"Sul prisma CHIC #294: «le premier sceau hiéroglyphique de la littérature crètoise» tra letture fine ottocentesche e strategie interpretative contemporanee"

CHIC #294 (Archaeological Museum of Athens, inv. n. 8915) is the first seal written in Cretan Hieroglyphic script ever published. Since 1870, it was the subject of a long exegetical history but remains an unresolved conundrum among the Minoan inscribed glyptic. First interpreted as tessera gladiatoria datable to III sec. a.C. or later by Albert Dumont, it was regarded as written with ‘fully developed conventionalised pictographs’ by Evans and, finally (but wrongly), as the first hymn of the Greek literature ever known, written in a form proto-Greek, by Paul Faure. Some of the most sticking features of this four-sided prism are the frequent repetitions of signs or sign-sequences (notably in CHIC’s faces α and δ), the exceptional length of its faces and some special features in the execution technique of its signs. This paper aims to critically discuss the analyses proposed for this document and to provide a hint of novelty in the interpretation of the unique inscription it bears.