“The Minoans . . . evolved their own distinct script, following the old pattern that had developed thousands of years before: from seals on goods to pictograms, from pictograms to streamlined pictographic script. The earliest form of this script survives on a scattering of tablets and stone engravings across Crete, and is generally called “Linear A” to distinguish it from its more sophisticated descendent: “Linear B,” the version of Minoan script which spread north to the Mycenaeans.”

—Susan Wise Bauer, The History of the Ancient World, 2007.