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Word of Minos: the Minoan Contribution to Mycenaean Greek and the Linguistic Geography of the
Bronze Age Aegean

Colin Renfrew

Cambridge Archaeological Journal / Volume 8 / Issue 02 / October 1998, pp 239 - 264

DOI: 10.1017/S0959774300001852, Published online: 22 December 2008

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0959774300001852

How to cite this article:

Colin Renfrew (1998). Word of Minos: the Minoan Contribution to Mycenaean Greek and the Linguistic Geography of the Bronze Age Aegean. Cambridge
Archaeological Journal, 8, pp 239-264 doi:10.1017/S0959774300001852

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 Cambridge Archaeological Journal 8:2 (1998), 239-64

Word of Minos:
the Minoan Contribution to Mycenaean Greek and the
Linguistic Geography of the Bronze Age Aegean

Colin Renfrew

The question of the supposedly pre-Greek language or languages of the Aegean, in its
wider historical and cultural context, has not been systematically addressed since the
decipherment of the Linear B script, other than in the philological studies of DA. Hester.
Here it is argued that the time is ripe for a new synthesis between the linguistic and the
cultural evidence. The language of the Minoan Linear A script, that is (it is here assumed)
the Minoan language of the palaces, is here identified as making the principal contribution
to the so-called 'pre-Greek' vocabulary of the Greek language, thus constituting not a
linguistic substratum of earlier date but an adstratum, which developed during their co-
existence in the Aegean during the Bronze Age. This may be seen as the linguistic
component in the 'Versailles effect' ofMinoan palatial influence within the Aegean, which
reached its apogee in the Late Bronze 1 period, a view anticipated in some respects in the
work of some earlier writers notably G. Glotz.
Such an approach focuses attention more clearly on the intellectual and ideological
contributions of Minoan culture to the emerging Mycenaean civilization, rather than on the
piecemeal acquisition of material items, without however assigning a secondary or subor-
dinate role to the mainland communities in their own transition towards state society.
One important consequence of the argument is to diminish (or even eliminate) the case for
a significant chronologically pre-Greek element in the Greek language. One principal
argument against the very early, probably Neolithic arrival of proto-Greek (or proto-lndo-
European) speakers into mainland Greece is thereby removed. The resulting simplification
in the linguistic picture of the Bronze Age Aegean proposed here carries implications also
for that of western Anatolia and for the great antiquity there of the Luwian language. It
opens questions also about the affinities of the presumed Anatolianancestor of the Minoan
(or proto-Minoan) language.

The bare list which we have before us is a summary of all that the archaeological documents have taught, a faithful
picture of a very advanced civilization (Glotz 1925,386)

Si, comme il semble, les Grecs ont trouvd dans la Mediterranee une langue de civilisation, ils n'ont pu manquer de
lui prendre un grand nombre de mots designant des objects qu'ils ne connaissaient pas . . . (Meillet 1930,63)

It is now nearly forty-five years since the decipher- Since that time there have been notable develop-
ment of the Linear B script and the consequent docu- ments both in the historical linguistics of the Aegean
mentation of the antiquity of the Greek language. and in the prehistoric archaeology. The views of

239
 Colin Renfrew
Chadwick (1963) on the origins of the Greek lan-
guage, and of Risch (1968; see Chadwick 1976) on
the origins of the Greek dialects have been widely
accepted. Meanwhile the Anatolian languages are
increasingly well understood and broader issues
which may be relevant to Aegean questions have
been investigated. Among these is the identification
of Hattic as a West Caucasian language (Diakonoff
1990, 62), and the 'Indo-Hittite' hypothesis of
Sturtevant (1962), viewing the earliest major branch-
ing split, early in the history of the Indo-European
languages, as between the Anatolian (or Proto-
Anatolian) languages and the others, a view now
reached through independent quantitative means by
Ringe and Warnow (Warnow 1997).
On the archaeological side a much clearer inter-
pretation is possible, with the Greek (and therefore
to some extent Mycenaean) status established for the
Linear B tablet finds in Crete, and of the sequence of
events on the Mainland and in Crete during the late
Bronze Age. New excavations have shed new light
on the LHIIIC period. At the same time the archae-
ology of the so-called 'Dark Age' has been much
clarified, and with it the debt of Geometric and Ar-
chaic Greece to the preceding Mycenaean period. It
is recognized that there is now no need for the ar-
chaeological record to provide indications of a 'Dorian
invasion', nor is it now generally thought to do so.
Despite these advances, I feel that archaeolo-
gists and historical linguists have not worked to-
gether with any very great effect to address some of
the outstanding linguistic and archaeological prob-
lems. Some of these problems have been well known
for seventy or more years (Haley & Blegen 1928).
Some of the linguistic issues have indeed been ad-
dressed (e.g. Hester 1957; 1965; Carruba 1995), but
apart from the attention given by Palmer (1955; 1958;
1965) and by Huxley (1961) to the Luwian language,
there has been little attempt at linguistic integration.
In what follows I should like to make some sugges-
tions in that direction, and in particular to point out,
from the perspective of an archaeologist rather than
that of the historical linguist, that some of the lin-
guistic elements that have generally been regarded
as 'pre-Greek' are not well served by a chronological
classification which rests upon doubtful assumptions.
The first of these is the early surmise that those
words, recognizable in the Greek language as being
of non-Greek origin, must therefore be pre-Greek,
and represent some kind of linguistic substratum,
which might represent a population resident in
Greece and the Aegean prior to the presence there of
a Greek-speaking population, or even prior to a popu-
240
lation speaking some early Indo-European language
ancestral to Greek.
Another frequent assumption is that of the early
existence of 'peoples', of early ethnic groups, which
could be regarded as analogous to the 'nations' of
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries AD. But the
nation state is a recent invention. And it is now widely
recognized that essentialist arguments for very early
ethnic awareness are difficult to sustain, and that
explicitly Greek ethnicity may have been a product
of the eighth to the third centuries BC (Renfrew 1994;
1995; see Hall 1997; 1998). So while it may still be
appropriate to speak of the arrival in Greece of Greek-
speakers, one should probably avoid the seductively
convenient terminology of 'the coming of the Greeks'.
The third assumption which underlies much of
this century's thinking on these matters is that of the
arrival of Greek speakers in Greece (whether at the
beginning of the Iron Age, or, in view of the deci-
pherment of Linear B, during the Bronze Age), en-
visaged as perhaps occurring in three 'waves' to be
correlated with the division of the Greek dialects
into Ionic, Aeolic and Dorian. As noted above, John
Chadwick (1963) suggested that the Greek language
may have evolved within Greece from an earlier Indo-
European language. In 1964 I made a comparable
proposal (Renfrew 1964, explored more fully in Ren-
frew 1973; also Renfrew 1987) with wider sugges-
tions about the origins of the Indo-European
languages. The possibility exists therefore that the
so-called 'pre-Greek' vocabulary items and place
names are not 'pre-Greek' in a chronological sense.
They need not necessarily represent a linguistic sub-
stratum but could conceivably indicate a linguistic
adstratum (or even superstratum). These are not
matters for assumption but for investigation.
The Versailles effect
The implications and effects in the Aegean of the so-
called Thalassocracy of Minos, by which is meant
the period of Cretan influence during the Middle
and Late Bronze Age (until the end of the Late Minoan
IB period) have been extensively discussed. The na-
ture of such control as may have been exercised by
one or more of the Cretan palaces has been debated/
and the influence of Minoan thought and customs
upon the religion and the iconography of the Greek
mainland, the islands and western Anatolia consid-
ered. While direct political control by Crete over
such sites as Kastri on Kythera, Akrotiri on Thera/
Phylakopi on Melos, Aghia Irini on Kea, Trianda
on Rhodes and Miletus on the Anatolian coast is
 Word of Minos
debateable, the economic effects, particularly in trade,
are undoubted. Malcolm Wiener (1984) has written
persuasively of the 'Versailles effect', whereby the
influence of a leading centre upon lesser centres,
operating in such fields as fashion and style, customs
and belief, may be extensive, even in the absence of
direct political control. One centre becomes a leader,
in thought, in fashion and in other fields, and other,
less prestigious centres emulate the customs, the style
and often the vocabulary of that paragon.
It is surprising perhaps that the purely linguis-
tic effects of the Thalassocracy of Minos within the
Aegean, the counterpart in language of the Versailles
effect, have not, other than by van Effenterre (1984),
been extensively discussed within the same context.
We know a good deal about the Greek language of
the mainland only a couple of centuries after this
period. In the Hieroglyphic and Linear A inscrip-
tions of the time there is much relevant material,
even if it has not yet been extensively interpreted.
For Anatolia at that time we have Hittite texts, and
good evidence for Luwian. But is it not clear that so
long a period of Minoan influence within the Aegean
should also have left indications of the impact of the
Minoan language outside of Crete itself? Will not the
rulers at centres such as Mycenae have imitated not
only the more sophisticated craft products, the cult
equipment and the decorative motifs of Knossos but
some aspects of verbal communication also?
Here I wish to make a proposal in relation to
these matters which might at the same time help to
solve a long-standing problem in the linguistic his-
tory of the Aegean and southeast Europe.
The Greek language and 'pre-Greek'
The Greek language is unusual among the languages
of Europe in the high proportion of its vocabulary
which includes words which are not only not Greek
words, but apparently not part of an Indo-European
vocabulary either. Archaeologists have focused pri-
marily upon the place names, specifically those with
suffixes -ssos, and -nthos (such as Parnassos,
Zakynthos) which were recognized as non-Greek by
linguists such as Fick more than a century ago, but
first considered carefully from an archaeological
standpoint by Haley & Blegen (1928).
First, however, we shall focus upon the signifi-
cance of vocabulary, of words which are not specific
names of persons nor of places. A number of them
have been conveniently listed by Hester (1965, sec-
tion D), drawing upon lists compiled by several his-
torical linguists (including Glotz 1925) and classed
241
by him as 'Aegean', by which non-Indo-European is
also implied. These are repeated here in more con-
cise format as Table 1.
Hester distinguishes these from those in his list
of Section E, which are words with supposedly
'Pelasgian' etymologies agreed by three or more
'Pelasgianists'. The Pelasgian theory, launched in
1937 by Professor Vladimir Georgiev (see Georgiev
1973) holds that the Greek vocabulary contains a
number of words which are not Greek but which are
nonetheless Indo-European: they would be the relics
of an earlier Indo-European language spoken in the
Aegean. But be that as it may, the specific term
'Pelasgian', derived from the ancient historians, is
an inconvenient misnomer. As Hester (1965, 336)
puts it: 'if they exist, the historians' Pelasgians must
be post-Linear B, the linguists' Pelasgians pre-Linear
B\ He is also critical of the entire Pelasgian theory,
following Schachermeyr in noting (Hester 1965,347):
'the greater the ingenuity, the greater the possibility
of constructing a phantom Indo-European language
from non-Indo-European material'.
Here, however, it is the allegedly non-Indo-
European words which interest us most, carrying
with them, at any rate at first sight, a strong argu-
ment for a non-Indo-European speaking population
in Greece at the time of the advent to Greece of the
first Indo-European speakers. The assumption is fre-
quently made that these words, being non-Greek,
must also be pre-Greek, but this matter will be fur-
ther examined below.
Table 1 lists these words, in the order offered
by Hester. I have not presumed to add or subtract
any words from his list: it is his list, not mine, but I
assume that we may take it as a reasonably authori-
tative list of non-Greek (and non-Indo-European)
vocabulary words in the Greek language, although
other authors would certainly add further words.
John Chadwick (pers. comm.) has kindly offered the
following comment upon Hester's list:
It is, of course, a tiny selection from the Greek
words with no certain Indo-European etymology.
But I should like to make an observation. I should
exclude the -anthos names because anthos has an
exact cognate in Sanskrit, and it might therefore
enter into compounds; e.g. akanthos can contain the
root *ak- meaning -sharp. This leaves the words in
-inthos and -unthos, and this agrees with the place
names, since I exclude the -anda place names of
Anatolia.
It should be accepted, however, that the discussion
which follows depends upon the general validity of
this list, although the addition or subtraction of a
 Colin Renfrew
few items would not seriously affect the force of the
case. Those who, with Bernal (1987,48), are sceptical
of the whole basis for recognizing 'pre-Hellenic'
words and names are unlikely to accept the remain-
der of the argument. And, on the other hand, there
are indeed other non-Greek words, not included in
Hester's list, which could be used to augment the
arguments set out here. Those relating to textiles
and weaving are further discussed below. The non-
Greek (and presumably Minoan) words in the Greek
language relating to seafaring have been conven-
iently discussed by van Effenterre (1984).
Hester's list does contain numerous words with
the -nthos suffix (e.g. akanthos, asaminthos), and the
-ssos sufix (e.g. hjparissos, narkissos) which thus re-
semble the place names now widely regarded as
Luwian (see Carruba 1995) or at least Anatolian. As
Chadwick remarks, it may be appropriate to distin-
guish those ending in -anthos from those with the
-inthos or -unthos suffix. But in any case these are
words which, being non-Greek, have generally been
identified as 'pre-Greek'. Haley & Blegen suggested
that they date from the beginning of the Early Bronze
Age, but the main plank of their argument was that,
in the absence of Neolithic finds from the Cycladic
Islands, where such place names were found, they
could not be as early as Neolithic in date. For thirty
years, however, we have had good evidence for the
Late Neolithic period in the Cyclades, and that argu-
ment no longer holds good. Moreover the decipher-
ment of Linear B has led most scholars to see an
earlier date for the incursion into Greece of the first
Indo-European speakers whose language (following
Chadwick 1963) would be ancestral to the Greek
language which subsequently emerged there. Few
Figure 1. Middle Minoan tablet from Phaistos ivith a
hieroglyphic inscription recording a transaction in
subsistence commodities. Length 8.5 cm. (After A.}. Evans
1904.) In the top line are seen the ideograms for wheat,
oil, olives and figs: commodities corresponding to nos. 69
cnxoq, 15 \aiov, iXaia and 72 OVKOV of Table 1.
242
writers today would put the date for this Indo-Euro-
pean incursion later than the Early Helladic III pe-
riod: the present writer has suggested (Renfrew 1973)
that it be set much earlier, at the beginning of the
Greek Neolithic. A notable exception is Drews (1988)
whose work contains many points of interest, but
the late chronology which he adopts makes his cen-
tral thesis difficult to accept.
If we divide up the words in Table 1 into what
one might term semantic fields, that is to say groups
of words with related meanings, we see some curi-
ous effects. There are chronological implications
which do not harmonize with the remote antiquity
for 'pre-Greek' which the Mycenaean dating of early
Greek now requires. If these words (and meanings)
belong neither to the Greek language nor in some
cases to its own Indo-European ancestral predeces-
sor, and are therefore accepted as 'non-Greek', it can
no longer follow that they have to be regarded as
'pre-Greek' in view of these chronological difficul-
ties pertaining to their often sophisticated meanings.
Group I
The first two groups of species (in the animal and
the plant worlds) certainly could be of formidable
antiquity. These species are native to the Aegean
and some of the terms could conceivably go back as
far as the earliest human occupation of the area. The
same observation holds for most of the words in the
'other' category, including the term for 'sea'. At the
same time many or all of these could conceivably be
loan words of later date. It is generally agreed that
word-replacement, although a slow process, is one
that does take place in all languages. It has also been
argued that the process is slower for a core vocabu-
lary of very basic words (Greenberg 1987, 344), al-
though this point has recently been contradicted by
Dixon (1997, 10). So it does not follow that these
words for plant and animal species are 'pre-Greek':
they could be loan words. But they could be 'pre-
Greek'. Some relate to aromatic plants, perhaps par-
ticularly relevant to the perfume industry of the
developed Bronze Age, and others again may have
been of medicinal significance. The possible origin
of these words is further discussed below.
Group II
The words in Group II give an entirely different
impression. The metals came into intensive use in
the Bronze Age, although copper age use of copper
and gold is increasingly well attested in the Aegean.
A pre-Bronze Age origin might therefore just be
claimed for the words for metals. But the same is
 Word of Minos
hardly true for the use of olive oil, wine and the pack
ass. In 1972 I made the case for regarding olive oil
and wine as products which came into widespread
use in the Aegean in the Early Bronze Age (Renfrew
1972, 280). While some authors have suggested that
this date is too early, none (so far as I know) has
argued that it is too late. These are to be regarded as
Bronze Age vocabulary items, and cannot be earlier.
The same is true for the pack-ass. The same observa-
tion is likely to be valid for the artefacts relating to
music, as noted below.
When we turn to the further categories: 'Mili-
tary artefacts', 'Other artefacts' (bathing tub, laby-
rinth, colossus) and 'Social constructs' (absolute ruler,
etc.), the impression becomes a very strong one that
we are dealing with a rather more civilized world
than that of the Neolithic or Early Bronze Age, a
world of rulers and concubines, of the panoply of
arms (corselet, sword, spear, chariot), of metalwork-
ing and musical instruments, and of a social envi-
ronment that can include organized games, the
labyrinth, and the bath (presumably of terracotta, of
the later Bronze Age form familiar to archaeologists
as the larnax, perhaps also of sheet bronze). All or
most of these things would seem perfectly at home
in the palace civilization of the Minoan-Mycenaean
world, but hardly so at a date a thousand or more
years earlier in the Neolithic, or even in the earlier
part of the Early Bronze Age. These terms, and the
concepts which they describe, can only have entered
the Greek language well after the time at which the
speakers of proto-Greek or their Indo-European pre-
cursors became established in the Greek mainland.
They are loan words. In that sense therefore they can
hardly be pre-Greek. But if (being non-Greek, and
probably non-Indo-European) they are a result of
borrowing into the Greek language, there is only one
obvious source: Minoan Crete. Where else could
Bronze Age Greece find a nearby and civilized con-
temporary, with such artefacts in common use, where
a non-Greek and probably non-Indo-European lan-
guage was spoken? Such a vocabulary would be
perfectly at home in the Minoan Second Palace pe-
riod, and in many cases in the First Palace period also.
And many of these terms relate, as the 'Versailles ef-
fect' predicts, to the upper levels of Minoan society,
to the world of the palace rather than of the peasant.
There is one interesting chronological point
which must be considered. A number of these words,
While specifically appropriate to the Aegean civili-
zations of the Bronze Age, could well be considered
to be of Early Bronze Age date. I have myself argued
for the use of wine and olive oil in the Early Bronze 2
243
Figure 2. Kdcv6cov: potteryfigureof an ass carrying water
jars from Late Minoan Phaistos. (After Evans 1904.)
period, when lead and bronze were certainly in use,
and when Cycladic figurines already suggest music
of the pipe and harp. For those who hold, for in-
stance with Caskey (1964) or Crossland (1967), that
the Greek language was brought to the mainland by
an episode of immigration taking place at the end of
the Early Bronze 2 period around 2300 BC, it could
reasonably be argued that these terms are indeed
still to be seen as 'pre-Greek', forming part of the
vocabulary of the mainlanders prior to the arrival of
the Greek-speaking immigrants. This must be ad-
mitted, although there is now little support for such
an episode of immigration or for the emphasis that
has often been placed upon it (see Dickinson 1994,
298), and if it were set only a little earlier, the argu-
ment would no longer hold, for these do seem to be,
in the main, Early Bronze Age innovations, even if
the working of copper and of gold can now be set
very much earlier.
A number of these words do represent cultural
features which came into cultural prominence in the
Aegean rather after 2300 BC, and on the mainland in
some cases considerably later. It should however be
acknowledged that there is the possibility of seman-
tic shift, and a cultural innovation can sometimes be
called by a pre-existing word. The priority of Crete
over the mainland cannot be documented in every
case, but if one is looking for a non-Greek source in the
Aegean, it is certainly the most likely candidate (al-
though as Oliver Dickinson kindly points out to me,
the date of adoption into Greek of the word is not
clear unless the term is directly attested in Linear B).
kantlwn (pack ass) and peirins (wicker body of chariot).
The ass is first attested in Greece at Lerna III, in the
 Colin Renfrew

in the list compiled by D.A. Hester (Hester 1965, section D).

Table 1. The 'Aegean' (i.e. non-Indo-European) xuords

'Aegean' word Transliteration Translation 'Aegean' word Transliteration Translation

1. oxccXavGtc, akalanthis linnet 43. X{^iiv9e<; liminthes maw-worms
2. tfjcavGoc, akanthos prickly plant 44. n^pivGoc, merinthos cord
3. (Lva.% anax king 45. ulvGcc minlha mint
4. &p\3paXXo<; aryballos purse 46. ulvGoc, minlhos excrement
5. AadnivGoc. asaminthos bathing tub 47. udtopoq molybos lead
6. &\|rtv9iov apsinthion wormwood 48. vapiciaadi; narkissos narcissus
7. PaaiXSuc, basileus king 49. vtiooa nyssa turning point
8. pdXivGoq bolinlhos wild ox (in stadium)
9. pdvaaaoc. bonassos wild ox 50. av6<5<; xanlhos yellow (adj.)
10. T^XIVGOI gelinthoi chick-peas 51. ityoq xiphos sword
11.7OpYuv9(a gorgynthia broom (bush) 52. dlvn., 6lvog oine, oinos vine, wine
12.5d<j>VTi daphne laurel 53. dXtivGn. olynthe fig-tree
13. SgvGic, denthis ?wine 54. tfvGoq onthos dung
14. SiGtipaupoc, dithyrambos dithyramb 55. naUaictq pallakis concubine
15. \caov, eXafoi elaion,elaia olive oil, olive tree 56. 7lEf piVC, peirins wicker body of chariot
16. epgpivGoc, erebinthos chick-pea 57. TtXtvGoq plinlhos brick
17. aicuvGt5e<; zakynthides gourds 58. ntipyoq pyrgos tower
18. Qdkaaaa lhalassa sea 59. p<58ov rhodon rose
19.Opfoiipog thriambos hymn to Dionysos 60. adtK(K)o<; sak(k)os sock
20. 9GSpa thorax corselet 61. aaXautvGn salaminthe house-mouse
21. to#oc, iambos iambic 62. adXnvfc salpinx trumpet
22. favGov ianthon violet 63. ad\iyv>iov sampsuxon marjoram
23. Kd5o<; kados jar, pail 64. aiPtivri sibune hunting spear
24. Kdv9apo<; kantharos beetle 65. afSn side pomegranate
25. KOtvGdc. kanthos corner of the eye 66. afSnpoc, sideros iron .
26. Kdv9cov kanthon pack-ass 67. ofjax; sikys cucumber
27. Kaaaixepoq kassiteros tin 68. atoapov sisaron parsnip
28. Kdoxavov kastanon chestnut 69. OTTOC, sitos corn
29. Kgpaaoq kerasos cherry-tree 70. anCvGoq sminthos mouse
30. KfOapiq kitharis kithara 71. otikoq solos lump of iron used
31. Ktaadc, kissos ivy as discus
32. KoXoKtivGri kolokynthe gourd 72. o\)KOV sykon fig
33. KoXoaa6q kolossos colossus 73. atJpiy^ syrinx flute
34. Kopuv9ei5q koryntheus basket 74. T^puivGoq terminthos turpentine tree
35. Kpcoaadc, krossos pail 75. xivGdi; linlhos hot (adj.)
36. KuXtvGiov kylinthion wooden mask 76. ttfpavvoc, tyrannos absolute ruler
37. jcurcticptaacx; kyparissos cypress 77. iMiKivGoq hyakinthos hyacinth
38. Ktfcioot; kytisos clover 78. vaa6q hyssos javelin
39. XaptfpwGoc, labyrinthos labyrinth 79. tydXavQoq phalanthos bald (adj.)
40. XeplvGioi lebinlhioi chick-peas 80. <>(5puiY^ phorminx lyre
41. A&iavoc, lepanos circumcised 81. xc&Kdq chalkos bronze
42. Xi1ia)9o<; lekythos oil flask 82. xixtijv chiton tunic >

Early Helladic II period (Gejvall 1969, 37) but not
seen in depictions until rather later (Fig. 2). Horse
bones are found in the Early Helladic III period,
while the chariot makes its appearance in Late
Helladic I, but there are no indications of horse rid-
ing until a few rare figurines of Late Helladic IIIB
and C (Hood 1953) and Late Minoan IIIC date (e.g.
Sakellarakis & Sakellarakis 1991,23 pi. 10).
sideros (iron); also solos. Iron is rare in the Mycenaean
period, but there are a few occurrences including the
bezel of a ring of the fifteenth century BC from Cham-
ber Tomb 7 at Aidonia (Demakopoulou 1996,50 no.
19).
thorax (corselet). The cuirass or corselet is documented
by a find from Chamber Tomb 12 at Dendra in the
Argolid from the fourteenth century BC (Dickinson
1994, pi. 5.21). The term to-ra-ke is found on a tablet
from Pylos and now also as tara-ka at Tiryns and as

244
 Word of Minos

Table 2. Semantic fields among the 'Aegean' words from Table 1.

Group I
* Species in animal world:
linnet (focaXavGtc, [1]), wild ox (pdXivGoc, [8]), PdvaGGoc, [9]), beetle (KdvGapoc, [24]), maw-worms
[43]), mouse (oufvGoc, [70]), house-mouse (accXautvGn [61]), for pack-ass, see below

*Species in plant world:

prickly plant (cteccvGoc, [2]), wormwood (&v|/tv9iov [6]), chick-peas (eppiv9o<; [16], XeptvGioi [40]), broom
(YOpYuvGta [11]), olive tree (eXata [15]), violet (I'avGov [22]), laurel (Sctyvn [12]), chestnut (Kdoxavov [28]),
cherry tree (Ktpaooq [29]), ivy (Kioodc, [31]), gourd (CaicuvG(8E<; [17]), KoXoiaSvGn [32]), cypress
[37]), clover (ICUTIGOC, [38]), mint (ntvGa [45]), narcissus (vapKiGOdc, [48]), fig (GUKOV [72]), fig tree (dMvGn. [53]),
rose (pd8ov [59]), marjoram (ociui|/\)ov [63]), cucumber (crfiax; [67]), parsnip (ofaapov [68]), turpentine tree
(TgpuwGoc, [74]), hyacinth (udKivGo^ [77]), corn (ovroq [69]), pomegranate (GfSn [65])

Group II
* Utilization of domestic species:
olive oil (fcXociov [15]), wine (dtvoc, [52], ?8v6ic, [13]), oil-flask , pack-ass (KdvGcov [26])

* Metals and metallurgy

tin (KOCGotCEpoc, [27]), lead , iron (Gf8npo<; [66]), bronze (xcAicdc, [81])

*Musical instruments and poetry

kithara (KtGccpic, [30]), trumpet (odXm-fc [62]), lyre (<|>dpur [80]), flute (oBprfc [73]), dithyramb (SiGupappoc
[14]), iambic (taupoq [21]), hymn to Dionysos (Opfaupoc, [19])

^Weapons of war and the chase

corselet (G(tipoc$ [20]), wicker body of chariot (netpwq [56]), hunting spear (oiPiivrj [64]), javelin (wade [78]),
sword (c;((|>oc, [51])

*Weaving
cord (ur|pivGo<; [44]), sock (O(*K(K)O<; [60]), tunic (xixc&v [82]), purse (etp\5paXXoq [4])

*Architectural features
colossus (KoXooadq [33]), labyrinth (XocptipivGoc, [39]), turning point in stadium (v\5oacc [49]), tower (ntip-yoc
[58]), brick (nXtvGoq [57]), bathing tub (fcodnivGoc, [5])

Social
king (ffvaS [3], paaiU\)<; [7]), absolute ruler (itfpavvoc, [76]), concubine (raUaKtc, [55])

Other
basket (Kop\)v6e\5<; [34]), pail (K65O? [23]), wooden mask (KUMVGIOV [36]), sea (GdXaaaa [18]), corner of the eye
(KavGdc, [25]), circumcised (tenavoc, [41]), excrement (utvGoc, [46]), dung (6'vGoc [54]), hot (tivGdc [75]), bald
b Sl ih
), yellow ^ G d [50])

to-ra at Knossos, both spellings for the nominative
singular (J.T. Killen, pers. comm.), and the corselet
ideogram occurs several times there and at Knossos
(Ventris & Chadwick 1973, 291 & 587).
asaminthos (bathing tub). The Late Helladic IIIB pal-
ace at Pylos had a bathroom with a painted tub (of
larnax form) still in place set in a brick-and-clay
container. According to Vermeule (1964, 174) the
tablets 'describe such a tub specifically as "unpierced"
(Tn 996)', but this interpretation has been disputed.
The larnax form is commonly found in the Aegean
as a sarcophagus, and is found in Crete from the
Early Minoan period, but in the mainland not until
the Late Bronze Age. The word a-sa-mi-to is found at
Knossos on sealing Ws 8497 (Ventris & Chadwick
1973,534). There can be little doubt about the Minoan
origin of this rather luxurious feature of the
Mycenaean palace, and the likely Minoan origin of
the word is perhaps enhanced by its occurrence on

245
 Colin Renfrew
the Linear B sealing at Knossos. At the same time it
has become so thoroughly integrated into mainland
speech as to be used by modern scholars (Probonas
1992) as an indicator of the Mycenaean origin of the
Homeric epics.
labyrinthos (labyrinth). There is a generally accepted
reading for this term on a tablet from Knossos
(Ventris & Chadwick 1973,310). That this word had
a place in the Minoan language is not certain, but its
relationship with labrys, 'axe' or 'double axe', a com-
mon feature of Minoan iconography, has been widely
noted. As Lorimer (1950,2) among others points out
there may be a connection with Labranda in Caria
and its shrine to Zeus Labrandeus. The possible
Carian connections of the Minoan language are fur-
ther discussed below.
None of these is archaeologically attested on the
mainland prior to 2300 BC: each is therefore a bor-
rowing, taking place during the Bronze Age, from a
non-Greek language of the Aegean, which we pre-
sume to be Minoan. These are adstratum words as,
no doubt, are many of the others in Group II about
whose chronology it is not possible to be so specific.
Many of the terms in Hester's list would merit
detailed consideration. But it is appropriate here to
limit discussion to just one or two of the relevant
semantic fields where the debt of Mycenaean Greek
to the Minoan language of Crete can be assessed.
Musical instruments as a semantic field
It seems a remarkable circumstance that most of the
terminology for musical instruments in Classical
Greek is recognizably non-Greek linguistically, and
in some cases non-Indo-European. There are four
musical instruments listed above in Table I, namely
kithara (kithara) with kitharis as the Homeric form,
salpinx (trumpet), syrinx (pipe or flute), and phorminx
(lyre). Each is mentioned in the Homeric epics. But
the list does not end there. The word lyra, first docu-
mented in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, itself does
not have an established Indo-European etymology
(Maas & Snyder 1989, 79): 'Like most of the other
names for stringed instruments in the Greek lan-
guage, the word lyra appears to be a loanword bor-
rowed into Greek from some other, probably
non-Indo-European language'. Some of the terms in
question, and perhaps the musical instruments which
they designate may be more recent borrowings, per-
haps from the East Mediterranean (see Laserre 1988).
-The ancient writers themselves emphasized both
246
Anatolian (often Phrygian) and Thracian origins, the
latter associated with the mythology of Orpheus and
Dionysos. Thus Strabo (10.3.17, quoted from Jones
1969, 109): 'One writer says "striking the Asiatic
cithara", another calls flutes "Berecyntian" and
"Phrygian", and some of the instruments have been
called by barbarian names: "nablas", "sambyce",
"barbitos", "magadis" and several others.' At the
same time some musical instruments of venerable
antiquity are documented from the Aegean, most
notably by the marble harpist and the double-pipe
player from Early Cycladic Keros, dateable to around
2500 BC (Renfrew 1972,434 & pi. 27,1 & 2).
The piper has a double flute (aulos or rather
diaulos), and this term at least seems to belong in
Greek. There are representations of pipe players from
the Minoan Late Bronze Age, and continuity may
probably be assumed from Early Bronze Age times
through to Classical Greek, although in this case the
Greek word is not a loanword. The pipe is an instru-
ment of great antiquity, already attested in Europe
in Upper Palaeolithic times. It is well documented
by finds from Classical Greece (Landels 1981). I am
not aware of any finds from the Aegean Bronze Age,
but they would not be surprising.
The Cycladic harp, which is a trangular frame
harp with its soundbox (the base of the triangle)
resting in the player's lap, has no known Bronze Age
successors in the Aegean. 'Harps, which had been
lacking in the art of the Greek world for nearly two
millennia . . . make their second appearance into the
visual arts as well as into literature just after the
middle of the fifth century' (Maas & Snyder 1989,
55). It is at this time that one first encounters the
terms pektis and magadis, of which the second (as
Strabo notes) is of foreign, perhaps Lydian origin.
This is a useful reminder that in this semantic field,
as in others, the history of innovation and of borrow-
ing is a complex one, with different linguistic con-
tacts at different times. For the moment, therefore,
we shall stay with the instruments from Table 1 (as
selected by Hester), each of which is mentioned in
Homer.
The salpinx is well discussed by Wegner (1949,
60 & 224). In Classical times it could be of metal,
when it had the form of a narrow tube with mouth-
piece and with broadening end, or of horn, in which
case it was curved. The term appears twice in Homer
(Iliad 18,219 & 21,388). I am not aware of any repre-
sentations of the salpinx from the Bronze Age Aegean,
nor of any actual finds. But very much this form was
found in Egypt in the tomb of the pharaoh
Tutankhamun. Bronze horns are a prominent feature
 Word of Minos
of the Late Bronze Age of northwestern Europe
(Holmes & Coles 1981; Lund 1981,260), notably from
Ireland and from Denmark (the lurs). If the instru-
ment, like the word, is a borrowing into the
Mycenaean world, its Minoan source may be re-
garded as plausible. I am uncertain whether a conch
shell, blown in trumpet style, would qualify in
Minoan or in Mycenaean Greek as a 'salpinx', but
two such conch shells were found in the Mycenaean
sanctuary at Phylakopi in Melos and there are other
Aegean finds: one such is seen in use on a Late
Minoan sealstone from the Idaean Cave (Renfrew
1995, 383 & fig. 9.3)
The syrinx or multiple pipe (Tan's pipes') is
common in the Classical world, both with and with-
out reed mouthpiece. I know of no authentic repre-
sentation or find from the Aegean Bronze Age. The
Badisches Landesmuseum in Karlsruhe has a mar-
ble figure of Cycladic style, analogous in many ways
to the Keros pipe player mentioned above (Thimme
1977, 496 no. 265) but this, like the very dubious
harpist (see Renfrew 1969, 14) in the Metropolitan
Museum of Art the two are illustrated on the
same plate by Getz-Preziosi (1987, pi. Ill) are post-
World War II acquisitions from the antiquities trade
and, like the other purported syrinx players cited by
Thimme, cannot be taken as reliable evidence with-
out corroboration from a secure archaeological con-
tent. Again, if the instrument like the word is a
borrowing into the mainland, a Cycladic or Minoan
source is perfectly possible.
The names for lyres kitharis and phorminx
are among several ancient terms used by modern
musicologists to designate a whole repertoire of dif-
ferent stringed instruments used in Classical times.
In their very clear account Maas & Snyder (1989,
139ff.) distinguish between the kithara, the lyra (or
chelys-lyra), the barbitos (for which Strabo's reference
to barbarian origins was noted earlier) and the
phorminx, and then go on to discuss the harps as
indicated above. The form kithara is simply a late
version of the Homeric word kitharis. It seems that
lyra was often a generic term, used for any of the
lyre-type stringed instruments, often in place of
kithara. Moreover Homer uses the two terms in rather
different ways. There are 21 occurences of the term
phorminx in Homer, usually with reference to an
actual instrument, but only 5 for kitharis, some in the
verb form in the sense of 'lyre playing', so that it
may not be necessary to see the two words as desig-
nating two different and clearly separable instruments.
At the same time there are actual finds of two
different instruments of lyre type from the Aegean
247
Late Bronze Age. The first comes in the form of
tortoise shell (cheleus) fragments with borings from
the Mycenaean sanctuary at Phylakopi on Melos
(Renfrew 1995,384) which, although incomplete, may
perhaps be recognized as forming the soundbox of a
chelys-lyra. The detailed construction of such an in-
strument, based upon a find of Classical date from
Argos (Roberts 1981, 304) seems particularly con-
vincing. The second form is indeed the phorminx,
whose sound-box in ivory has been found in the
Zapher Papoura cemetery near Knossos (see Ren-
frew 1972,435 fig. 19.12) and in the Mycenaean tholos
tomb at Menidi (Dragona-Latsoudi 1979).
There are abundant representations of the lyre
in Late Minoan III times (Maas & Snyder 1989, 2)
and depictions on sealings go back as far as the
Middle Minoan period (Lorimer 1950,455). It is very
clear therefore that the lyre was well-known in the
mainland from the Late Helladic III period, and from
an earlier date on Crete. An anonymous reviewer
kindly indicates that the dual form ru-ra-ta-e appears
in the new Thebes tablet TH Av 106.7. Of course one
should not overlook the considerable range of musi-
cal instruments in use in Egypt and the Near East
from the time of the Aegean earlier Bronze Age
(Duchesne-Guiilemin 1981; Laserre 1988). But if we
are seeking a more immediate Aegean origin for the
terms phorminx and kithara (and perhaps also for
lyra), then the available evidence again points to
Crete. In the words of Maas & Snyder (1989, 13):
'Although the archaeological evidence is limited in
the case of the Mycenaeans, these earliest Greeks
seem to have adopted the Minoan instrument as
their own.'
The loom of language: the semantic field of
textiles and their production
The semantic field associated with textiles and with
weaving has recently been explored with great acu-
ity by E.J.W. Barber (1991, chap. 12). Although the
list seen in Table 1 above contains only one word
specifically associated with weaving, namely merinthos
(cord), and one for a finished product (chiton), she
collects a whole series of further terms, both of Greek
and non-Greek origin, and shows the existence of a
'double vocabulary' (Table 3) where she lists pairs of
terms, divided by etymology into Indo-European or
non-Indo-European, for the same concepts.
In the course of Barber's analysis it becomes
clear that the Greek language is very rich in a whole
series of vocabulary items relating to textiles and
weaving. But many of them are not ultimately of
 Colin Renfrew

Table 3. The Greek double vocabulary relating to zueaving. (After Barber 1991, table 121.) The relevant zvords are
divided into those of Indo-European origin, and those which are not clearly Indo-European, some of which may be of
Minoan origin.

Indo-European Not Clearly Indo-European Meaning

Xffvoc, (linos) uccXXdcynficXXuKec, (mallos/mallykes), fepiov (erion)(?) wool
7teK-/K0K (pek-/pok-) xiX- (til-) pluck wool
vr|- (ne-) KXCOO- (kloth-) spin
(XipotKTOC, (atraktos) T^XaKOtTTi (elakati) spindle
ToXtircri (tolypi), oVyaGtc, (agathis) ball of yarn
(VT|- [ne-]) (KXCOG- [klothi-]), urjptvGoc, (merinthos) thread
\ir\pv- (mery-), ^XIK- (helik-) wind thread
v- (hyph-) d-/6VrT-/daT- (az-/att-/ast-) weave
iax6nodeq (histopodes) Kektovxzq (keleontes) uprights
Xaiat (laiai), dyvCGeq (agnythes) loom weights
axrjurov (stimon) ffxpiov (itrion) warp
7tr|vr| (pini), (x>- [hyph-]) (io8o:vr| (rhodane) weft
Kpeic- (krek-) anaB- (spath-) beat weft in
-a\)-/u- (-sy-fliy-) 0a<l)- (rhaph-) sew
peXdvn. (beloni) ({5a<J>- [rhaph-]) needle
0ey- (rheg-) Pa<J>- (baph-) dye
vccK- (nak-), mX- (pil-)(7) felt

Greek origin. As she puts it (Barber 1991,281):
Furthermore, the terms for the mechanisation of
the weaving process are also without Indo-Euro-
pean etymologies: shed bar, heddle, and heddle
bar, the last having been borrowed from a lan-
guage family we can name and document: Semitic.
In fact, even outside of Greek, I know of no
reconstructable Indo-European terms for any of
these three devices...
The mention of Semitic reminds us of the possibility
of Aegean borrowing of terms from the languages of
the Near East and of Egypt (as Bernal (1987) would
wish to remind us) a 'Versailles effect' on a larger,
East Mediterranean scale. In addition to 'heddle bar'
(kanon), Barber (1994, 132, following Masson 1967,
27) identifies as Semitic chiton (which figures on
Hester's list (Table 1 above) as 'Aegean' in this
case 'Mediterranean' may be more accurate). Palaima
(1995,136) points out that the Mycenaeans borrowed,
via a probable Minoan kti-ru-so, the Semitic term for
gold.
The essential point (Renfrew in press) is that
many terms in the Greek language in the field of
weaving and textiles are non-Greek. Some of them
may go back to earliest times, and to the spread of
what may already have been quite a well-developed
weaving technology to Greece from Anatolia in the
Early Neolithic period, since very early textiles, as
well as spindle whorls and weights which may come
from the warp-weighted loom, have been found at
atalhoyuk. Other words, like those mentioned
above, relate to more sophisticated technologies and
are evidently of much later date. I suggest that the
majority of these terms in Greek are derived from
the Minoan language, and belong with the vocabu-
lary of Group II discussed above.
Barber makes two further important points.
First:
All in all, our basic, hard facts about Aegean tex-
tiles put the industry squarely within the main-
stream of what we have deduced of the overall
tradition of textile-making in Europe from the
Neolithic to the Iron Age, a tradition rather differ-
ent from that of Egypt or the Middle East (Barber
1991, 313).
And second, in the consideration of clothing in her
successive phases the Pre-classical Minoan pe-
riod, the Classical Minoan, the Transitional/Ritual
style, and the Native Mycenaean she establishes
among other things the chronological priority of a
number of Minoan products over their Mycenaean
counterparts, and further emphasizes the develop-
ment of weaving technology already in the Early
Minoan period of Crete (Barber 1994, 104-9). Her
analysis of the material suggests the strong influ-
ence of Minoan textiles and weaving practices, and
also clothing, upon the Mycenaean. One extrapola-
tion from her careful linguistic analysis could in-
deed be the probable strong influence of Minoan
vocabulary in this well-defined semantic field. The
vocabulary of textiles and of weaving thus gives a
further strong clue that a significant proportion of

248
 Word of Minos

the non-Greek (and perhaps non-Indo-European) would thus not be the result of some 'pre-Greek'
components in the Greek language could be of linguistic substratum (which could, however, still be
Minoan derivation. As Palaima (1995,133) observes, the case for a number of words in Group I). It would
'Many of the techniques and products of the Minoan instead be the product of a linguistic adstratum, the
cloth industry and the terms for them were adopted result of prolonged contacts between the Greek-
by the Mycenaeans'. speaking and Minoan-speaking worlds during the
John Chadwick (pers. comm.) kindly adds: Bronze Age, and perhaps also as far back as the
On the specific point of Minoan (=Linear A tablets) Neolithic period. Aspects of this view were antici-
borrowings, there is one virtually certain word pated by earlier writers (e.g. Meillet 1930; Glotz 1925),
which we did not mention. The Linear B ideogram but since few of these foresaw that the language of
for 'wool' (transcribed LANA) is patently syllabic the Linear B tablets would turn out to be Greek, they
ma modified by a smaller and rather variable ele- naturally regarded the 'Aegean' language of the Lin-
ment. But it can be traced back to Linear A, where ear A tablets as of 'pre-Greek' status. The languages
it is plainly a ligature of what in Linear B values
are ma + ru. Since r = / and Linear A names in -u of Crete during the Bronze Age have been well re-
end in -o in Linear B, it is hardly possible to see in viewed on the basis of the epigraphic evidence by
this anything but the original of Gk. mallos 'fleece'. Morpurgo Davies (1986; see Pope & Raison 1978).
There would be several periods during which
In discussing textiles one should perhaps stress that such linguistic borrowing could take place:
much of the textile industry in the Mycenaean world, (a) Pre-colonial. There are ample, if sporadic,
as in the Minoan, was palace-based, and supported indications of Aegean contacts from very early times,
by a well-developed system for the procurement of not least the Melian obsidian so abundantly imported
the necessary materials, notably wool, whose docu- into the Greek mainland from the Late Palaeolithic
mentation forms a significant part of the subject mat- period (Renfrew & Aspinall 1990) and into Crete
ter of the surviving Linear B tablets from Knossos from the beginning of human settlement there.
and Pylos (Killen 1964). The more general point is (b) Early colonial. The first Minoan-influenced
briefly considered below. Killen (1979) has discussed settlements (perhaps in some cases colonies) are seen
some descriptive terms for textiles which occur in early in the Bronze Age, for instance on Kythera. It is
Mycenaean Greek in the Linear B tablets, and fur- at this time that linguistic borrowing may have be-
ther insights into textile terminology are likely to be come significant (see Rutter & Zerner 1984).
forthcoming from this source. (c) The Minoan thalassocracy. The early New Pal-
ace period, until the end of Late Minoan IA (Driessen
The Minoan language in the Aegean & Macdonald 1997), is widely accepted as represent-
ing the apogee of Minoan influence. Linear A writ-
I wish to suggest therefore that many of the 'Aegean' ing is documented at Akrotiri on Thera, Phylakopi
and supposedly 'pre-Greek' terms forming Group II in Melos, Aghia Irini in Kea and now Miletus on the
of Table 2 above represent loan words in Greek, coast of Asia Minor (Niemeier 1996). Minoan seal
acquired from the Minoan language of Crete. The impressions and noduli (which may be as old as the
same may well be true for a number of terms in First Palace period) are found as far away as
Group I: Peter Warren (pers. comm.) kindly points Samothrace. It is quite possible that the Minoan lan-
out that 'Cupressus sempervirens . . . was the great tree guage was not merely the language of literacy in
of Crete throughout antiquity, so that kyparissos might some of these places, but also of mercantile exchange.
be a truly Minoan language word', and that terminthos As John Chadwick (pers. comm.) points out: 'Linear
is usually identified as Pistachia tercbinthus which A seems to have had a wider degree of literacy than
does indeed occur in Crete, but also more widely in Linear B; for instance, the Mycenaeans never seem to
the eastern Mediterranean. Moreover it could be ar- have supposed their gods could read, as the Minoans
gued that the Minoan fascination for the world of did.' In any case, this is the time when the linguistic
nature, so clearly evidenced in the wall paintings, Versailles effect would be most powerful. The mas-
may well imply that the Minoan language of the sive influence of Minoan iconography at the time of
Bronze Age had a richer vocabulary for plant and the Mycenaean shaft graves has long been recog-
animal species than did early Greek, particularly in nized. And while the concept of a single 'Minoan-
relation to medicinal matters and to the Bronze Age Mycenaean religion', with Cretan origins, can no
production of perfumed oil. longer be accepted, the powerful influence of Minoan
This component of the vocabulary of Greek belief and thought upon the developing religion of

249
 Colin Renfrew
Mycenaean Greece cannot be doubted (Hagg 1985).
For instance, many of the gold finger rings with reli-
gious scenes found in Greece prior to the Late Minoan
IHA period (and some subsequently) are likely to be of
Minoan manufacture. With the vocabulary of Group II
we are seeing some of the linguistic accompaniment of
this iconographic borrowing.
(d) The Mycenaean occupation of Crete and the
LHIIIB-LHIIIC koine. It is widely accepted that the
Minoan Linear B tablets of Knossos represent a pe-
riod of Mycenaean occupation of Crete, the early
product of the Mycenaeanization of the island which
resulted, some five or six centuries later, in the posi-
tion of Greek as the principal language of Crete (Ren-
frew 1996), with the Eteocretan inscriptions of east
Crete indicating the survival of what must presum-
ably have been the Minoan language (but for a prop-
erly cautious view see Morpurgo Davies 1986). At
this point Minoan had indeed become a linguistic
substratum to Greek, at any rate in Crete and in the
other former colonies of Crete. In such a case borrow-
ing from Minoan to Greek may well have continued.
In all of this we are speaking of at least a thou-
sand years of close contact, and it would be remark-
able indeed if the Greek language did not show some
strong signs of it. My suggestion is that most (or
even all) of the so-called 'Aegean' or 'pre-Greek'
vocabulary items in the Greek language are the prod-
uct of this process. That does not exclude, however,
the possibility that the Greek language does also
contain traces of: (i) a pre-Indo-European linguistic
substratum; (ii) archaic traces of the proto-Indo-Eu-
ropean language (and repertoire of place names)
which remained as archaisms as the Greek language
proper evolved; and (iii) more recent loan words
from Anatolia, of Bronze Age date, derived mainly
from the Anatolian languages (notably Luwian) and
from other languages of the time.
The work of Haley & Blegen in 1928 shifted
scholarly attention from the 'pre-Greek' vocabulary
to the place names, and then the decipherment of
Linear B established an entirely new context for the
discussion of the languages of the Aegean Bronze
Age. But, as I realized after the main body of this
article was written, a number of the points made above
were anticipated by Glotz, for instance the insights
into music, song and dance. As he put it in a passage
which itself has lyrical qualities (Glotz 1925,388):
When Homer describes the dances which were per-
formed in the theatre of Knossos, he authorises us
to think that the bards who sang in the palace of
Alkinoos had their forerunners in the palace of
Minos, and that the Greek epic, with its artful lan-
250
guage, was inspired by poems far more ancient.
As he rightly summarizes the matter: 'There is no
doubt of it, Cretan writing expressed a highly civi-
lised language which shed its influence far and wide,
and survived'.
Crete and Mycenae: the semantic field of social
organization
As noted above, the non-Greek status of the
Mycenaean terms wanax and (perhaps) basileus might
be seen to carry with them wide-ranging implica-
tions for Minoan influence upon the origins of the
system of stratification within the Mycenaean state,
particularly during the Shaft Grave period. Kilian
(1988) gave a very clear analysis of the importance of
the role and concept of wanax as the paramount ruler
within the Mycenaean states. For although the term
wanax has not yet been recognized in any Linear A
inscription, its occurrence in the Linear B tablets,
and the non-Indo-European status of the word itself,
has very reasonably led most commentators to rec-
ognize it as of Minoan origin Some of the potential
implications have indeed been anticipated by Palaima
(1995,127) when he observes:
I am suggesting . . . that ideological notions, sym-
bols and perhaps the very term for 'king' itself
were borrowed and used to help establish and au-
thorise the primacy of the heads of the newly de-
veloping political system . . . I am allowing for a
process whereby the established Helladic/Aegean
and Indo-European features of mainland culture
were transformed and made part of the Late
Helladic palatial culture through a strong, selec-
tive adaptation of diverse elements of Minoan ma-
terial culture and Minoan social, political and
religious ideology.
The same will evidently hold for various elements of
the lexikon: this is a point long ago anticipated by
Meillet (1930,65):
Quand on constate que des mots comme basileus
ou comme wanax n'ont rien qui rappelle l'indo-
europeen ni par l'aspect general ni par des elements
constituants on est meme conduit a se demander si
la civilization 'egeenne' n'a pas exerce sur la con-
stitution des Hellenes une action considerable.
At the same time it is important, I think, not to
exaggerate the Minoan influence and its significance
in the development of Mycenaean society, nor need
Palaima's study be interpreted in that way. There is
no need to see the development of the Mycenaean
palaces and the way of life which centred upon them/
 Word of Minos
as some much earlier scholars were inclined to do, as
simply a borrowing of a pre-existing Minoan poltical
and administrative system. Hagg (1985) has written
of the development at this time of 'a syncretistic
cosmology of Minoan and Helladic components', and
I also find myself very much in agreement with the
approach of Wright (1995) who is careful to see the
changes in mainland social structure as a process of
internal development in the emerging Mycenaean
states, through peer-polity interaction, but always
with the Minoan model available to offer symbolic
and iconographic forms (and no doubt terminology
also) as they might be found useful. These ideas
therefore harmonise with those of Dickinson (1994,
246), who speaks of 'a general Minoanisation of the
Aegean in this period', most notably among the arts
and crafts, and yet emphasizes (Dickinson 1977, 56)
that 'this did not lead to a thorough "Cretanisation"
of society in the Argolid'. This distinction is also
clearly put by Hagg (1984,121) who emphasizes:
the difference between, on the one hand, the varied
repertoire of Minoan symbols in the Shaft Graves,
where they were mostly prestige items without
specific religious meaning, and on the other, the
selective adoption in the sanctuary context of what
really suited the cult practices of the mainland
population. I think this shows clearly that at
least at this early stage there was no question of
the mainlanders adopting the Minoan beliefs and
religious systems, and that here we see one of the
important structural differences between simple
Minoanization and what could be termed Minoan
domination within the framework of a 'thalassocracy',
as is most clearly seen in the case of some of the
Cycladic islands.
This pattern of selective borrowing, with the empha-
sis upon the material culture of the elite, is very much
what is implied by the 'Versailles effect', and such
borrowings generally have a linguistic counterpart.
Palaima's study offers many useful insights,
but I should say here that I find it too willing to
accept the notion that the presence of an Indo-Euro-
pean language on the mainland (i.e. Mycenaean
Greek) carries with it some supposition of 'Indo-
European' institutions, even if he does explicitly try
to avoid interpreting the Bronze Age Aegean 'ac-
cording to a preconceived Indo-European formula'.
Indeed it is hard to see what institutions in
Mycenaean Greece, or for that matter in Classical
Greece, should be regarded as specifically 'Indo-Eu-
ropean' in their nature. The tripartite system of so-
cial structure proposed by Dumezil, to which he
alludes, with the separation of military, religious
and judicial-administrative functions, is to be seen
251
in many of the world's early state societies, for in-
stance among the Classic Maya or indeed the Aztecs,
and no serious attempt has yet been made to relate it
at a detailed level to the archaeological record of the
Aegean Bronze Age. It may therefore be safer to
restrict the term Tndo-European' to the specific field
for which it was first devised, namely language.
The adoption by the Mycenaeans of the terms
wanax and basileus, probably from Minoan Crete,
may thus underline for us the pervasive quality of
the 'Versailles effect' at a crucial time in Mycenaean
social development. But neither this, nor the likely
Minoan origin of many of the other vocabulary items
discussed above, need lead to exaggerated implica-
tions. It is indeed also possible that a number of
Mycenaean terms were in their turn borrowed by
the Minoans over the same period and the linguistic
effects of Minoan-Mycenaean interaction may well
have been to some extent mutual. We have at the
moment no way of gauging the extent of borrowing
from early Greek in the Minoan language. Accepting
these cautionary words, however, we can also ac-
cept that there was, at the time which the 'Versailles
effect' describes, an asymmetry in Minoan-
Mycenaean relations which is reflected in the Minoan
iconography seen in the Shaft Graves and, it is ar-
gued here, in some linguistic borrowings from
Minoan into Greek.
There is, however, a further important area of
borrowing which may go rather beyond the scope of
the Versailles effect, namely the system of organiza-
tion for the economy of the Mycenaean palaces and
the bureaucratic literacy which sustained it. On the
one hand the rulers at Knossos, at the time the Lin-
ear B tablets found there were written, were one
infers essentially a Mycenaean Greek elite, since
the tablets recording their administrative disposi-
tions were written in their language. Many of the
offices held, and the system of administration in
general, were presumably in some respects imported
from the Greek mainland, as the recent discussion
on the status of the 'collectors' indicated in the tab-
lets (see Killen 1995) quite logically infers. But, on
the other hand, the syllabary of Linear B (used for
the Greek language) was at some point developed
from that of Minoan Linear A (using the Minoan
language) with the common purpose of maintaining
accurate accounts. Moreover the wider organizational
and administrative system (using Linear B) as first
seen at Knossos, probably in the Late Minoan II pe-
riod and certainly during Late Minoan IIIA, was
presumably the successor in some senses of the com-
plex bureaucratic system (employing the Linear A
 Colin Renfrew
script) used in Knossos and elsewhere in Crete dur-
ing the Late Minoan I period, itself in turn the inheri-
tor of an earlier recording system which employed a
Minoan Hieroglyphic script. The organization (and
the writing) of Late Minoan I Crete undoubtedly
utilized the Minoan language of the palaces. The
extent to which this Minoan vocabulary influenced
the terminology of adminstration in the Mycenaean
palaces and the special vocabulary of accounting
employed by the scribes in maintaining their records
remains to be more comprehensively assessed. But it
would seem here that we may be talking of the trans-
fer from Crete to the mainland of a fairly coherent
and reasonably integrated system of accounting (no
doubt with some accompanying lexical components)
which is an aspect of borrowing transcending the
more piecemeal operation of the Versailles effect.
The wider context: languages of the Aegean in the
later Bronze Age
It may be safe to assume that the language of the
Minoan Linear A tablets, in which the records of the
Minoan palaces were kept, and which appears also in
dedications at Minoan shrines, was the vernacular
tongue of palatial Crete (but see the comments of
Chadwick below). The comparable assumption is now
generally made for the Greek language of the Linear B
tablets in relation to the speech of the Greek mainland.
In western Anatolia it would seem that the prin-
cipal languages of Classical times (apart from Greek),
namely Lycian and Lydian (with Phrygian further
inland), were the descendants of the 'Anatolian' lan-
guages of the Bronze Age (Masson 1991; Luraghi
1998), notably Luwian and Hittite, with Carian in
the southwest showing other particularities.
'Anatolian continuity has been proved for Lydians
and Lycians' (Mellink 1991, 662), going back to
Luwian antecedents. The Carian case is more com-
plicated (Ray 1982; 1987; Shevoroshkin 1977). It is, as
Masson (1991, 676) puts the matter, 'an enigma. In
theory there are two possible solutions: either Carian,
unlike Lydian and Lycian, is truly an "Asianic" lan-
guage, relatively autochthonous and not Indo-Euro-
pean, or else it is an ancient Anatolian language of
Indo-European origin, like the languages mentioned
earlier, by which it was surrounded/ The increasing
success of the decipherment of Carian (Ray 1990),
based partly upon inscriptions left by Carian work-
men in Egypt, seems to make its affinity with the
Anatolian languages more probable.
It will be recalled that the Anatolian languages
(notably Hittite, Luwian and Palaic) together form a
252
sub-family of the Indo-European language family
(i.e. 'Anatolian'), just as do the Italic or the Germanic
or the Indo-Iranian languages, with the Greek lan-
guage itself as a singleton constituting an equivalent
branch, as indeed does Albanian (probably de-
scended from Illyrian), or Armenian. The Hattic lan-
guage, on the other hand, documented principally
from the Bogazkoy tablets, is not related to these. It
is not an Indo-European language, and in that sense
not an 'Anatolian' language. It is thought by
Diakonoff (1990,62), following V.V. Ivanov and oth-
ers, to belong with the West Caucasian branch of the
North Caucasian language family.
It is possible therefore to sketch out some sort
of language map for the Aegean in the sixteenth
century BC. Mycenaean Greek was spoken over most
of the Greek mainland, and the Minoan language in
Crete. Minoan may not have been the only language
of Crete. Homer {Odyssey 19, 175) observes: 'They
have not all the same speech; their tongues are mixed'
(Murray 1995, II, 247), but by his day there will have
been Greek as well as Minoan. Minoan may well
have been spoken in the colonies of the Thalassocracy
such as Akrotiri on Thera, Phylakopi on Melos and
Trianda on Rhodes, and perhaps at Miletus. But the
Greek language was probably not yet spoken on the
Anatolian coast; as Mee (1988, 301) puts it: 'LHIIB-
IIIA1 could be considered the first phase of the
Mycenaean expansion across the Aegean.' The same
is probably the case for Cyprus (Sherratt 1992,325).
In western Anatolia it would seem that Luwian
with its dialects was the principal language, although
opinions vary as to whether 'Lycian' and 'Lydian'
were, in the later Bronze Age, dialects of Luwian or
rather to be regarded as closely related languages. In
any case Carruba (1995, 18) draws attention to the
so-called 'Anatolian diagonal' (between the Bosporus
and the Gulf of Alexandretta), to the west of which
the ancient toponyms are said to be so profoundly
Luwian as to make difficult if not impossible the
detection of any 'pre-Luwian' substratum.
At the same time we should note the possibil-
ity, recognized above, that the Carian language, spo-
ken in southwest Anatolia in Classical times, is
descended not from an 'Anatolian' (i.e. Indo-Euro-
pean) but from an 'Asianic' linguistic ancestor. If
this were so, some non-Indo-European 'pre-Carian'
language may well have been spoken in Caria dur-
ing the Bronze Age.
Of course there may well have been other lan-
guages, now extinct, of which we have little or no
trace. References to 'Pelasgians' in the Classical his-
torians and geographers hint at this, but it seems
 Word of Minos
clear that these writers often referred to the
Mycenaean world as 'Pelasgian', accepting anachro-
nistic ethnic and migrationist origin myths. These
sometimes led them to see what we would regard as
their own Mycenaean predecessors as something
'Other', and hence as potentially 'Pelasgian'. The
non-Greek inscriptions on Lemnos, with their Etrus-
can affinities, may represent another such language,
but the possibility has been advanced that Lemnian
in fact represents some more recent (i.e. post-Bronze
Age) incursion into the Aegean from the west (Briquel
1992). An anonymous reviewer states that 'new evi-
dence (yet to be published) shows that Etruscans
colonized Lemnos in the seventh to sixth century BC'.
The situation in the Cycladic Islands is unclear
in the absence of direct linguistic evidence, other
than a few Linear A inscribed items from the sites
showing strong Minoan influence or presence. The
presence of Linear A signs on the pottery of Thera
and Melos, noted long ago by Evans, suggested to
him some wider currency: 'We may perhaps... infer
the existence of a common language in Crete and in
Melos' (Evans 1904, 184). Then there are of course
the inferences to be drawn from the 'pre-Hellenic'
place names, among them the island names them-
selves: Thera, Kimolos, Paros, Naxos, Oliaros (i.e.
Antiparos), Sikinos, Syros, Tenos and also Keos. That
position as reviewed by Haley & Blegen (1928) was
radically transformed by the subsequent discovery
of Neolithic settlements in the Cyclades: these au-
thors had used the absence of such settlement to
date the spread of the population speaking the 'pre-
Greek' language, supposedly represented by the early
place names in question, to the Early Bronze Age.
These might now be considered to be of potentially
earlier origin (Renfrew 1964).
In the sixteenth century BC it would seem that
Mycenaean Greek was spoken to the west of the
Cyclades, Minoan to the south and Luwian and its
relatives to the east. These languages may well have
been represented in the Cyclades, but some of the
islanders may also have spoken a tongue of their
own, derived from that of the early Neolithic settlers
of the islands. That this language may have been
related to one of the languages of west Anatolia,
specifically Carian, has been suggested by some on
the basis of the famous passage of Thucydides (I. IV)
on the Thalassocracy of Minos:
Minos is the earliest of all those known to us by
tradition who acquired a navy. He made himself
master of a very great part of what is now called
the Hellenic Sea, and became lord of the Cyclades
islands and first colonizer of most of them, driving
253
out the Carians and establishing his own sons in
them as governors (Forster Smith 1919,1,9).
Although I share the scepticism of Dickinson, noted
below, on the validity of such notably later testi-
mony, this notion could be considered as further
supported by the same authority (Thucydides I. VIII)
in an equally famous passage with pronounced ar-
chaeological overtones:
For Carians inhabited most of the islands, as may
be inferred from the fact that, when Delos was
purified by the Athenians in this war and the graves
of all who had ever died on the island were re-
moved, over half were discovered to be Carians,
being recognized by the fashion of the armour
found buried with them, and by the mode of burial
which is that still in use among them.
These opinions date from fully a millennium after
the period in review, but at the least they raise inter-
esting questions. The earliest extant account is that
of Herodotus (1.171):
Then a long time afterwards the Carians were
driven from the islands by Dorians and Ionians
and so came to the mainland. This is the Cretan
story about the Carians; but they themselves do
not consent to it, but hold that they are aboriginal
dwellers on the mainland, and ever bore the name
which they bear now . . . (Godley 1920,1,215).
It may be a mistake to read too much into these
accounts of supposedly ancient ethnic groups (for,
as noted above, the analogous pursuit of the
Pelasgians through the writings of the Classical his-
torians proves to be a confusing enterprise), and
Oliver Dickinson (pers. comm.) has firmly advised:
'Here I would definitely caution against assuming
anything that Herodotus and Thucydides say has
any bearing on the real situation in the Bronze Age'.
The possibility remains, however, that the language
of the Cycladic islanders in the later Bronze Age
may have been related to those of western Anatolia.
As Mellink puts it (1991,663):
To what extent the islanders were also Carians in
the second millennium we cannot at present deter-
mine. The conflation of Carians with Middle and
Late Cycladic sailors may be too exclusive in some
Greek accounts (Thuc.1.4), but we can assume that
the islanders were neither Minoans nor Achaeans,
and the story of island crews for Minos rings true.
The 'pre-Greek' place names
With their seminal paper of seventy years ago, Haley
& Blegen (1928) gave systematic consideration to the
 Colin Renfrew
archaeological and historical significance of the place
names preserved in ancient Greek records and in-
scriptions which earlier linguists had recognized as
having no meaning in terms of the Greek language.
They could therefore be recognized as non-Greek,
and in consequence (it was argued) as 'a legacy from
pre-Greek times'. They have given rise to an exten-
sive literature. As noted above, Haley & Blegen used
the supposed absence of Neolithic settlement in the
Cycladic islands, where such names are found, to
suggest that they represent an Early Bronze Age
transfer from Asia Minor: 'a pre-Greek linguistic fam-
ily occupying in force Crete, the Cyclades, the south-
ern and eastern Peloponnese and central Greece, with
offshoots extending beyond to the north, north-west
and west into the adjoining provinces' (Haley &
Blegen 1928,148).
As Georgiev has pointed out (1973,244), Haley
& Blegen were basing much of their argument on the
view of Kretschmer, first published in 1896, that the
place names in question were of pre-Indo-European
origin. Many scholars have subsequently followed
that view. However Kretschmer in 1925 radically
changed his position, and identified several of the
suffixes in question (of the form -nth- (or -nd-) and
-s(s)-) as Indo-European, although still in many cases
pre-Greek. This is an important point, anticipating
the various discussions which have taken place more
recently on the affinities of many of these place names
with those of the Luwian language.
Careful consideration of these place names was
given by Hester (1957), who eight years later, in the
course of his critical treatment of the 'Pelasgian'
theory, produced the vocabulary list which is used
as the basis for Table 1 above (Hester 1965). He
concluded (Hester 1957,116):
To summarise: it appears that the place-names oc-
curring in the Aegean area with the suffixes -nth-,
-rn-, -mn-, -nd- and perhaps also many in -ss- (At-
tic -tt-), -nt-, but not most of those in -1-, -m-, -n-,
-r-, -s-, are of common linguistic groups which do
not show any certain connection with any other,
and that these names were introduced into the area
before the fall of the Mycenaean palaces.
The non-Greek status of many of these names should
therefore be borne in mind. It may well prove to be
the case that some of them should be regarded, as
Haley & Blegen assumed (following the earlier view
of Kretschmer) as of pre-Indo-European origin. But
since the formulation of Kretschmer's later view (that
they were indeed pre-Greek but not pre-Indo-Euro-
pean) there has been much further work, especially
on the Anatolian names. Scholars such as Schacher-
254
meyr (1954) have produced maps showing the wide
distribution of these names in western Anatolia, the
Aegean, the Central Mediterranean and the Balkans
(although others have doubted whether what is be-
ing plotted over so wide an area is in fact a linguisti-
cally consistent phenomenon).
The Anatolian instances of these names have
been the subject of special scrutiny, since the suffixes
-ssa and -zuanda or -wanta are not infrequent in Luwian
place names. Laroche (1961, 57) in particular has
pointed out in relation to the Anatolian place names:
'La doctrine generalement acceptee, selon laquelle
les toponymes in -ssa et -nda representent une couche
de vocabulaire anterieure aux migrations indo-
europeennes et definissent par consequent un
"substrat" asianique, repose essentiellement sur
l'affirmation que ces suffixes n'ont pas d'etymologie'.
Proceeding to offer such an etymological analysis,
and thus to refute conventional opinion, he con-
cludes: 'II importe done de reviser la notion de
substrat asianique et les constructions proto-
historiques qu'on a fondees sur lui. On sait que la
theorie interesse au premier chef le domaine voisin,
egeen et prehellenique, qui connait des toponymnes
en -ssos et -nthos.'
While it may not be permissible automatically
to correlate the names in -ssa and -nda in Anatolia
with those in Greece ending in -ssos and -nthos it is
nonetheless possible that many or most of these
names, in the Aegean as in western Anatolia, repre-
sent a linguistic substrate which while linguistically
pre-Greek or pre-Anatolian is not also pre-Indo-Eu-
ropean. I find it tempting, therefore, to associate this
with the early Indo-European phase which Chadwick
(1963) sees present in Greece prior to the develop-
ment there of the Greek language itself (although he
would date the influx of those speaking this early
Indo-European ancestor of Greek as late as the end
of the Early Bronze Age).
These considerations, however, while related
to our principal theme, do not form a central part of
it. The distribution of these place names is so very
wide and their frequency so great on the Greek main-
land that one could hardly suggest that they were all
or nearly all of Minoan origin, which is our proposal
for the 'pre-Greek' (i.e. non-Greek) vocabulary words
of Group II above.
Consequences and hypotheses
If many of the non-Greek vocabulary words present
in ancient Greek are recognized as of Minoan origin,
what are the consequences of this recognition for
 Word of Minos
our general perception of Aegean prehistory? I would
suggest that they are threefold. In the first place they
focus our attention more closely upon the origins of
the Minoan language and indeed of the Minoan
population. Secondly, they lead us to consider more
closely the origins of the relatively few non-Greek
vocabulary words which may still be considered as
'pre-Greek', namely some of those of Group I above.
And thirdly, they bring into consideration more clearly
than before the early languages of western Anatolia.
The origins of the first Cretans
There is very wide agreement among Minoan schol-
ars (e.g. Warren 1973) that the development of
Minoan Crete, from the time of Early Minoan I to the
end of Late Minoan IB, took place without the sig-
nificant intrusion of large populations from outside
of Crete. Moreover the survival of the Neolithic popu-
lation of Crete into the Early Minoan period would
not, I think, be questioned, although Warren (1973)
has argued for some movement of people into Crete
from western Anatolia at the beginning of the Early
Bronze Age, and still feels (pers. comm.) that the
Minoan language could well have been substantially
introduced or formed then (although noting that it
could also have been the same language as, or one
similar to, that of their Aceramic Anatolian fore-
bears). Similarly Hood (1990, 151) has recently ar-
gued for a movement of people into Crete then, 'but
that the most important movement into the island at
that time was on a strictly limited scale in the first
instance, and was confined perhaps to the immedi-
ate region of Knossos on the north coast'. It has not,
however, been suggested that there was a total re-
placement of population at that time. As I have ar-
gued elsewhere (Renfrew 1996,10): 'It is possible, in
view of the apparent cultural continuity, that the
principal language of Crete as spoken in Early and
Middle Minoan times was descended from that of
the island's first inhabitants following the initial colo-
nisation episodes'. These took place at the beginning
of the Cretan Neolithic, around 7000 BC, since there
is absolutely no evidence for Mesolithic occupation
on Crete. The island may well have been visited
earlier by seafarers: very early finds of obsidian of
Melian origin in the Franchthi Cave in the Argolid
suggest that as early as the Upper Palaeolithic pe-
riod there was widespread seafaring in the Aegean
(Renfrew & Aspinall 1990). If Melos was visited from
time to time, we may safely assume that Crete too
was visited by hunter-gatherer seafarers, both from
mainland Greece and from mainland western
Anatolia.
255
The initial colonization, as represented by Stra-
tum X at Knossos, must have been a well-organized
enterprise (Broodbank & Strasser 1991, 237): 'In the
present state of knowledge the point of origin from
which farmers reached Crete is not certain. Anatolia
appears the likely candidate'. The voyage from west-
ern Anatolia for a founding group of some 40 per-
sons with their cereals, cattle, sheep and goats and
pigs, by the Rhodes-Karpathos-Kasos route involves
a total distance of some 185 km with a maximum
open-sea passage of 50 km from Kasos. From the
Peloponnese via Kythera and Antikythera, the dis-
tance is 100 km with an open-sea passage of 30 km.
Which possibility represents the historical reality is
of course important for the present argument. Crete
and Thessaly saw the earliest Neolithic settlements
outside Anatolia (Cherry 1990; van Andel & Runnels
1995; Watrous 1994) and the generally held assump-
tion seems warranted that Crete was first populated
from Anatolia in around 7000 BC.
The Classical writers, although dealing with a
very much later time period, do emphasize the af-
finities between the Cretans and the various peoples
of western Anatolia. Reference has already been made
to the Carians. Herodotus (1.172) states of the
Caunians that they 'are aborigines of the soil; but
they themselves say that they came from Crete. Their
speech has grown like to the Carian, or the Carian to
theirs (for that I cannot clearly determine) but in
their customs they are widely severed from the
Carians . . .' Herodotus also makes the suggestive
observation (1.173): The Lycians were of Crete in
ancient times (for of old none that dwelt in Crete
were Greek).' There might appear to be some sug-
gestion here of affinity between Minoan and the
languages of southwest Anatolia, but as Oliver
Dickinson points out to me, Greek tradition knew so
little of the Bronze Age past that no real memory
that Cretan civilization had been non-Greek-speak-
ing survived. In any case, the chronological dispar-
ity is great.
In determining the origin of the first Neolithic
settlers in Crete, the presence of bread wheat (Triticum
aestivum) in Stratum X at Knossos among the other
domesticates seems of crucial relevance, since this is
absent from Early Neolithic sites in Greece but
present in early levels at (^atalhoyiik and Can Hasan
III in central Anatolia (J.M. Renfrew 1973, 203). If
that argument be followed, it could be suggested
although with some diffidence in view of the
timespans involved that the Minoan language of
the Middle and Late Bronze Age (and hence the
language of the vocabulary words of Group II) would
 Colin Renfrew
be the descendant, over some five millennia, of the
language (for which we might might tentatively pro-
pose the term Proto-Minoan) of the Early Neolithic
population in southwest Anatolia from which the
first colonists came to Crete.
Such very considerable periods of time are
sometimes considered by historical linguists as too
long to allow of meaningful discussion, but this view
is not a unanimous one (e.g. Dolgopolsky 1988; 1993;
also Dixon 1997,47). Moreover developments in mo-
lecular genetics are making it possible to investigate
population movements at time depths as great as or
greater than these (e.g. Richards et al. 1996) and a
consensus seems to be emerging that the separate
identity of the Basque language, for example, must
go back to at least as early a date, and possibly back
into the Upper Palaeolithic.
The techniques of molecular genetics have not
yet been applied to study the contemporary genetic
diversity of the Aegean as effectively as they have in
other parts of Europe (Renfrew 1994, 6). There is
great genetic diversity, for instance, in contempo-
rary Sardinia. Moreover it is becoming clear that
such modern diversity is to be attributed in many
cases to very early movements of founder popu-
lations. It is to be predicted, therefore, that such
studies on modern Cretan populations might in fa-
vourable circumstances have the potential, on the
one hand, of confirming the western Anatolian ori-
gin of the Neolithic colonists of Crete or, on the
other, of suggesting that this founding population
came instead from the Peloponnese. These hypoth-
eses about early population movements and their
linguistic correlates are not therefore mere specula-
tions incapable of further investigation or of resolu-
tion. It is to be predicted that within ten or fifteen
years we shall know much more about Minoan popu-
lation origins.
Very recent work on the DNA of the Y-chromo-
somes of living populations of Europe and Western
Asia shows a high frequency in Crete of the haplotype
designated 'network 1.2', seen also in western
Anatolia and south-east Europe and dated to ap-
proximately 7500 DP (Malaspina et al. in press). Al-
though the sample size so far is small, it would be
possible to regard this as reflecting a founder effect
from the initial colonization of the island from south-
west Anatolia, and to compare it with the compara-
bly anomalous data from Sardinia. Further information
bearing upon population history is to be expected
from this source.
It should be noted that Brown (1990) has sought
to identify traces of the Luwian language in the Lin-
256
ear A inscriptions and in Cretan place names. This
might, if accepted, be thought to indicate linguistic
acquisition from Anatolia in the later Bronze Age
(see Palmer 1965), whether as a result of trading
contacts or of some movement of people. But it could
alternatively indicate a communality of earlier ori-
gin between Minoan and Luwian.
The 'pre-Greek' vocabulary of Group I
In the above discussion it has been suggested that
the supposedly 'pre-Greek' vocabulary words of
Group II in the Greek language are to be seen in-
stead as words from the Minoan language of Crete,
borrowed by early Mycenaean Greek. And the pos-
sibility has been recognized that the 'pre-Greek' place
names discussed by Haley & Blegen may not be pre-
Indo-European, as they suggested, but rather early
Indo-European, part of a wide diaspora of early Indo-
European toponymns seen in much of western
Anatolia, throughout the Aegean and perhaps as far
as the Balkans and the central Mediterranean (al-
though the linguistic unity of this wider distribution
may be questioned).
As noted above, it is pertinent to ask whether
this genuinely pre-Greek yet nonetheless Indo-Euro-
pean language might represent the hypothetical pre-
cursor within Greece of early Greek which Chadwick
(1963) suggested. Certainly, if the Greek language
evolved within what are now Greek lands, some
such Indo-European precursor must be postulated
(unless the status of Greek as an Indo-European lan-
guage be called into question). In view of the evi-
dently very early antecedents in Anatolia of the
'Anatolian' languages, it may be suggested that the
pre-Greek Indo-European language of the Aegean
came from Anatolia, and was related to the linguis-
tic ancestor of those Anatolian languages of the
Bronze Age.
In such a case, the remaining vocabulary, the
words of Group I, might well represent an earlier
linguistic substratum, since it may not be possible to
suggest that they are all loan words representing an
adstratum, as in the case of the items in Group II. So
here we do find ourselves in face of what may be
remnants of the language of the population of Greece
prior to the advent of the first Indo-European speak-
ers. As John Chadwick (pers. comm.) expresses the
point:
If the ancestors of the Greeks had been living in the
Mediterranean region previously they would not
have needed on arriving to borrow terms to de-
scribe the fauna and flora already established there.
But since many of these words have no secure
 Word of Minos
Indo-European etymology, this suggests that the
language concerned was not of Indo-European type,
though of course these may have been loans in the
parent language. But in any case their presence in
Greek implies that the Greeks came from further
north.
Marek Zvelebil (1995,48) has recently argued for the
effects of 'contact induced language change' when
an incoming population with certain economic ad-
vantages meets a pre-existing population. He has
done so in the context of the first spread of agricul-
ture (Zvelebil & Zvelebil 1990). Whether that repre-
sents the economic circumstance at work in this case,
which would imply a date as early as that consid-
ered above for the first origins of the Minoan lan-
guage, is no doubt a matter for discussion. But it is to
be predicted that for many historical linguists, so
early a date for the vocabulary words of Group I
may prove difficult to accept.
The early languages of Anatolia and the origins of the
Minoan language
The discussion above has suggested that many of
the 'pre-Greek' vocabulary words in the Greek lan-
guage (of Group II) do not represent a linguistic
substratum, but rather are borrowings, mainly of
Bronze Age date, from the Minoan language of Crete.
It is further suggested that the Minoan language is of
very great antiquity in Crete, with the advent of a
hypothetical Proto-Minoan conceivably traceable
back as far as the first Neolithic settlement of the
island around 7000 BC, probably from Anatolia. With
so early a date of separation, Minoan (if we had
more abundant texts) might well appear as a linguis-
tic isolate, just as do Etruscan or the Basque lan-
guage. Even if it were descended from an early
language, itself also ancestral to the Anatolian lan-
guages, these suggested relationships might not be
evident after episodes of linguistic divergence, or
perhaps also of convergence (see Dixon 1997, 47) of
some 5000 years duration. The hints given by
Herodotus of relationships between the Lycians, the
Caunians and possibly the Carians on the one hand
and the Minoans on the other ('for in ancient times
none that dwelt in Crete were Greek') are possibly
misleading in this respect. For if Proto-Minoan bud-
ded off from some early tongue of southwest Anatolia
around 7000 BC, the resemblances and affinities re-
maining in 1500 BC might not readily be discernible.
It should be noted here that there is a signifi-
cant body of scholarly opinion in favour of a very
early Proto-Indo-European presence in Anatolia (e.g.
Gamkrelidze & Ivanov 1985a; 1995), although many
257
linguists would not place it as early as 7000 BC (a
date acceptable however to Dolgopolsky (1993)). With
the initial recognition of Hittite as an Indo-European
language it was naturally assumed that it was intru-
sive to Anatolia, for by then there were in circulation
several theories about possible Indo-European home-
lands. None of them centred upon Anatolia, since
until that time there was no evidence for an Indo-
European presence in Anatolia before the Classical
period. Moreover the presence of inscriptions writ-
ten in Hattic, a non-Indo-European language, in the
Bogazkoy archives naturally at first suggested the
possibility of an early indigenous (and non-Indo-
European) substratum, overlain by the intrusive (and
Indo-European) Hittite.
Now, however, the distribution of the 'Anatolian'
languages, including Hittite, within Asia Minor is
very much better understood. As noted by Carruba
(1995) there is no clear trace of a pre-Luwian linguis-
tic substrate in western Anatolia. Moreover the de-
veloping knowledge of the North Caucasian
languages has permitted recognition of a complex
language family with potentially very wide relation-
ships (Starostin 1991). Among these, it is now recog-
nized that Hattic may be classed with the West
Caucasian branch of the North Caucasian language
family (Ivanov 1985), indeed its earliest attested
known representative. There is thus the possibility
that Hattic is not a language indigenous to Anatolia,
but may instead have come to central Anatolia from
the northeast, from its homeland in the Caucasus. At
the same time one may at least contemplate the pos-
sibility that Hittite (Nesite) may have been at home
in south-central Anatolia, where there is evidence
for its use at Kanesh at a date earlier than it is at-
tested at Bogazkoy further north. The local chrono-
logical priority of Hattic over Hittite, which is indeed
seen specifically in the tablets found at Bogazkoy
can no longer be assumed to be of general validity:
Hattic is now recognized as a Caucasian language
and may itself be the intruder in central Anatolia.
The indigenous status of Hittite in south-central
Anatolia would accord perfectly well with the views
on the area, considered further below, where Proto-
Indo-European was first spoken, as put forward
by Gamkrelidze & Ivanov (1985a; 1995) and by
Dolgopolsky (1988; 1993).
Indeed if we look at what is known of the lin-
guistic history of central and western Anatolia, we
see very little that is not Indo-European. Hattic may
be assigned to the North Caucasian language family,
and the same has been claimed for Lemnian (al-
though, as noted above, the very late Etruscan colo-
 Colin Renfrew
Hittite
Tocharian B
Albanian
Greek Armenian
Old Church Lithuanian Vedic Avestan
Slavic
Figure 3. The typology of the rooted evolutionary tree
for Indo-European (from Warnoio 1997, 6588), using a
mathematical approach. It supports the Indo-Hittite
hypothesis that the first subfamily to break off from the
root of the Indo-European evolutionary tree should be the
Anatolian branch.
nization of Lemnos cannot be excluded). As we have
seen, that leaves only Carian in southwest Anatolia
as of uncertain status, whether Indo-European or
'Asianic'. The other attested languages are Indo-
European.
At the same time, recent studies of the Indo-
European languages have suggested that the
Anatolian branch stands in a special position in re-
spect of the others. Sturtevant (1962) proposed that,
in the sequence of successive branchings from the
common Proto-Indo-European precursor, the
Anatolian languages came first. Indeed some schol-
ars prefer the designation 'Indo-Hittite' for the en-
tire, unbranched family, reserving 'Indo-European'
for the residue, once the Anatolian languages have
branched off. This view has received very strong
support from the statistical studies of the American
linguist Don Ringe (in press) and his colleague Tandy
Warnow (1997). Their studies have produced a tree-
diagram (Fig. 3) for the branching sequence of the
258
Indo-European sub-families. It should of course be
stressed that the diagram is a simple representation
of a complex body of data, and should not be read
directly as a linguistic family tree.
With so early a separation of the Anatolian lan-
guages (as represented on the diagram by Hittite:
Fig. 3) from the other branches of Indo-European,
the question naturally arises as to whether it is nec-
essary any longer to see these languages as intrusive
to Anatolia (see Harmatta 1964). Indeed, were there
not other factors to consider, such a configuration
would normally be read as suggesting an area of
origin in or near the locus of the first branching,
namely Anatolia, with a series of subsequent
displacements to account for the other relevant loca-
tions. Precisely this position, although on rather dif-
ferent linguistic grounds, has been adopted by
Gamkrelidze & Ivanov (1985b,c), whose massive two-
volume work (1985a; 1995) has had some influence
among historical linguists (see also Gamkrelidze
1990). They would place the original home of the
Indo-European speakers in Anatolia, although in the
east, rather than in west-central Anatolia. They have
followed up with great thoroughness the logic of the
intitial branching.
Some comparable arguments have led Aharon
Dolgopolsky (1988; 1993) to suggest an early split of
this kind, and an original home in central Anatolia
for the Proto-Indo-Europeans, a possibility accepted
also by Diakonoff (1990), although he regards this
very early stage as 'Pre-Proto-Indo-European', with
a subsequent Proto-Indo-European stage in the Bal-
kans. It is possible, although with some caution in
view of the timespans involved, to attempt to sum-
marize this position in a hypothetical tree diagram
(Fig. 4) indicating these relationships, and to give
some proposed historical framework for the purely
quantitative relationships presented in the diagram
by Ringe and Warnow.
This rather wide-ranging discussion has as one
of its underlying purposes the demonstration that
the Minoan language, even if it came in an early
stage of its development from Anatolia to Crete,
conceivably as early as 7000 BC, might yet have some
distant relationship with the Anatolian languages of
the Bronze Age, and with the Greek language, and
also with the proposed Indo-European language of
Greece and the Aegean which was itself ancestral to
Greek. As a cogent counter-argument, Chadwick
(pers. comm.) points out that the structure of the
Linear B syllabary is ill-adapted to Greek, almost
certainly due to its Minoan origin: 'If so, Minoan
made distinctions which are not relevant to the par-
 Word of Minos

The Early Anatolian and Aegean Languages

Pre-Proto-Indo-European(P.P.I.E.)
= Proto-'Indo-Hittite'

Proto-Indo-European (P.I.E.)
('narrow') Proto-Anatolian Proto-Minoan

Proto-Celtic
etc. I I I I
Proto- Proto- Proto- Proto- Proto-Hittite/Proto-Luwian
Steppe Germanic Italic Greek

Mycenean Hittite Luvvian Palaic Minoan

Greek

Classical (?? Phrygian) Lycian Lydian Carian Eteo-Cretan

Greek

Figure 4. Hypothetical ancestral relationships between the languages of the Aegean and Anatolia in the Bronze Age.
The dotted line represents the questionable hypothetical relationship between the proposed Proto-Minoan language and
the early common ancestor ('P're-Proto-Indo-European') of the Proto-Anatolian and the Proto-Indo-European
languages. The ancestry of Phrygian is uncertain: it is not generally classed as an 'Anatolian' language.

ent proto-Indo-European, and ignored ones which
are.' A central problem remains, however, that in
view of the long timespans involved, this genetic
relationship (if it existed) between Bronze Age
Minoan and Mycenaean Greek (through a hypotheti-
cal common proto-Indo-European ancestor) might
no longer be detectable, even given an adequate sam-
ple of data, in view of the continuing change through
time of the various languages through word loss
and replacement. The suggestion that Minoan should
be regarded as an Indo-European language has in-
deed been put forward by a number of scholars,
more recently Owens (1996, 194). He accepts the
likelihood that the Minoan language of the Late
Bronze Age was the descendent of the Proto-Minoan
spoken by the first, Neolithic inhabitants of Crete,
brought by them from western Anatolia. His posi-
tion is thus to be distinguished from that of scholars
such as Palmer (1958; 1965) who relate the Minoan
language to the Luwian of the later Bronze Age of
western Anatolia, the presence of which in Crete
would be the product of more recent population
movements.
In terms of the picture contemplated here there
are two possibilities for the antecedents of Minoan.
On the first model, embodying the dotted line seen
in Figure 4, it might be considered to derive from the
common ancestor in Asia Minor of the Indo-Euro-
pean languages proper and of the Anatolian lan-
guages. If we call that early ancestor 'Pre-Proto-Indo-
European' we could envisage three separate branches
deriving from it: (1) the Proto-Anatolian language,
ancestral to the Anatolian languages including Hittite
and Luwian; (2) the Proto-Indo-European language,
ancestral to Greek and ultimately to the other Indo-
European languages; and (3) Proto-Minoan, ances-
tral to the Minoan language of the Cretan Bronze
Age.
If the former case is accepted, the branching-
off of Proto-Minoan from Proto-Anatolian would be
very early, around 7000 BC, and the relationship be-
tween Minoan and the Anatolian languages of the
later Bronze Age consequently much less close. But
continuing borrowings in both directions will have
continued, just as considerable borrowing from
Minoan to Greek is argued in the present discussion.
An alternative model, where the dotted line of
Figure 4 would be expunged, would see in south-
west Anatolia at this time an early language entirely
unrelated to Proto-Indo-European (perhaps 'Asianic',
or conceivably related to the North Caucasian lan-
guage family, like Hattic and also Hurrian: see

259
 Colin Renfrew
Diakonoff & Starostin 1986). Some of its speakers
would have travelled to Crete as the founding popu-
lation, their descendents speaking Minoan. Perhaps
some of those who remained in southwest Anatolia
spoke a language ultimately ancestral to Carian.
It should be stressed, however, that the sugges-
tion that the 'Anatolian' languages, or their Proto-
Anatolian or Pre-Proto-Indo-European ancestor,
might be indigenous to Anatolia is not at present
accepted by the majority of workers with a specialism
in the Anatolian languages. They have sometimes
emphasized the indigenous status of the Hattic lan-
guage, and most have not yet discussed in detail the
relatively recent argument that the classification of
Hattic (as also Hurrian) with the North Cacuasian
language family opens up the possibility that these
themselves are intrusive to Anatolia. Some scholars
indeed, such as Jaan Puhvel, are emphatic in their
rejection of the prospect of Indo-European as indig-
enous to Anatolia (Puhvel 1994, 262): 'there is a les-
son in this for prehistorians of all stripes, namely
that material culture is in the last resort a wretched
tool for measuring the vagaries of human history'.
Conclusions
It has been argued that many of the so-called 'pre-
Greek' vocabulary items recognized in ancient Greek
do not in fact represent a linguistic substratum, but
are rather the result of linguistic borrowing during
the Bronze Age from the language of Minoan Crete.
Some degree of borrowing should be predicted in
view of the extent of Minoan influence in the Aegean
during the later Bronze Age, often referred to as the
'thalassocracy of Minos'. Such a view does not as-
sume Minoan political dominance; the 'Versailles
effect', whereby strong influences in thought and
fashion are exercised by a paramount centre of inno-
vation, would be sufficient.
This position has the effect of diminishing sig-
nificantly the number of words in the vocabulary of
Greek which might still be felt to belong to some
unidentified and early pre-Greek language. Moreo-
ver many of the 'pre-Hellenic' place names of the
Aegean may now be considered to be possibly of
Indo-European or Proto-Indo-European origin. It is
suggested here that they may be archaic relics of the
early Indo-European language which Chadwick
(1963) has proposed as the ancestor of Mycenaean
Greek.
It is suggested that the first settlers in Crete in
the Early Neolithic period came from southwest
Anatolia, and brought with them a language ances-
260
tral to Minoan. Further consideration of the
'Anatolian' languages develops the possibility that
their ancestor was native to Anatolia, and that there
was no 'coming' of Proto-Indo-European to Asia Mi-
nor. It is even conceivable if the passage of time
has not expunged all traces of genetic affinity that
Minoan, or Proto-Minoan, will one day (when more
texts are available) prove to be related to the early
(Indo-Hittite) ancestor of the 'Anatolian' languages,
and hence, like them, come to be classified within
the broader Indo-European language family.
It would be an interesting linguistic exercise,
but one certainly well beyond the competence of the
present author, to seek to distinguish (among the
non-Greek place names of the Aegean as well as the
non-Greek vocabulary words in Greek) those words
which might be considered Luwian on the one hand
from those to be regarded as Minoan on the other.
Both Minoan and Luwian are of later Bronze Age
date, and it would be profitable, although perhaps
difficult, to separate the Minoan and Luwian terms
from words and names in the earlier Indo-European
or Proto-Indo-European language of the area which
(following Chadwick's hypothesis) might be ances-
tral to Mycenaean Greek, and once again to divide
these in their turn from any remaining words which
might still be regarded as positively pre-Indo-Euro-
pean and therefore of a still earlier linguistic stra-
tum. It is to be hoped that further work on Minoan
Linear A, and the discovery of further Minoan and
Luwian texts, may in due course make more feasible
at least the first of these objectives
In moving towards a conclusion it may be ap-
propriate to inject a note of caution, and to quote the
words of John Chadwick (pers. comm.), written in
constructive spirit after the first oral presentation of
this article:
I am still convinced that the truth is much more
complicated than our theories allow, and, as you
said, the linguistic and archaeological scales do not
match. The earliest records of any Indo-European
language are from the second millennium BC, and I
cannot see how we can extrapolate from them except
in the most general way once we get back before
3000 BC. Hence my doubts about Nostratic, etc.
I cannot see why there should not have been
several languages in the Aegean area in prehistoric
times all contributing to the stock of place names
and other borrowings. There may have been more
than one language in Crete, even without quoting
Homer to prove it. Surely the Cyclades must have
had another language, and the mainland of Greece
does not have to have been homogeneous. Since
place names tend to migrate, we have to use that
 Word of Minos
evidence cautiously. Rather better are the botanical
terms which are characteristic of the Eastern Medi-
terranean, like the turpentine tree. The Greeks
surely picked these words up in situ, and therefore
must have come from a more northerly clime.
I do not agree with his conclusion, but the point
about complexity is just, and a helpful reminder when
one is striving to make sense out of a picture already
complex enough. At the same time, however, it is
the duty of the research worker to try to make sense
out of the available data, and to question the as-
sumptions which underlie the way those data are
currently ordered. It remains the central tenet of this
article that the linguistic contribution of Minoan Crete
to the Greek language has, at any rate since the time
of Glotz, been insufficiently valued. When it is ap-
propriately considered, some of the arguments for
the pre-Greek status of the non-Greek elements in
the Greek language disappear, or at least appear less
significant. This opens the way for other hypotheses,
to which the long-standing but now questionable
theory of a still identifiable 'pre-Greek' language in
the Aegean need no longer be an obstacle.
Acknowledgements
I am particularly grateful for comments and correc-
tions on earlier drafts of this paper kindly offered by
Neil Brodie, John Chadwick, Oliver Dickinson,
Sinclair Hood, J.T. Killen, P.M. Warren and two
anonymous reviewers, although they of course hold
no responsibility for the finished product. An earlier
version was first read at the Mycenaean Seminar at
the University of London on Wednesday 5 th No-
vember 1997 under the chairmanship of Olga
Krzkowska. Neil Brodie has also kindly assisted in
the compilation of word lists and the production of
illustrations.
Colin Renfrezu
McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research
Downing Street
Cambridge
CB23ER
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