"Il geroglifico cretese su sigillo tra polarità iconica e polarità diagrammatica"

One of the problems in the interpretation of Cretan Hieroglyphic inscriptions yet to be resolved is how they are to be ‘read’ when occurring on seals, where phonetic signs (syllabograms and logograms) are mixed with decorative signs and iconographic representations. As a first approach to dealing with this issue, we consider it necessary to carry out an overall assessment of the modes of transmission of contents onto the glyptic support, so in this chapter we suggest that the ‘reading’ of the recurrent graphic signs attested in this context must take place through the lens of the seals’ peculiar rhetoric with regard to the communication of meanings, i.e. according to a complex process of decoding the values of the graphic signs that appear – perhaps operating on different planes, that is the graphic/semasiographic and the linguistic one. In addition, attention is drawn to the fact that since such texts are highly synthetic, it could be assumed that there was widespread use of acronyms, abbreviations, strongly conventional forms, etc., which could solve some of the problems that have hitherto been unresolved. Finally, based on the evaluation of Cretan Hieroglyphic inscriptions according to the form of the seals on which they occur, a net distinction is proposed between ‘seals for writing’ and ‘seals for counting’.