Editing Arthur Evans (section)

===Scripta Minoa===
{{Main|Linear A|Linear B}}

During excavations by Evans, he found 3,000 clay tablets, which he transcribed and organised, publishing them in ''Scripta Minoa''.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.etana.org/node/11201|title=Scripta minoa: the written documents of minoan Crete with special reference to the archives of Knossos – ETANA|access-date=9 June 2016}}</ref> As some of them are now missing, the transcriptions are the only source of the marks on the tablets. He perceived that the scripts were two different and mutually exclusive writing systems, which later he termed into Linear A and Linear B. The A script appeared to have preceded the B. Evans dated the Linear B Chariot Tablets, so called from their depictions of chariots, at Knossos to immediately prior to the catastrophic Minoan civilisation collapse of the 15th century BC.<ref>Hogan, C. Michael (2007) ''Knossos''</ref>

One of Evans's theses in the 1901 ''Scripta Minoa'', is that<ref>{{Cite journal
| title = Scripta Minoa – Volume 1
| first = A.J. | last = Evans
| year = 1909
| page = 87,89
| publisher = Oxford
}}</ref> most of the symbols for the [[Phoenician alphabet]] ([[abjad]]) are almost identical to the many centuries older, 19th century BC, [[Cretan hieroglyphs]].

The basic part of the discussion about [[Phoenician alphabet]] in ''Scripta Minoa, Vol. 1'' takes place in the section ''Cretan Philistines and the Phoenician Alphabet''.<ref>Pages 77–94.</ref> Modern scholars now see it as a continuation of the [[Proto-Canaanite alphabet]] from ca. 1400 BC, adapted to writing a [[Canaanite language|Canaanite]] (Northwest Semitic) language. The Phoenician alphabet seamlessly continues the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, by convention called Phoenician from the mid-11th century, where it is first attested on inscribed bronze arrowheads.<ref>Markoe (2000), p. 111.</ref>

Evans had no better luck with Linear B, which turned out to be Greek. Despite decades of theories, Linear A has not been convincingly deciphered, nor even the language group identified. His classifications and careful transcriptions have been of great value to Mycenaean scholars.