CHAT Linear P & the Psykhro inscription (was: allnoun, Linear P)

My thanks to Ed & Pablo for the latest "decipherments" of the Psykhro
inscription:

>>In case you (or any other interested
>>conlanger) missed it, here it is again (the main text in the 3rd cent.BC
>>Ionic alphabet, but there are three mysterious symbols beneath it):
>>-------------------------------------------------------
>>For those who would like to find 'proof' that their conlang was actually
>>used in Crete of the 3rd cent. BC - and for others - I give a
>>transliteration of the inscription. Greek eta /e:/ is represented as 'E',
>>theta /th/ by 'T' and phi /ph/ by 'P'.
>>
>>epioi
>>zETanTE
>>par siPai
>>
>>As far as I can manage in ASCII the three Linear symbols are:
>>
>>|   |  /|\    /\
>>|_|_| /_|_\  /__\
>>  |     |   /  | \
>>  |     |      |
>>
>>------------------------------------------------------------------------
[ED'S DECIPHERMENT - At 6:19 pm -0400 22/4/99, Ed Heil wrote]
>
>As it happens, those three symbols are Linear P. :)  And it's clear that th=
e
>inscription is a clumsy rendering into Greek (using aspirates to represent
>ejectives) of a descendant of Tl'an tse.
>
[some explanation snipped]
>
>Given this, it's easy enough to translate the inscription:
>
>ePioizETanTEparsiPai
>
>'e p'i 'oy ze: t'an t'e: par si p'ay (glyphs)
>
>In old Tl'an tse, this would have been:
>
>Edi piyun koy tse tl'an tse paru si payaw (glyphs)
>
>Edi (proper noun), surivor people noble Tl'an noble, walk among human (glyp=
hs)
>
>"Ed, last of the Atlanteans, [still] walks among humans (glyphs)"
>
>The glyphs are Linear P for "tl'an tse tam," "eternal Atlantis."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------=
--

[PABLO'S DECIPHERMENT - At 11:41 pm -0300 22/4/99, FFlores wrote:]
>
>Well, it could well be some form of Drasel=E9q. My guess
>is that the inscription reproduces a very unusual passage
>>from the sacred writings of the Enlightened One, with
>phonetical changes which would allow me to date it at
>about 1200 years after the Enlightenment:
>
>i pior          /I pjoj/                a curiosity
>dhesag them             /'zEzaN Te~/    pattern, it said
>bars i vaid             /,bajs i 'Bai?/ sacred a finger
>
>roughly "A sacred finger pointed at a curious pattern".
>(I assume the finger belongs to the Enlightened One, who
>is showing some important fact to his disciples. Though
>they might be looking at the finger, as the saying goes...)
>
[snip]
>..these [the glyphs] are ideograms showing pictures of men in a
>traditional story that the Enlightened One used to tell
>people. It's raining, and the first man is just cursing
>the rain and probably going to be hit by lightning any
>time, standing there with his arms up; the other one is
>stupidly trying to cover himself with his hands over
>his head; and the third one, who is the wisest, has run
>and taken shelter under a roof.
>
>Of course I might be wrong, but it's not likely,
>after all the research I've been doing on this. :)
Surely not  ;)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yes, the three 'glyphs' remind one of Linear A & B, but they are not all in
the known Linear B corpus certainly and maybe not all in Linear A either;
maybe Ed is correct in identifying them as Linear P - but the academic
world will need to see more of the Linear P material first, I think, before
committing itself to this.

Pablo's reading of the glyphs as ideograms is novel.  It has often been
questioned whether any knowledge of the ancient Linear scripts would've
survived till the 3rd cent.BC so we can't, I think, rule this out as a
possibility.  But what is the curious pattern the sacred finger of the
Enlightened One pointing at? Is it the glyphs?

And hey, doesn't 'Buddha' mean 'Enlightened One'?  Was the Enlightening
(about 1500 BC??) a prior revelation of the Buddha before that of Gautama
Sakhyamuni in north India?  Or is the Drasel=E9q Enlightenment something
different?

But I must say I'm attracted by Ed's decipherment; this presumably would
make it a prophecy whose fulfilment is now taking place about 2300 years
after it was written  ;)

Ray.