Four inscribed hanging nodules in the Heraklion Museum

Abstract

Among the sealings in the Heraklion Museum are four unpublished hanging nodules with Linear A inscriptions. These nodules are particularly interesting not so much because of their inscriptions, but for their shapes, chronology and, in one case, its seal impression. The nodule from Phaistos in the Old Palace Period is the earliest-known inscribed hanging nodule; of the two from Knossos, one betrays “classical” LM IB features otherwise missing at that site while the other was stamped by a seal which was also used at Hagia Triada; the nodule from Zakros is only the third inscribed nodule known at that site.