Cypriot Syllable I

It writes the vowel i on its own.

In the Cypriot syllabary, other signs can represent a consonant joined to a vowel; 𐠂 carries only the vowel. It records a sound in written language.

What did the Cypriot syllabary write?

It recorded Greek and Eteocypriot in ancient Cyprus.

Eteocypriot was another language written on the island. The signs appear in grave and offering inscriptions, on pottery and coins, and more rarely on metal or ivory. The bronze Idalion tablet preserves a public contract linking a king, the city, and physicians treating wounded soldiers.

The script’s public meaning depended on its setting. In bilingual inscriptions at Amathus, Eteocypriot could assert local roots. Under Evagoras, alphabetic Greek beside the syllabary signaled ties to the Greek world and resistance to Persian and Phoenician power.

How early is the surviving evidence?

A trace of its syllabic tradition dates to the 11th century BCE.

A short inscription on bronze spits from a tomb at Skales supplies that date. It dates the surviving evidence, not the invention of 𐠂 itself.

The Cypriot syllabary followed Cypro-Minoan, an Aegean writing tradition linked to Linear A. It later had common and Paphian forms, regional versions of its sign set. Bilingual texts helped scholars work out its readings before alphabetic Greek eventually displaced it.