The earliest inscribed objects known from the Aegean are a few sealstones bearing inscriptions in a Hieroglyphic (pictographic) script: this was in use in Crete by 1900 BC. Being made of stone, they stood a better chance of survival than texts in the later scripts which were generally written on unbaked clay tablets, those that survive having been preserved by accidental burning.
(An enigmatic object, the Phaistos disc, said to date no later than 1700 BC, bears signs unrelated to the Cretan scripts, and has other features also unparalleled elsewhere. It might have been an import from a place unknown, but may well be a forgery).
Around 1625 BC, the Hieroglyphic script was replaced by Linear A, a script in which the signs had become simplified. When the Mycenaeans came to Crete around 1450 BC, they adapted Linear A, creating the Linear B script, to write their own language, a form of early Greek.
Both Linear A and Linear B are systems in which signs represented syllables, in the form consonant + vowel. In addition both had numerals and some ideograms. Linear B can now be read, but Linear A remains undeciphered because it is written in an unknown language.
