summer haiku – the saffron goddess = la déesse du safran

summer haiku – the saffron goddess = la déesse du safran

séa saraí
sápa punikása
adakísika *

* The Linear A text of this haiku is absolutely beautiful! Read it for yourself.  Just let the words flow off your tongue, with the stress on the syllables marked with an acute accent. The ancient Minoan language was spoken from around 1,700 – 1,500 BCE. My colleague, Alexandre Solcà and I are in the process of deciphering it. The script it is written in, which appears first in the haiku/haiga above, is called a syllabary, in which each “syllable” consists of a consonant + a vowel, as opposed to an alphabet, in which we find both single consonants and vowels. We believe it is proto-Greek, the immediate predecessor of ancient Greek.



the saffron goddess
her crimson dress
adorned with ivy

la déesse du safran
sa robe cramoisie embellie
de lierre

Richard Vallance

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summer haiku d’été – Minoan Linear A saffron goddess haiku in Linear A, English & French

summer haiku d’été – Minoan Linear A saffron goddess haiku in Linear A, English & French



sea sarai
sapa punikasa
adakisika *

* The Linear A text of this haiku is absolutely beautiful!
Read it for yourself. 

the saffron goddess
her crimson dress
adorned with ivy

la déesse du safran
sa robe cramoisie embellie
de lierre

Richard Vallance

Linear A tablet KH 5 (Khania) ca. 1450 BCE – adorned with ivy

Linear A tablet KH 5 (Khania) ca. 1450 BCE – adorned with ivy:

This tablet, which significantly dates from 1450 BCE, right at the time of the transition from the Linear A to the Linear B syllabary, appears to have 3 Mycenaean-derived words inscribed on it. Because it was probably one of the very last tablets inscribed in Linear A, it could just as well have been inscribed in Linear B. The first two syllables of ADAKISIKA, i.e. ADA, are Old Minoan (OM), falling within the substrate of the original Minoan language. Both ADA and ADU appear to deal with large(r) quantities in the Minoan language. And the first and second words, ADAKISIKA + WISASANE = adorned with plenty of ivy in equal measure, make for a perfectly acceptable phrase. WINASAO very much appears to be a variant of Linear A WINU, which means wine. It may be cast in an archaic Minoan ablative absolute, which would perhaps explain its orthography.

Since the rest of this tablet is in Old Minoan (OM), the language of the original Minoan language substrate, it is indecipherable.

Linear A haiku: the saffron goddess, her crimson dress adorned with ivy

Linear A haiku: the saffron goddess, her crimson dress adorned with ivy:

In this haiku, all of the words except sarai = “flax” or “saffron” (the latter in this context) are Mycenaean-derived New Minoan (NM1). The onomatopoeia of the 3 phrases rolls off the tongue. Not only is her dress adorned with ivy, apparently she is as well.

Free translation of Linear A tablet KH 5 (Khania) concerning the shipping of wine by sea?

Free translation of Linear A tablet KH 5 (Khania) concerning the shipping of wine by sea?

If this tablet, KH 5 (Khania) is inscribed in Mycenaean-derived New Minoan, then it would appear that it deals with the shipping of wine by sea. The fact that the floor boards are apparently level would imply that the shipment was carried out successfully in calm seas. On line 1, adakisika, which is Mycenaean-derived New Minoan with orthography adapted to Old Minoan, translates as “and adorned with ivy”, which implies that the cargo has been blessed by a priest(ess). If this is the case, there is text missing before this phrase, which after all ends with “and”, hence possibly “and adorned with ivy (blessed by a priest(ess))”. If NA references nauwi, i.e. “on a ship”, then the mention of “on a level wooden floor (i.e. deck)” makes sense in context. This decipherment may be largely correct, but there is no way of verifying this with any certainty. Finally, if PA is the first syllabogram of pa3ni (paini), which I interpret as Old Minoan for “amphora”, then the wine is being shipped in amphorae, the only way wine could have been shipped in Minoan times. As if…