page_title: Cypriot syllabary
section_title: Decipherment
hierarchical_section_title: Cypriot syllabary / Decipherment
caption_attribution_description: English: National Museum of Beirut – Cypriot syllabary (Paphian) Eshmun temple 5th-4th c bce
context_page_description: The Cypriot or Cypriote syllabary is a syllabic script used in Iron Age Cyprus, from about the 11th to the 4th centuries BCE, when it was replaced by the Greek alphabet. A pioneer of that change was King Evagoras of Salamis. It is descended from the Cypro-Minoan syllabary, in turn, a variant or derivative of Linear A. Most texts using the script are in the Arcadocypriot dialect of Greek, but also one bilingual inscription was found in Amathus.
context_section_description: The script was deciphered in the 19th century by George Smith due to a Phoenician-Cypriot bilingual inscription found at Idalium. Egyptologist Samuel Birch (1872), the numismatist Johannes Brandis (1873), the philologists Moritz Schmidt, Wilhelm Deecke, Justus Siegismund (1874) and the dialectologist H. L. Ahrens (1876) also contributed to decipherment.
  About 1,000 inscriptions in the Cypriot syllabary have been found throughout many different regions. However, these inscriptions vary greatly in length and credibility. Most inscriptions found are dated to be around the 6th century. There are no inscriptions known to be before the 8th century. Most of the tablets found are from funerary monuments and contained no useful information but merely name the deceased. A few dedicatory inscriptions were also found but of very little contribution to decipherment. The most important tablets are mainly found in Enkomi and Paphos.
caption: Stele from Lebanon in the National Museum of Beirut
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