Lydian letter Tt

It is an alphabetic sign in Lydian. Its role was to spell part of a word, not to stand for a separate object or idea by itself.

The earliest Lydian inscriptions date to the late 8th–early 7th century BCE (before the Common Era). Longer surviving texts cluster in the 5th–4th centuries BCE, and written evidence continues into the 3rd century BCE. These dates describe surviving Lydian writing, not a securely dated first appearance of this individual letter.

Lydian inscriptions and coins survive alongside words on gems, seals, and vessels. Funerary stelae—upright stones with inscriptions—preserve repeated burial formulas and curses; other surviving texts are legal or verse. The language remains only partly deciphered as of 2025.

Is 𐤴 Greek tau?

No; τ is a scholarly transliteration. One scholarly alphabet table uses Greek tau (τ) to represent this Lydian letter. That is a notation for it, not proof that 𐤴 is Greek or that the two signs are interchangeable.

Scholars generally treat the Lydian alphabet as adapted from an eastern regional form of the Greek alphabet, though the exact relationship is unclear. Lycian and Carian were neighboring Anatolian writing traditions with their own sets of letters.

Lydian normally runs right to left. Some early inscriptions also run left to right or boustrophedon—each line alternates direction. The direction belongs to the inscription, not the isolated glyph.