Silver pin from Mavro Spelio: A.Y. Nikolaos Museum PL Zf 1

Silver pin from Mavro Spelio: A.Y. Nikolaos Museum PL Zf 1:

Minoan Linear APL Zf1 silver pin Nikolaus Museum

 

This silver pin, PL Zf 1, from Mavro Spelio, now housed in the A.Y. Nikolaos Museum, Crete, bears an inscription which may read dextrograde (left-to-right) or sinistrograde (right-to-left), but either way the text reads the same way. The inscription is a mixture of Mycenaean-derived New Minoan (NM1) and Old Minoan. The words Tanunikina (nom. fem. sing.) and Ninuni (dat. sing.) are almost certainly eponyms, with the former acting in some way as an agent of healing to the latter. Apart from the eponyms, the Old Minoan text is indecipherable. But that does not mean we cannot catch the drift of the inscription, because we can. It certainly makes sense that Tanunikina, despite her best efforts to spin or weave a magic spell, cannot heal Ninuna. We can infer that Tanunikina is a healer priestess. Such personages were extremely common in the ancient world, and certainly in Minoan Crete and on the Mycenaean mainland, with this practice surviving into archaic and classical Greece. She may even be an oracle, such as we find at Delphi much later on in ancient Greek history. If she is an oracle, she probably worked from a Minoan peak sanctuary.   



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Sappho, spelled (in the dialect spoken by the poet) Psappho, (born c. 610, Lesbos, Greece — died c. 570 BCE). A lyric poet greatly admired in all ages for the beauty of her writing style.

Her language contains elements from Aeolic vernacular and poetic tradition, with traces of epic vocabulary familiar to readers of Homer. She has the ability to judge critically her own ecstasies and grief, and her emotions lose nothing of their force by being recollected in tranquillity.

Marble statue of Sappho on side profile.

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