Jan Gijsbert Pieter Best (born 29 August 1941, Grou) is a Dutch pre- and protohistorian, comparative linguist, archaeologist, and author. For about 30 years, he was Professor at the University of Amsterdam, where he taught ancient history, and Mediterranean prehistory and protohistory.
In 1966, Best passed his graduate examinations in Classical Languages, achieving a major in Ancient History, along with minors in Greek and Latin. In 1969, he attained the doctorate with his thesis Thracian Peltasts and their Influence on Greek Warfare. Afterwards, he succeeded in his graduate examination in Archaeology, with a major in Cultural Pre- and Protohistory, and minors in Classical Archaeology and Provincial Roman Archaeology. In all of these three graduate programs, he graduated cum laude.
From 1962 to 1991, Best worked in the University of Amsterdam, respectively as assistant classical archaeology, associate professor ancient history and coordinator of the study Mediterranean Pre- and Protohistory.
Best also conducted several additional projects. These include his role, from 1975 to 1979, as a co-leader of the excavation of the settlement at Dyadovo (Djadovo, bg:Дядово), which is a Dutch-Bulgarian-Japanese UNESCO project in Bulgaria. According to Best, the excavations at this site showed that, around 3200 BC, a layer with a culture of matriarchal character (many 'goddess figurines' were found) was destroyed by fire. Then, over above an undisturbed natural deposition layer 30 to 40 cm deep, a settlement of livestock-herding nomadic culture-bearers from the steppes has been identified. This created a fusion of these two peoples, as is evident in the findings from the cemetery of Varna; this may have been the genesis of the ancient Thracian culture. [1]
The Dyadovo Tell is one of the largest settlement mounds in Southeastern Europe. The excavations here started in 1977–1978. Since then, the Bulgarian and the Dutch archaeological teams continued the excavations; a Japanese team from Tokai University also participated later. The results revealed that the tell had been inhabited through most archaeological periods, including the Middle Ages, the Early Byzantine Period, the Roman Period, the Early Iron Age, the Bronze Age and the Copper Age. [2]
From 1980 until 1984, Best was professor-secretary of the International Committee of Thracology 'Wilhelm Tomaschek' with the 'Association Internationale des Études Sud-Est-Européens' [3] (Unesco-comité AIESEE).
During the eighties he was general advisor of the exhibitions 'The Gold of the Thracians' in Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam (1984) and 'The Thracian Royal Treasure' in the Nieuwe Kerk (Amsterdam) (1989).
Best is one of the initiators of Alverna Research Group which specialises in deciphering of so-far unknown scripts.
Along with his frequent coauthor Fred Woudhuizen (1959–2021), Best contributed to the understanding of the Linear A script, as well as of the Cretan hieroglyphs. [4]
Best also offered a reading of the Cypro-Minoan script. [5]
In 2009, after 40 years of research, he proposed a decipherment of the Byblos script. Reviews of his 2010 book Het Byblosschrift ontcijferd (The Byblos Script deciphered) were mixed. [6] [7]
In 1991 Best was co-founder and director of Najade Press, a publishing company issuing the international magazine Thamyris, Mythmaking from Past to Present. From 2001 onwards it is edited by publishing company Rodopi [8] in the new series Thamyris, Intersecting, Place, Sex and Race. Best is an author since 1992. He writes travel books for Gottmer Publishers Group. In October 2010 his book Het Byblosschrift ontcijferd (The Byblos Syllabary deciphered) appeared with publishing company Bert Bakker.
Linear A is a writing system that was used by the Minoans of Crete from 1800 BC to 1450 BC. Linear A was the primary script used in palace and religious writings of the Minoan civilization. It was succeeded by Linear B, which was used by the Mycenaeans to write an early form of Greek. It was discovered by the archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans in 1900. No texts in Linear A have yet been deciphered. Evans named the script "Linear" because its characters consisted simply of lines inscribed in clay, in contrast to the more pictographic characters in Cretan hieroglyphs that were used during the same period.
Linear B is a syllabic script that was used for writing in Mycenaean Greek, the earliest attested form of the Greek language. The script predates the Greek alphabet by several centuries, the earliest known examples dating to around 1400 BC. It is adapted from the earlier Linear A, an undeciphered script potentially used for writing the Minoan language, as is the later Cypriot syllabary, which also recorded Greek. Linear B, found mainly in the palace archives at Knossos, Kydonia, Pylos, Thebes and Mycenae, disappeared with the fall of Mycenaean civilization during the Late Bronze Age collapse. The succeeding period, known as the Greek Dark Ages, provides no evidence of the use of writing.
The Phaistos Disc or Phaistos Disk is a disk of fired clay from the island of Crete, possibly from the middle or late Minoan Bronze Age, bearing a text in an unknown script and language. Its purpose and its original place of manufacture remain disputed. It is now on display at the archaeological museum of Heraklion. The name is sometimes spelled Phaestos or Festos.
Ugarit was an ancient port city in northern Syria about 10 kilometers north of modern Latakia. At its height it ruled an area roughly equivalent to the modern Latakia Governorate. It was discovered by accident in 1928 with the Ugaritic texts. Its ruins are often called Ras Shamra after the headland where they lie.
The Thracian language is an extinct and poorly attested language, spoken in ancient times in Southeast Europe by the Thracians. The linguistic affinities of the Thracian language are poorly understood, but it is generally agreed that it was an Indo-European language with satem features.
Zakros is a Minoan archaeological site on the eastern coast of Crete. It is regarded as one of the five Minoan palaces, and its protected harbor and strategic location made it an important commercial hub for trade to the east.
The Cypriot or Cypriote syllabary is a syllabic script used in Iron Age Cyprus, from about the 11th to the 4th centuries BCE, when it was replaced by the Greek alphabet. It has been suggested that the script remained in use as late as the 1st century BC. A pioneer of that change was King Evagoras of Salamis. It is thought to be descended from the Cypro-Minoan syllabary, in turn, a variant or derivative of Linear A. Most texts using the script are in the Arcadocypriot dialect of Greek, but also one bilingual inscription was found in Amathus.
The Proto-Sinaitic script is a Middle Bronze Age writing system known from a small corpus of about 30-40 inscriptions and fragments from Serabit el-Khadim in the Sinai Peninsula, as well as two inscriptions from Wadi el-Hol in Middle Egypt. Together with about 20 known Proto-Canaanite inscriptions, it is also known as Early Alphabetic, i.e. the earliest trace of alphabetic writing and the common ancestor of both the Ancient South Arabian script and the Phoenician alphabet, which led to many modern alphabets including the Greek alphabet. According to common theory, Canaanites or Hyksos who spoke a Canaanite language repurposed Egyptian hieroglyphs to construct a different script.
The Minoan language is the language of the ancient Minoan civilization of Crete written in the Cretan hieroglyphs and later in the Linear A syllabary. As the Cretan hieroglyphs are undeciphered and Linear A only partly deciphered, the Minoan language is unknown and unclassified; with the existing evidence, it is impossible to be certain that the two scripts record the same language.
The Arkalochori Axe is a 2nd millennium BC Minoan bronze votive double axe (labrys) excavated by Spyridon Marinatos in 1934 in the Arkalochori cave in Crete, which is believed to have been used for religious rituals. It is inscribed with fifteen symbols.
Cretan hieroglyphs are a hieroglyphic writing system used in early Bronze Age Crete, during the Minoan era. They predate Linear A by about a century, but the two writing systems continued to be used in parallel for most of their history. As of 2024, they are undeciphered.
The Byblos script, also known as the Byblos syllabary, Pseudo-hieroglyphic script, Proto-Byblian, Proto-Byblic, or Byblic, is an undeciphered writing system, known from ten inscriptions found in Byblos, a coastal city in Lebanon. The inscriptions are engraved on bronze plates and spatulas, and carved in stone. They were excavated by Maurice Dunand, from 1928 to 1932, and published in 1945 in his monograph Byblia Grammata. The inscriptions are conventionally dated to the second millennium BC, probably between the 18th and 15th centuries BC.
The Cypro-Minoan syllabary (CM), more commonly called the Cypro-Minoan Script, is an undeciphered syllabary used on the island of Cyprus and at its trading partners during the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age. The term "Cypro-Minoan" was coined by Arthur Evans in 1909 based on its visual similarity to Linear A on Minoan Crete, from which CM is thought to be derived. Approximately 250 objects—such as clay balls, cylinders, and tablets which bear Cypro-Minoan inscriptions, have been found. Discoveries have been made at various sites around Cyprus, as well as in the ancient city of Ugarit on the Syrian coast. It is thought to be somehow related to the later Cypriot syllabary.
Thracology is the scientific study of Ancient Thrace and Thracian antiquities and is a regional and thematic branch of the larger disciplines of ancient history and archaeology. A practitioner of the discipline is a Thracologist. Thracology investigates the range of ancient Thracian culture from 1000 BC up to the end of Roman rule in the 4th–7th centuries AD. It is believed 'modern' Thracology started with the work of Wilhelm Tomaschek in the late 19th century.
Alexander Fol was a Bulgarian historian and Thracologist. In 1957, he studied history at the University of St. Kliment Ohridski in Sofia and earned a PhD in 1966. He worked as a university lecturer from 1972 and became a professor in 1975. From 1980 to 1986, he served as Minister of Culture and Education of Republic of Bulgaria. His research interests lay in classical Greek and Roman history, the cultural history of southeast Europe and Asia Minor, and Indo-European studies. He is best known for his contributions to Thracology.
Emmett Leslie Bennett Jr. was an American classicist and philologist whose systematic catalog of its symbols led to the solution of reading Linear B, a 3,300-year-old syllabary used for writing Mycenaean Greek hundreds of years before the Greek alphabet was developed. Archaeologist Arthur Evans had discovered Linear B in 1900 during his excavations at Knossos on the Greek island of Crete and spent decades trying to comprehend its writings until his death in 1941. Bennett and Alice Kober cataloged the 80 symbols used in the script in his 1951 work The Pylos Tablets, which provided linguist John Chadwick and amateur scholar Michael Ventris with the vital clues needed to finally decipher Linear B in 1952.
Frederik Christiaan Woudhuizen was a Dutch independent scholar who studied ancient Indo-European languages, hieroglyphic Luvian/Luwian, and Mediterranean protohistory. He was the former editor of Talanta, Proceedings of the Dutch Archaeological and Historical Society.
The autochthonous theory about the origin of the Bulgarians is an alternative to the official Bulgarian historiography, which dates chronologically from the 19th century.
Luwian Studies is an independent, private, non-profit foundation based in Zürich, Switzerland. Its sole purpose is to promote the study of cultures of the second millennium BC in western Asia Minor. The foundation encourages and supports archaeological, linguistic and natural scientific investigations to complete the understanding of Middle and Late Bronze Age Mediterranean cultures. Western Anatolia was, at that point in time, home to groups of people who spoke Luwian, an Indo-European language.
The Byblos bronze spatulas are a number bronze spatulas found in Byblos, two of which were inscribed. One contains a Phoenician inscription and one contains an inscription in the Byblos syllabary.
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