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Faculty of Classics

 

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Contexts of and Relations between Early Writing Systems (CREWS) is a European Research Council funded project based in the Faculty of Classics. Beginning in April 2016, it will run for five years, until 2021.

The project

The aim of the CREWS project is to take an innovative and interdisciplinary approach to the history of writing, developing new methodologies for studying writing systems and their social context. The project researchers will be working on specific case studies relating to inscriptions of the ancient Aegean, Eastern Mediterranean and Levant (c.2000-600 BC). By looking at the ways in which writing systems were developed and used, we can study not only the systems themselves and the languages written in them, but also the cultural settings in which they were adapted and maintained.

Two central research questions underpin the project:

1) How can we tell how different writing systems are related to each other?

and

2) What effect does the social context in which it is used have on writing?

By focusing on the Mediterranean in 2nd and 1st millennia BC, the project will be able to investigate writing during a period when we know there were high levels of contact between different areas. Against this backdrop of linguistic and cultural interconnections, a study of how writing was passed on and adapted for new uses has the potential to give new insights into social history.

Writing systems under investigation

- The Aegean scripts: Cretan Hieroglyphic, Linear A and Linear B

- Ugaritic cuneiform (and its relationship with other cuneiform systems such as Akkadian)

- The Phoenician ‘alphabet’ or ‘abjad’ (and its relationship with other systems such as the Aramaic and Hebrew alphabets)

- The Greek alphabet (and its development from the Phoenician system and relationships with other early alphabets in e.g. Anatolia and Italy)

Find out more

You can find out more about the researchers working on the CREWS project by visiting our ‘members’ page.

To follow the project’s progress, visit the CREWS blog at https://crewsproject.wordpress.com/.

Latest news

VIEWS PhD Studentship

4 April 2023

The Faculty of Classics is recruiting for a PhD student to join the Visual Interactions in Early Writing Systems (VIEWS) project in October 2023. The student will work on a predetermined topic, namely visual aspects of the linear scripts of the Bronze Age Aegean (Cretan Hieroglyphic, Linear A and Linear B), although there...

Classics Shorts with Mary Beard: videos for schools

19 February 2023

We are thrilled to be launching Classics Shorts : a series of videos for schools introducing the ancient Greek and Roman worlds and exploring themes with continuing resonance for the modern classroom. Each film is accompanied by teaching materials for use in schools. Celebrity guests join Mary Beard and her colleagues to...

New appointment in Classical Archaeology

10 February 2023

The Faculty is delighted to announce that Dr Jane Rempel has been appointed to an Assistant Professorship in Classics from 1 September 2023. She is currently Lecturer in Classical Archaeology at the University of Sheffield.

Regius Professorship of Greek

16 January 2023

The Faculty is delighted to announce that Professor Tim Whitmarsh FBA has been elected Regius Professor of Greek from 1 April 2023. He is currently the A. G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture in the University. Looking ahead to his new role, Professor Whitmarsh commented: ’I am thrilled and honoured to be taking up this...