Michaelmas Term Lecture 2024

The Centre hosts the following lecture (Wednesday 30th October 2024 at 5.15pm in the Memorial Room, Queen’ s): Dr Annick Payne (Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia), ‘Anatolian Hieroglyphs: Drawing a Picture of the Ancient Mind’

The Anatolian Hieroglyphic script, a mixed logo-phonetic writing system, was used ca. 1500-700 BCE by the Hittite Empire and its successor states. Studies of the script not only enable us to read texts written several thousand years ago, but the script itself is also an informative resource on the ancient mind, and on the environment of its users. This paper introduces the little known writing system and discusses its value to the modern reader beyond its primary function of recording text.