"NYMM 26.31.146: un prisma con una pseudo iscrizione in geroglifico cretese del Tardo Minoico I-­II?"

NYMM 26.31.146 is a black steatite four-­‐‑faces prism that has been lent anonymously (according to G. Richter) to the Metropolitan Art Museum of New York in the twenties. The dating that seems most likely is Middle Minoan II, according to the fact that only in this period the "ʺcat mask"ʺ is attested on minoan seals. Nevertheless, the comparisons with the representation of women on faces a and d (posture, type of skirt, breasts, arms and feet) are later, dating to the LMI. As for the other hieroglyphic signs, those attested on face c (CHIC nr. 044 and 005, 005), shows evident oddities in the ductus. So, I wonder if this seal is the product of an (Minoan!) illiterate who, in a moment when the seals with hieroglyphic inscriptions were out of use, put together on a prism iconographic representations (the woman), emblems (“cat mask”) and hieroglyphic signs. However, these signs would not have had any phonetic value, that is they were signs that the seal-­‐‑engraver doesn'ʹt know and consequently cannot engrave properly. This way, he could have created a pseudo-­‐‑inscription, a pastiche that only had a symbolic value as status symbol or a false heirloom. The management of a symbolic resource such as writing certainly was, indeed, a key feature of social competition in Minoan Crete