to the non-phonetic principle: each sign indicated a single idea and grammatical elements were not in use.
The reader, however, decoded the signs reading them in the native language. In Sumer, half a millennium
before the invention of the cuneiform, pictograms and logograms (semantic signs standing for concepts)
have been used to write texts. In this phase, writing only expressed the key concepts and the reader could
read them in his/her language. It was not a simple task to understand all the sentences, however, because
only the conceptual core was marked and not, for example, the grammatical elements. Therefore, a great deal
of pressure built up towards a phonetic landing of writing and a growing number of syllabic signs appeared
in the cuneiform.
In conclusion, the ancient systems of writing originated within a precise cultural and linguistic environment
that included, amongst other features, asymmetry according to which the writer mainly represented concepts,
decoded by the reader into words. Even if the beginning of ars scribendi lacked for phonetic associations and
therefore the language spoken by the writer did not appear in the moment and manner of tracing signs, a
certain language was spoken in the reader’s cultural environment and was used in the process of decoding. If
a circle with rays stands for a concept of immediate understanding and it is not necessary to pronounce “sun”
in order to understand what it represents, on the other hand the concept of sun can be connected to the word
that utter it in one of the languages able to express that sign. From this point of view, it is important to
distinguish between a message that can be optionally put into words and a message that is linguistically
plugged (Coulmas 1989: 20).
In a historical retrospective the distinction between “conceptually-oriented writing” (definable as “non-
language writing,” “visual writing,” “pictorial writing,” “iconographic writing,” or “figurative writing”) and
“language-related writing” (“language writing,” “phonetic writing,” or “verbal writing”) is neither rigid nor
exclusive. It can be operated only as a point of reference in the chaos of the ancient scripts. In history, human
beings – completely uninterested in scholarly categorizations – effectively faced the crucial connection
between sounds and signs, inventing systems of writing that combined different types of elements. Neither a
100% logographic, nor a 100% phonetic system of writing existed. All the known logographic systems are
(or were) mixtures of semantic signs standing for concepts (i.e. logograms) and phonetic signs. It is possible
to identify the employment, although marginal, of phonetic elements in the most archaic phase of Sumerian,
Chinese and Indus scripts. Even the most efficient and "pure" logographic system, the Chinese system, was
not hinged on an exclusive presence of ideograms, but on their prevalence on oral elements. A phonetic
ingredient was embedded in Chinese from earliest times; even in Shang oracle bones (see Boltz 1999 for a
review). At the opposite pole, Western literacy is comprised, not only by fifty-two alphabetic signs, but also
by logograms (‘whole word’ semantic symbols such as +, &, $, £, and so on), numerals and punctuation
marks (Robinson 1995: 13).

Fig. 1.2 - All the writing systems are a mixture of phonetic and logographic elements.
In Finnish, phoneticism predominates, while the Chinese script is chiefly logographic.
(After Robinson 2002: 29).

The process of phoneticization in Sumer is indicative, because the archaic pictographic system developed
from a quite pure logographic structure to a logography contaminated by occasional phonetic values
(syllabic). The suitability to express sounds became dominant in the succeeding Akkadian cuneiform.
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The elusiveness of the distinction between “visual systems of writing” and “phonetic systems of writing”
depends not only on a mixed presence of logograms and phonetic signs, but also on the fabric of the ancient
script. Even in strong presence of elements of a spoken language, the distinction between semasiography and
logophonic writing tends to dissolve, if full sentences or significant rebus recording does not occur (Sampson
1985: 49, analyzing the Archaic Sumerian).

C. Writing needs a minimum number of inventoried signs. A single or few graphic elements are not enough
to substantiate a system of writing. For example, the discovery in Turkmenistan of four signs on a c. 2300
BCE fragment of ceramic from Gonur (Wilford 2001) and other four on a stamp seal from Annau (Hiebert
2001) is still not enough evidence of a system of writing in the BMAC civilization (Bactria Margiana
Archaeology Complex), even if they look like characters of an evolved ancient Chinese. Neolithic signs have
been recovered at Jiahu, in central China. They belong to the Peiligang culture, which developed in the
Yellow River basin c. 6600-6200 BCE (Rincon 2003; Xueqin, Harbottle, Zhang, Wang 2003: 31).
Altogether 16 distinct signs have been identified. They include those resembling Chinese characters of later
periods such as those for "eye", “sun” and "window", as well as the numerals eight and 20 in the Shang
script, although a gap of about 5,000 years. Sign outline was standardized, sign use was conventional and it
intended to reinforce the communication implicated in rituals aimed to reveal the will of the ancestors and
divine beings. Despite the above-mentioned script-like features, the number of so far inventoried divination
signs at Jiahu is too small a sample to document an early form of writing (Boltz 1986; Keightley 1989).

D. Writing is a closed system of signs. It has a forced systematicity (i.e., a number of signs are associated
with different single meanings and are inter-connected) and there is no compositional freedom in the
organization of signs. Each type of writing has precise organizational criteria and a set of rules that
administers its use.
It has to be noticed that linearity, which is the succession of one sign after another, is not necessary one of
these principles. The arrangement of ancient marks in horizontal rows is often believed a hallmark pattern of
“true writing”, indicating syntax and language-specific word order. It is, for example, the current analysis of
the Cascajal block. It is considered the earliest known example of literacy in the Americas being conform to
all expectations of writing technology such as distinct units, patterns of sequencing, and consistent reading
order.6 However, while linearity is often utilized in writing technology, it is not mandatory and it is
erroneous to state that the sequences would reflect, by definition, patterns of language. Artistic motifs can be
arranged in a sequential way similar to the textual organization of script signs. 7 Symbols were sometimes
placed following a linear and logical succession (the hierarchical manifestation of gods or the sequential
apparition of asterisms in the sky).8 On the other hand, ancient scripts arranged sometimes signs haphazardly
or according to a block format.

E. Writing uses an inventory of signs that is limited and defined. Every system of writing employs a precise
and predetermined corpus of characters that are not drawn according to the writer‘s individual
expressiveness.

To sum up, writing is a technique for communication that utilizes visual markers for fixing packages of
information for reuse independently from any connection with spoken language. Consistently, basic
requirements by which any form of writing distinguishes itself from other channels aimed to convey
information are: a minimum number of repertoried signs, each corresponding to a single concept, identified
in an inventory, and structured as a system. This definitional apparatus is coherent with the
acknowledgement that the original writing systems of the ancient world started exclusively or predominantly
as logographic scripts.

6
See § 2.B.c.6 “The foundation of literacy in Mesoamerica”.
7
See § 5.E.b.5 “Artistic patterns can be arranged in a way similar to the textual organization of signs”.
8
See § 5.F.a.6 “Script and symbolic language can both organize their marks in similar way”.
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1.C Might the Danube Script be a system of writing? An inquiry

Coherently to the afore-settled framework, two are the key concepts to put immediately at work in order to
inquiry the possibility that the Danube script might be one of the ancient writing systems. The first concerns
the establishment if it acquits the criteria that distinguish a system of writing from another kind of notational
system: graphic signs express single ideas, form a well-defined inventory with a minimum amount, and join
to a close semiotic system based on distinct set of rules aimed to readability.
The second concept involves the observations that a comparison of the fabric of the ancient writing systems
makes evident that the human ingeniousness produced similar strategies and techniques in semiotic activities
in diverse areas of the world at different times. The early writing systems of the world emerged according to
a similar pattern, and the logographic component was prominent in the earliest stages of the experiments
with writing technology. “In the historical retrospective, one can make the surprising observation that none
of the early writing systems that emerged in the civilizations of the Old World started out as a phonographic
system. Regardless of how the writing systems of antiquity associated themselves, writing started out as non-
phonetic. In the course of time, more and more writing systems became associated with the sound structures
of the languages which were rendered by their signs” (Haarmann 2008a: 20). In early writings, the sound
sequences of spoken words were neglected in favor of the message as product of the mind for reuse, which
had therefore to be provided with signs. The primary intention was not the exact rendering of speech sounds,
but the fixation and transmission of ideas and information of which messages were composed.
What sort of writing might the Danube script be? The working hypothesis is that it had an original European
coinage, even if the distinct constitutive elements that characterize its sign shape and use find parallels in
other writing systems of ancient civilizations. The logophonic writing systems, hinged on a logographic
dominant (represented by pictograms/ideograms) mixed additionally and/or marginally with spoken
language-oriented signs, were the most widespread in ancient times (Haarmann 1998a). Such ancient
logographies had no explicit intention to render words according to their sound structure, but included - even
if occasionally - phonetic values. They were the early Egyptian Hieroglyphs (c. 3350–2600 BCE; Dreyer
1998), the Proto-Elamite script (c. 3050–2700 BCE; Vallat 1986; Englund 1996), the Indus script (c. 2600–
1800 BCE; Parpola 1986; 1994; 1996; 2005), the Cretan hieroglyphs (Bennett 1996; Olivier 1986a), the
Chinese writing of the oracular bones (c. 1200–780 BCE; Keightley 1978), the Olmec glyphs (c. 1500-600
BCE), and probably the Danube script (Haarmann 1995: 31 ff.; ibidem 2008b: 14; Merlini 2001; ibidem
2004a).
These ancient writing systems that encoded signs standing for sounds to only a limited extent, being oriented
to express ideas via conventional use of representational or abstract shapes, were extremely complicated
typically consisting of an inventory of several hundred signs, omitting grammatical elements and forcing to a
farraginous procedure in order to understand and reconstruct the meaning of the message. It was a
formidable task to learn and use them, requiring groups of scribes and a specific long running training. In
many instances, this asset made writing the monopoly of royal and religious courts (Cross 1989). However,
they were not capable to record long narratives, or to fix extended speech.
The Egyptian writing of the dynastic period was based on the logico-segmental principle, utilizing a pictorial
word-sign followed by signs used phonetically to indicate the consonants contained in the word represented
by the word-sign. Phonographic notation of vowels was omitted. Having the ancient Egyptian language an
Afro-asiatic root, semantic meaning was rendered largely through consonants and grammatical meaning by
vowels; hence native speakers normally could supply vowels from context (Diakonoff 1991: 209; Ritner
1996; Trigger 2004: 50).
The archaic pictographic Sumerian script (c. 3200-2700 BCE; Green and Nissen 1987) was logosyllabic.
Logograms rendered unbound morphemes such as nouns, verbs, and adjectives. The syllabic component
wrote bound morphemes, including grammatical particles and affixes, and provided phonetic complements
to clarify the readings of logograms (Cooper 1996: 37-45). About 36-54% of the signs represented syllables.
Graphic determinatives (which are written elements, but not spoken) weighted about 3%. The other 60-42 %
were logograms and they were the fundamental signs for the comprehension of the texts (Civil 1973: 26).
The Sumerian writing was never predominantly phonographic. It never attempted to render the language
exactly as it was spoken (Thomsen 1984: 20). Still, after the introduction of the cuneiform technology of
writing (c. 2700 BCE), Sumerian scribes wrote according to the “catchword principle”. They wrote the key
words of a sentence and often neglected grammatical elements and syntactic markers (Haarmann 2008a: 21-

17
22). Only the adoption of cuneiform writing by the Akkadians (c. 2500 BCE) shifted it toward a chiefly
syllabic (Parpola 1994: 35).
Mayan hieroglyphs were logosyllabic. In the quite linguistically unified Mayan area, it was not necessary to
develop a rebus recording. A large number of logograms utilized abstract symbols to signify distinct words
or ideas for nouns, verbs and other unbound morphemes. They were combined with phonetic syllabic signs
intended to write affixes and to replicate the sounds and syntax of speech in order to provide widely
understood and precise rendering of the multivocal logograms. Sometimes they also replaced logograms
(Coe 1992: 262; Montgomery 2002). There are many examples of words that can be represented both by
logograms and by phonetic spellings through syllabic signs contained in the syllabary. Two of the best-
known examples are the words for jaguar (Balam / ba-la-ma) and shield (Pakal / pa-ka-la) (Harris, Stearns
1997: 34). The Maya script had approximately 800 signs, some 150 of which had a syllabic function (Trigger
2004: 51). In Iraq, Egypt, China and Mesoamerica, logophonic systems, once established, tended to persist
unchanged in their general principles over long periods and were not inclined to evolve into a purely
phonographic script (Trigger 2004: 54).
As the other ancient scripts, the Danube script appears dominated by the logographic principle, toned down
by a marginal phonetic component. As peculiar feature, it employs mainly abstract signs. The writing system
that developed in the Danube civilization would be therefore made up prevalently of abstract signs that
compress and express ideas and, as a minority, of signs connected to sounds. This has to deal with its
prevalent utilization in a specific cultural domain, magic-religious beliefs and liturgies. It was mainly a
sacred – and for some aspects secret – script. In the early stages of Iraqi, Egyptian, and highland
Mesoamerican recording, analogously no effort was made to write phrases or sentences. Nevertheless, for the
first two regions this recording has habitually referred to as writing. For Mesoamerica, until recently the term
writing was generally avoided (Trigger 2004: 48). For the Southeastern European Neolithic and Copper Age
recording, the term writing is still now often avoided.

1D Complexity, malleability, and unsystematicity of ancient scripts induce degrees of decipherment

If increasing numbers of amateurs are offering exotic and appealing mass media "readings" based on
semiotic shortcuts and hazardous associations with subsequent systems of writing, the decipherment process
of the Danube script requires coping the complexity, malleability, and unsystematicity of the earliest scripts.
Ancient writing systems can employ hundreds or even thousands of signs, texts can run in different
directions (in the lucky case that they are aligned), and signs can possess multiple, often unrelated, meanings.
As a result, contemporary left-right directional alphabets are not the most helpful models for trying to decode
an ancient writing. Above all, ancient writing systems are not alphabetic in nature, even if they can contain
signs that appear to be alphabetic. For example, the Egyptian hieroglyph stands for a short a as well as for
a short e, or for a short o, the sounds as a long a.
The vast majority of signs in Egyptian hieroglyphics and cuneiform are syllabograms, which stand for two or
three phonemes, or logograms, which stand for whole words. However, in some instances, a sign can stand
for either a syllabogram or a logogram, depending on the context. The Egyptian hieroglyph has the value
pr, but can indicate also the word house. In Akkadian cuneiform, the sign has the value an, but it can
also stand for three logograms: the word ilum which means "god" (but transliterated as DINGIR, the
Sumerian word for "god"), the god of heaven Anum, and then by extension the word šamû which means
"heaven".
The number of inventoried signs was high also due to presence of homophones (signs that differ in
appearance, but have the same sound value). In Egyptian hieroglyphics, both the signs (the lotus plant) and
(the oxyrynchus fish) have the phonetic value , which is pronounced cha. The presence of
homophones gave some flexibility to scribes, but posed a number of problems to those who would decipher
these scripts. A class of signs called determinatives, which are written as a part of a word but have no sound,
was utilized. Its role was to disambiguate the meaning of a word classifying it as component of a more
general group of items, because homophonic signs were common. For this reason, in most cases
determinatives are written at the end of the word they are related. In Akkadian or Sumerian, the cuneiform
symbol discussed above can also function as determinative utilized to indicate the name of a god.

18
Likewise, in ancient Egyptian the hieroglyph is one of the determinatives used to indicate that the relate
word is the name of a god.
Further adding to the complexity of the ancient scripts, many of the symbols can be polyphonic, having
multiple, seemingly unrelated sound values. In Akkadian, the cuneiform symbol can stand for bad,
bat, ba , be, and til. While the first three sound values are obviously similar, the final two do not have any
resemblance to them. There is no equivalent example of a symbol with multiple, unrelated values in
contemporary Western alphabets. An additional complication arises when earliest writing systems used the
same symbols for both words and numbers. The cuneiform symbol can mean one or sixty in some contexts,
while in others it might serve as a determinative to indicate a male personal name.
For the above-mentioned reasons, many ancient scripts consisted of hundreds or thousands of graphic
signs. Some system of writing as the Chinese are open-ended, there is no upper limit to the number of
characters. The complexity resulting from the potentially unlimited number of signs was acknowledged by
ancient peoples and explains why ars scribendi was so highly valued and the restricted number of those
capable in writing and reading.
While the complexity of early writing systems made learning them a challenge, these systems also possessed
a remarkable degree of flexibility and malleability that allowed for their use by neighboring societies even
when the languages were unrelated. Near and East Asia literacy provides significant examples of flexibility.
Cuneiform was remarkably flexible, serving as written form not only for languages in multiple language
families, but also for languages that were conveyed logographically as well as for languages that were
conveyed alphabetically. While the influence of the Sumerians on West Asian history came to an end with
the fall of the Ur III Dynasty, their writing system continued to play a role for another two millennia through
use by Babylonians, Assyrians, Persians, and other West Asian societies.
The Chinese writing system consists of thousands of characters and is highly complex. After development in
the second millennium BCE, Chinese characters were adopted by neighboring societies, serving as the basis
of the writing systems used in Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. The adoption of the Chinese characters by these
unrelated languages is akin to the acceptance of cuneiform by Akkadians, Babylonians, and others. In East
Asia, the borrowing of Chinese writing was driven by China's political power as well as neighbors’ interest
in its religious, philosophical and institutional traditions; use of Chinese characters enabled these cultures to
access written materials relating to these topics. The ruling classes were set apart from the rest of the
population by their knowledge of Chinese characters and their aptitude to use Chinese in its written form. In
the long term, however, Chinese characters were not a good fit for the spoken languages of China's
neighbors. Therefore, Koreans, Japanese, and Vietnamese reformed their China's driven scripts to reflect
better the nature of their native languages.
Information represented in early writing systems is essentially incomplete. They neither adequately fixed an
ancient language, nor provided sufficient information about the grammar. The scribes apparently assumed
that the readers of their texts, much like conversers in oral communication, knew the context of the
information they wanted to transmit. Therefore, they probably assumed that their readers were able to
interpret the given information correctly, in the same way as they could understand oral statements
contextualized in a natural setting of discourse (Damerow 1999).
The common opinion according to which an ancient script is deciphered when every trained person would
make the same sense of a given inscription is challenged by the earliest scripts being much more complex
and subtle than our modern alphabets. A 'successful decipherment of an ancient script' means different things
to different scholars. At one extreme, everyone agrees that the Egyptian hieroglyphs have been deciphered,
because every trained Egyptologist would make the same sense of almost every word of a given inscription.
At the other extreme, everyone agrees that the lndus script is undeciphered, because no one can make sense
of its inscriptions to the satisfaction of anyone else. Adhering to the traditional viewpoint that restricts
writing to the speech-encoding scripts, some scholars arrive to claim that the lndus script could not be
deciphered simply because it is not a writing system, but a system of symbols. The archaeological
understanding of the Indus society would deepening if abandoning the traditional Indus-script thesis (Farmer,
Henderson, and Witzel 2002; Farmer 2003; Farmer, Sproat, and Witzel 2004; Sproat and Farmer 2005;
ibidem 2004; for a reply Parpola 2005; ibidem 2007).
Complexity, malleability, and unsystematicity of ancient scripts make reasonable a wide spectrum of
opinions between the poles of deciphered-undeciphered. In the case of Mayan writing, most scholars agree
that a high proportion, as much as 85 per cent, of the inscriptions can be meaningfully read, and yet large
numbers of individual glyphs remain contentious or obscure. Scholars can often decipher the numerical
19
system, the arithmetical procedures, and/or the calendrical scheme of an ancient script without knowing its
underlying language. Even a non-trained person can sometimes obtain accurate sense of some Egyptian
hieroglyphs merely from the pictographic/iconic quality of certain signs, such as the recognizable humans,
creatures, objects and actions. There is not an indisputable shibboleth by which scholarship assesses a script
as still undeciphered or deciphered. One has instead to deal with degrees of decipherment. The most useful
criterion is the degree to which the proposed decipherment can generate consistent readings from new
samples of the script, preferably produced by persons other than the original decipherer (Robinson 2002: 18).
If it is not settled what decipherment is, it is unambiguous what it is not:
o Fitting an interpretation to an isolated text
o Coming up with an interpretation that gives no insight into other texts.

The hypothesized Southern European script is not out of the fluid and complex framework that characterizes
the semiotic mechanisms of ancient scripts.

1E The Danube script within a holographic visual scenario

The proposed comparative approach to ancient scripts, which extends the narrow definition of what writing
is from the strict linguistic sense to connect it necessary to concepts and optionally to speech sounds, has to
face the bottleneck of avoiding the extension of the field of literacy to include every symbol or schematic
drawing, from early Christian iconography to livestock marks, from heraldic signs to directional arrows.
The experimental history of writing may be interpreted as a continuous struggle for elaborating reliable and
effective graphic systems to record and transmit reusable packages of information. The relations (role and
interweaving) between writing and iconography are specific of each cultural historical setting. If the
contemporary mindset is accustomed to separate text and illustration, the earliest writing systems such as the
Danube script operated within a holographic visual scenario.
In the Danube civilization, the script was not fixed on rectangular, white, and smooth leafs of paper, but on
highly symbolic objects such as human statuettes, seals, anthropomorphic pots and their emblematic parts
such as vulvas, chests, buttocks etc. The Danube script was the latest component of a complex
communication system (the Danube Communication System) which included religious symbols, emblematic
geometric decorations, devices for memory support, star and terrestrial maps, ritualistic markings, numeric
notations, family identifiers, community affiliation marks, signs stating the owner/manufacturer of an
artifact, etc. Sometimes different communicative channels – iconography, symbolism, literacy and
decoration – were put simultaneously on play on the same object.9 Besides, ars scribendi emerged from and
expanded into the visual realm. Specularly, the conventions of writing - everything from its linear
organization to its semantic use of the form, size, order, and placement of signs - developed artworks
characterized by complex and sequential visual narratives in place of repetitive motifs.
In the Neolithic and Copper Age cognitive experience, pure (figurative and abstract) images expressing ideas
and writing were positioned at the two poles of a continuum and writing was more flexibly applicable than
the common definition suggests. We can rework the proposal of Vilmos Voigt, president of the Hungarian
Association of semiotics (Voigt 1993), organizing the range of the emblematic signs appearing in the
Danube civilization on a continuum with images (iconic and abstract) and writing as ideal position at either
end:
o A simple image in the complete absence of any written sign;
o An image which include an integrated text (as on the coat of arms in the Middle Ages);
o An image put together with or beside a text;
o A text illustrated by images;
o Decorative writing, i.e. the trimmings made with ornamental letters (Islamic art is typical);
o An inscription positioned on an object.

A holistic communication employing writing in association with other media is widespread in the history,
being powerful, complete, and able to cope with nuances. Typical is the utilization of mythograms in

9
See § 5.B “Settling the Danube script within the Danube communication system”; § 5.F.c “Symbolic, written and
decorative codes simultaneously on play”.
20
religious sphere: chains of writing signs and symbols aimed to record and transmit spiritual knowledge
inducing the believer to recall and orally express a myth, a story or an epopee, as well as to perform the
related liturgies.
Remind some examples of interface between writing and other communicative codes from different periods
and cultural milieu can be a viaticum to find a way in the apparent chaos of the Danube script signs. The
tablet from Knossos with the depiction of six horse heads two of which are without manes and the addiction
of the Minoan world “polo” to make clear that the maneless pictogram was a foal and not an adult animal
(Robinson 2002: 83).

Fig. 1.3 - Tablet from Knossos after Evans with the
drawings of two foals and the term “polo” (foal) in
Linear B.
Fig. 1.4 – An early Christian text parallels to a
pagan symbolic image of a sacrificed bull on a
terracotta votive plaque from the fortress of Viničko
Kale in Vinicia (F.Y.R.O.M.).
(Graphic elaboration Merlini after Dimitrova 1994:
59, fig. 6).

A Christian text parallels to a pagan symbolic image of a sacrificed bull on a terracotta votive plaque from
the fortress of Viničko Kale in Vinicia, an ancient center of early Christian art (F.Y.R.O.M.). It is an example
of about 100 ceramic reliefs, dissimilar in size and preservation, that are in a different manner dated by
scholars from the end of the IV to the middle of the VI century AD (Balabanov 1986), between the V and the
VI century (Veseley 1987), in the late VI century (Pejić 1987), in the period beginning with the end of the IV
and ending with the middle of the VI century (Melovski 1991), before Leo III (717-741) (Walter 2003: 52),
or in the IX century (Aleksova 1989). One of the earliest reliefs is dedicated to the first apostle - Andrew –
and is dated at the end of III century. Most of the terracotta icons belong to the period of the VI-VII century
AD, when a greater number of them were ordered for the requirements of the large basilica at the Kale. Even
the purpose to reproduce icons in quantity at this site is still not clear. They were possibly used also for the
decorating requirements of other churches and tombs, or for adorning the funeral objects during the
interment ceremony. The plaque under analysis (29x29x4cm9) is dated VI-VII century AD. It was produced
in series as the others by someone who was more a skillful local artisan-sculptor than a scribe was. It is
framed by a carelessly chiseled Latin text HOLOCAUSTA MEDULATA OFERAM TIBI CUM
INCENSO10 ET ARIETIBUS, which illustrates the first part of verse 15 from the Psalm 65(66). This Psalm
was written by David who praises the name of God with a song, magnifying Him with thanksgiving. Verse
15 expresses the intention to burn sacrifices at the altar as an offering to God in order to express gratitude
and gain the right to enter into His Kingdom. The inscription starts in the upper part, above the bull,
continues vertically along the left edge, crosses over to the right and ends beneath the scene. The
exceptionally modeled sacrificed bull is associated to the text that continued with “offeram tibi boves cum
hircis”. This animal was the symbol of the coming Messiah already in the Jewish religion, because he stood
as an emblem of fertility and life and source of eternal life and immortality (Dimitrova 1994: 59). In the

10
Not “cum incesto”, as indicated on an online Macedonian bazaar selling copies.
21
paleochristian texts, the bull represented Christ’s sacrifice for the salvation of humankind. 11 The plaque of
the pagan sacrificed bull framed by a Christian text shows that early adheres were unprepared to abandon
their old pagan beliefs, tradition and habits. Then they developed a religious syncretism. Thus, among
materials so far discovered, votive plaques can be found with themes without any connection to Christian
iconography, interpreting ancient mythology legends, such an example, being the legend of the divine hero
Achilles.
Iconography and text echo one the other on a Roman inscription from Dugačka njiva (near Kosovska
Kamenica, Kosovo). They are chiseled on a fragmented tombstone composed of a stone plaque on low base,
with the upper part shaped as fronton. The frontal side of the memorial is divided in two parts of almost
identical size. The damaged upper part is covered by a vivid figural composition in relief representing a
funerary procession during the entombment of the departed. Sculpted figures are arranged in three rows one
below the other. In the centre, right below the bordering, a male figure with cap (resembling the helmet of a
Roman soldier) lays horizontally in the sarcophagus, with head turned to the right. A shallow vessel is left in
the corner of the sarcophagus. To the left and right of sarcophagus, in the same level, there are three female
personages: two on the left and one on the right. The female figures on the left side, with right hand raised to
the head, correspond to the mourners. The other standing feminine figurine, with right arm placed on its
cover, is the mourning wife parting from the deceased. In the next row below the sarcophagus, three
marching male figures are visible, wearing the same helmets. Closely behind them, there are other two
persons: a female and a small child. Other two identical children are portrayed below. Every one has raised
arms to the head. This composition possibly depicts the widow and the three orphans. In front of them, there
are a goat and a sheep, representing probably the funerary offerings. The lower part of the tombstone is
divided in two almost equal parts. On the left, stands the inscription. On the right, it is depicted a male figure
drinking from a horn in front of the burial pit, where the sandals of the deceased are left to symbolize the
journey of the deceased to underground world. The inscription is engraved in six rows squeezed into a
relatively small space. The lowest row was chiseled in smaller letters, overrunning the border and flowing
under the relief. The whole text is inaccurately executed. The letters are unequal in size and shape, some
have standardized outline and others not, some are in cursive style but in general not, some are in upright
position and others are inclined, most have a linear shape and some have a rounded one, some are wide and
elongated and others are narrow and squeezed. Sometime the same letter - such as the V – occurs with
several variants. The broad use of serifs in some letters, along with the appearance of separation marks in the
shape of ivy leaf, may indicate the III century as possible date of the inscription. However, the obvious
influence of cursive script as well as the shapes of letters L and V may imply an earlier date (I or II century
BC n.d.r). (Parović-Pešikan 1998: 191). The inscription tells:
M. D
MUCALA
DYDIE (!) VIXIT
ANNI. SEXAGI
NTA. PIRUSALA
PIRULA FECIT, COL OEI. SUO

The first line deals with the name of deity M(anibus) D(is). The personal names are Mucala Dydie and
Pirusala, which are mainly recorded in the western Thrace and the Danube basin. The appearance of
Thracian names in the inscription from Kosovska Kamenica is important in defining the precise chronology
of the migration of Thracian population to the areas of eastern Dardania. The fact that the Thracian
population progressed parallel the Roman conquest, along with the establishment and development of
metalla Dardaniae, and not only ensued it, can be inferred by the date of the inscription to the I-II century
and the already Latinized form of the personal names (ibidem 1998: 192).
A Southern Netherlands wool arras of 1500-1530 BC hold at the MET Museum of New York depicts a
shepherd couple entertaining themselves with music while their flock frolics in the millefleurs background.
On the left side, the shepherdess holds up a sheet of music with the phrases she is singing (Let’s sign, on the
grass / with your bagpipe / a tune for two). The shepherd plays a bagpipe and responds with a verse sprouting

11
Luke the Evangelist, symbolized by a bull or a calf, to represent Christ as sacrifice and as priest, or to symbolize
God's power.
22
out from his instrument (When she signs / her voice is fair / but I do the work). The arrangement of written
poetry and iconography is essential to understand the sexual double sense of the action.

Fig. 1.5 – Iconography and text mirror one
the other on a Roman inscription from
Kosovska Kamenica (Kosovo).
(After Parović-Pešikan 1998: 190, fig. 1).
Fig. 1.6 - The arrangement of written poetry and
iconography conveys the sexual double sense of
shepherdess and shepherd making music in a flowers and
leaves scenario.
(Photo Merlini 2004, courtesy MET New York).

A Roman 3rd century AD altar with sacred dedication to the Goddess Caelestis on the Capitoline Hill for a
safe travel, going (Itus) and returning (Reditus), combines the inscription, in the centre of the panel, with a
incised dove and four bare feet (two for going and two for returning) in relief. The inscription says: “To
triumphal Caelestis, Jovinus donates this in fulfilment of a vow”. (Roman Lapidarium NCE 2416).
A glass from the fourth century AC depicts the bust of Christ surrounded by the 12 apostles. Each chosen
man is indicated by his name (Parma, Archaeological Museum).

Fig. 1.7 – A Roman 3rd century AD sacred dedication for a Fig. 1.8 - Each apostle surrounding
safe travel combines an inscription with a dove and four bare Christ is indicated by his name (Parma,
feet. Archaeological Museum).
(Photo Merlini 2006). (Photo Merlini 2006).

Any angel on the bridge of Castel Sant’Angelo at Rome - used to expose the bodies of the executed - holds a
specific instrument of the Passion added by a distinct written caption ("In flagella paratus sum", "Potaverunt
me aceto", etc.), in order to make indubitable what it represents.

23
A famous photo of captain Fabio Cannavaro holding the Soccer World Cup won by the Italian national team
in 2006 shows “Andrea”: the name of his son tattooed in Gothic looking font on the inside of his upper right
arm. The name of the other son “Christian” is tattooed, with the same characters, behind the back. On his
right forearm, there is a tattooed "Daniela" (his wife) in Gothic, too. The name of the daughter “Martina” is
tattooed on the right ankle in Chinese ideograms. The Tattoo Man exploits his skin to have all the family
with him during the long travel around the world for matches. As the Neolithic figurines, has he associated a
message (the name of a specific relative) with a part of his body? Is the choice of the writing fonts not for a
case, but appropriate to his feeling with the different members of the family? The name of kinfolks engraved
on the body, wife and children, is actually a fixation for the transgressive but family-driven Italian soccer
players. Marco Materazzi has tattooed “Daniela I belong” (the wife) on the right wrist, along with a butterfly
(which symbolizes her). The names of the children are also imperative for him: Anna (on the neck); David
and Gianmarco on the left arm, next to a tattoo with “Lion” and his birth date in Roman numerals. Materazzi
has tattooed on both arms his philosophy of life "If a problem can not be solved, that need to worry?”
Antonio Cassano is unmarried. Waiting for wife and children, he has tattooed his own name on right arm.
This is a Chinese ideogram, which is very fashionable lately and has to help him never to forget how he is
called. For apotropaic reasons, calf and thigh are the areas usually filled by the soccer players for the first.

Fig. 1.9 - “Tronus meus in columna” on the base Fig. 1.10 - The soccer Cannavaro exploits his skin to
of an angel at Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome. have all the family with him during the long travel.
(Photo Merlini 2007).

Even if any component of the semiotic system of expression of the Danube civilization had a specific
identity, in their practical utilization their relationship was floating. A reciprocal impact between the
development of writing and art as well as symbolism was on play. History of communication gives us many
similar examples. Two of them are analyzed below.
Coping with the Islamic tradition of cautioning against the "representation of living beings" (Schimmel,
Islamic 11), when the Arabic calligraphy uses the composition of a bird shape, specifically a stork, to
incorporate the Basmalah ("Bismillah al-Rahman al-Rahim" = In the name of God, The Compassionate, The
Merciful), all boundaries between writing and not-writing float. “That is between the abstractness of letter
24
form, their arbitrariness in conveying the contents of the Qur'aan quotation, both in its concrete significance
and in its religious symbolic content, and the motivated character of their ornamental configuration, both in
its figurative appearance (i.e. the bird) and its mythological associations (i.e. the stork as a ‘pious’ animal in
Arabic mythology)”. The script material used for this calligraphic picture is comprised of the letters for
writing Arabic Basmalah and beautiful handwritings are used to create art. “This specimen of calligraphy has
so many aspects that it may be considered a prototype of man’s manifold capabilities to produce symbols in
multi-layered associational network” (Haarmann 1998: 84).
From contemporary times, another example: the logo of Le Cyclo, in 1930, composed by the depiction of a
bicycle.

Fig. 1.11 – "Bismillah" in the form of a stork,

written by Mustafa Raqim (1757-1826) in excellent Fig. 1.12 – The logo of Le Cyclo, 1930.
Thuluth.
(Adapted after
http://islamicart.com/main/calligraphy/unique.htm).

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