Writing in Time and Space: the writing ‘systems’ of Doctor Who

Anyone who’s followed the CREWS blog will know that we’re fond of a bit of sci-fi and fantasy. We’ve talked about the writing systems of Star Wars, Game of Thrones and Indiana Jones. But ever since I was a kid, my absolute favourite piece of science fiction has been Doctor Who. Since it’s finally back this weekend, what better time to look at how it handles writing?

Star Wars, Writing Systems and Rationalising Imaginary Worlds

We’re big Star Wars fans here on the CREWS Project, and with a new film out now seems like a good time to revisit the topic of writing in the Star Wars galaxy. Pippa’s written before about Aurebesh, the most well-known Star Wars writing system, but as she mentioned in that post there are actually a lot more, and they’re a nice illustration of the changing way popular media uses writing-systems in its world-building.

Aurebesh

Come and see the CREWS display!

Natalia and Philip have made a video about our special display on ancient writing at the Fitzwilliam Museum, to explain what it is about – and to encourage you to come and have a look while you can if you have a chance to visit Cambridge!

The display is free and is on until 10th June, and you can find it in the Cypriot Gallery at the Fitzwilliam Museum.

CREWS Display: A Phoenician Arrowhead

Today in our survey of the objects in the CREWS exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum, we’re looking at this bronze Phoenician arrowhead, on loan from the British Museum.

CREWS Display: Par(a)menon’s Tombstone

Pippa has already told us about the decipherment of the Cypriot syllabaries. With the next item of our display at the Fitzwilliam museum, I have the opportunity to outline how they were used to write in the Greek language.

This is an inscription engraved on a stone that indicates the burial of a man. It was found in Marion (in the north west of the island) and dated around the 5^th – 4^th centuries BC.

CREWS Display: A Babylonian Tablet

For the third of our posts looking at the objects in the CREWS Display at the Fitzwilliam Museum, we’re going to turn our attention to probably the oldest item we have on display: this cuneiform tablet.

Writing on High

I have been meaning to post something about the Bisitun (or Behistun) inscription for ages now, but never seem to get round to it. Noticing that today is International Mountain Day has finally spurred me to action – though this will have to be a short post for now because I don’t have time at the moment to do this wonderful monument the justice it deserves.

The inscription can be found 100m up a cliff, on Mt Behistun in present-day Iran. It’s huge (15 x 25 m) and incorporates images as well as trilingual text in Old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian. All three languages are written in different types of cuneiform, i.e. wedge-shaped writing that was adapted and developed by different societies of the Near East. By the time of this inscription (late 6th or early 5th C BC), cuneiform had already been in use for thousands of years, so what we are seeing here are very late manifestations of a multi-stranded tradition of writing with a very long history.

Ancient Literacy and Cypriot Mercenaries

Earlier this week, Natalia’s post on Cypriots and Iberians told us a little about the Cypriot Syllabic script, which up to now has not featured very much on the CREWS blog. In fact, as someone who has been working on the languages and writing systems of ancient Cyprus for years, this is a subject close to my heart! In this post I wanted to pick up on the question of literacy in ancient Cyprus – and as you will see, the movements of Cypriot mercenary soldiers are an important part of the puzzle.

Relief sculpture with Cypriot Syllabic inscriptions. http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/241924

Cats in the Aegean Scripts

I just discovered that it is International Cat Day – which is unusually relevant to my research at the moment! But why should someone who works on ancient writing be so interested in cats all of a sudden? Well, we need to travel back in time to the ancient Aegean to discover the reason.

Cretan Hieroglyphic seal made of carnelian, showing a cat figure. Image from HERE.

Learning about Cuneiform Tablets Behind the Scenes at the British Museum

We’ve talked before on this blog about the importance of hands-on experience with inscriptions. Seeing and handling the real thing gives a much clearer idea of the practical realities of reading and writing an ancient script than working from a transcription or even a drawing or photograph.

So I was very lucky this week to be able to visit the British Museum with Cambridge’s Assyriologists, for a behind-the-scenes tour and a hands-on session with some of their many cuneiform tablets.