Hi!

My name is Artemis Karnava and I am an archaeologist by training (and profession), specializing on the study of writing systems of the Eastern Mediterranean that flourished during the 2nd and the 1st mill. BC. More specifically, I study the scripts known under the cumulative name “Aegean prehistoric” (Cretan Hieroglyphic; Linear A; Linear B), as well as their Cypriot siblings (Cypro-Minoan; Classical Cypriot). Needless to say that languages, ancient and modern, inevitably enter the picture.

At the same time, I am an avid newspaper reader, a news junkie if you will. The fact is that I read newspapers on a daily basis and in a number of languages (Greek [my native language]; English; Italian; French; German). What catches my eye are usually politics and cultural topics, but unusual pieces of news sometimes also attract my attention.

I have been thinking for some time now on a way to combine my interest in writing systems and ancient scripts with actual, contemporaneous events. Writing is an age-old technology and one of the most significant in human history. Studying its past is one thing, it has provided me nonetheless with a looking glass through which I read news that describe and pertain to people’s attitudes towards writing itself. I am not sure how people without particular knowledge on the history of writing systems are able to think about what they read when they come across such news, so I thought my blog posts would do just that: to comment on some contemporaneous attitudes towards writing, the very act of writing.

I hope other people will get to enjoy this, I know I will! Also, I do apologize in advance for the odd phrase in English, do be kind and remember that English is NOT my native language!