Minoan language in the context of "Cretan hieroglyphs"

Linear B is a syllabic script that was used for writing in Mycenaean Greek, the earliest attested form of the Greek language. The script predates the Greek alphabet by several centuries, the earliest known examples dating to around 1450 BC. It is adapted from the earlier Linear A, an undeciphered script perhaps used for writing the Minoan language, as is the later Cypriot syllabary, which also recorded Greek. Linear B, found mainly in the palace archives at Knossos, Kydonia, Pylos, Thebes and Mycenae, disappeared with the fall of the Mycenaean civilization during the Late Bronze Age collapse. The succeeding period, known as the Greek Dark Ages, provides no evidence of the use of writing.

Linear B was deciphered in 1952 by English architect and self-taught linguist Michael Ventris based on the research of the American classicist Alice Kober. It is the only Bronze Age Aegean script to have been deciphered, with Linear A, Cypro-Minoan, and Cretan hieroglyphic remaining unreadable.

Eteocretan (/ˌiːtioʊˈkriːtən, ˌɛt-/ from Ancient Greek: Ἐτεόκρητες, romanized: Eteókrētes, lit. "true Cretans", itself composed from ἐτεός eteós "true" and Κρής Krḗs "Cretan") is the pre-Greek language attested in a few alphabetic inscriptions of ancient Crete.

In eastern Crete, about half a dozen inscriptions have been found, which, though written in Greek alphabets, are clearly not Greek. These inscriptions date from the late 7th or early 6th century down to the 3rd century BC. The language is so far untranslated. It may be a survival of a language spoken on Crete before the arrival of the proto-Greek language and it has been suggested that it is derived from the Minoan language preserved in the Linear A inscriptions of a millennium earlier. Since that language remains undeciphered, it is not certain that Eteocretan and Minoan are related.

The prehistory of Southeast Europe, defined roughly as the territory of the wider Southeast Europe (including the territories of the modern countries of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, and European Turkey) covers the period from the Upper Paleolithic, beginning with the presence of Homo sapiens in the area some 44,000 years ago, until the appearance of the first written records in Classical Antiquity, in Greece.

The first written script of Greece was Linear A, an undeciphered script used for writing the Minoan language of Crete, as is the later Cypriot syllabary, which also recorded Greek. After Linear A came Linear B, a syllabic script used for writing Mycenaean Greek, the earliest attested form of the Greek language. The script predates the Greek alphabet by several centuries. The oldest Mycenaean writing dates to about 1400 BC. Linear B, found mainly in the palace archives at Knossos, Kydonia, Pylos, Thebes and Mycenae, but disappeared with the fall of the Mycenaean civilisation in the Late Bronze Age collapse.