Cypro-Minoan signs

All of the Haifa ingots are engraved with two signs. This sign pictured here is found on every one of the Haifa ingots. The writing has been identified as possibly belonging to the Cypro-Minoan script. This script, attested from the 16th century BCE onwards, was used on the island of Cyprus and in the city of Ugarit, on the Syrian coast. Cypro-Minoan has not been deciphered and it is uncertain which language(s) it was used for. .See Bendall and West 2020. ‘Evidence from Written Sources, p.55-74. Maddin et al 1977. ‘Tin in the Ancient Near East: Old Questions and New Finds’ identified the signs on the Haifa ingots as belonging to the Cypro-Minoan script.

Due to the island’s rich sources of copper, Cyprus was an important node in the Bronze Age trade network. Evidence for this can be found in the many trade wares found all across the Mediterranean bearing Cypro-Minoan signs. Especially common are the inscriptions consisting of two signs, as on the Haifa ingots.These are possibly abbreviations indicating the objects possessor or producer, but this is not certain. See Steele 2020. ‘Script and Literacy’ p.258–59. The fact that the Haifa ingots are engraved with Cypro-Minoan signs, makes it likely that the tin, having come from England, was processed by a Cypriot bureaucracy before being shipped south, where the ingots ended up on the Haifa sea floor.

Want to know more about this script? Then go to the long read.