Abstract 

This talk explores which kind(s) of sensory perceptions Bronze Age Aegean early writing (highly iconic) may have conveyed to contemporary viewers (linguistic aspects aside). This line of enquiry aims to investigate whether some script-signs (esp. in Cretan Hieroglyphic) may have worked as modern emoticons/emojis do, thus adding (consciously or not) an emotional dimension to graphic codes. In other words, can we ‘perceive the imperceptible’?

Short Bio 

I am an AIAS-AUFF Research Fellow, specialising in Bronze Age Aegean Scripts (2^nd millennium BCE): my work integrates archaeology, linguistics, epigraphy, palaeography and ancient history, and uses scripts (in their material and cognitive aspects) as a heuristic tool to investigate and reconstruct socio-cultural dynamics. My PhD dissertation (2018, University of Cambridge) is now published as a monograph. After my PhD, I was Junior Research Fellow at St John’s College and Affiliated Lecturer in the Faculty of Classics (Cambridge). I then joined the INSCRIBE Project (University of Bologna) as a Post-doctoral Researcher.

What is an AIAS Seminar?

The AIAS Seminar Series is a session of seminars held by the AIAS fellows, AIAS Visiting or Tandem Fellows or by other speakers proposed by the fellows. In each seminar, a fellow will present and discuss her/his current research and work-in-progress to an interdisciplinary audience for 30 minutes, closing off with 30 minutes for questions, comments and discussion.

All seminars are in-person and held in English. To attend online, please contact Sofia Bentsen at sofia@aias.au.dk by 9:00am on the day of the semimar as the latest to request a link.