Economy and Writing Systems

Gia Kvashilava

Economy and Writing Systems

Gia Kvashilava

Professor, PhD in Mathematics, PhD in Economics, Caucasus International University, President of the Academy of Phasis.

Abstract

The paper examines economic activities (the production, distribution, exchange, and accounting of goods) and writing systems during the Bronze Age, primarily in the Colchian-Minoan cultural context. According to the oldest Hellenic sources, such as Apollonius of Rhodes, Strabo, Clement of Alexandria, and others, the Corybantes – priest-deities originating from Colchis – are considered the discoverers of bronze and iron processing, writing, music, and arithmetic. They created sacred cyrbeis – inscriptions carved on clay, copper, or wooden plates – which contained laws, religious rules, and geographical information (roads, borders).

In this work, the author demonstrates that the Cretan hieroglyphic (CH) and Linear A (LA) inscriptions, dated to the 20th–15th centuries BC, represent economic documents written in the Proto-Kartvelian-Colchian language. These inscriptions describe income and expenditure accounts, trade transactions, personnel records, toponyms, ethnonyms, agricultural products (barley, wheat, olives, grapes, flax, etc.), domestic animals, vessels, as well as the decimal counting system, arithmetic operations (addition – “kuro”, subtraction – “kiro”), and metrological units.

Writing systems (LA, and later LB) emerged from economic necessity – for the census of the population, taxation, storage, and distribution management. They contributed to the development of production, trade, and taxation mechanisms in Minoan Crete, the Mediterranean basin, and the Black Sea region. The author of the paper connects this tradition with the linear signs discovered on the territory of Georgia and suggests that the origins of Georgian writing should be sought in the distant past in Asia Minor and Crete.

Keywords: economic accounting, CH and LA writing systems, Proto-Kartvelian-Colchian language, cyrbeis, Corybantes.

References

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Kvashilava, G., 2014a. On Deciphering the Linear A Script Tablet HT 35 (HM 24). Kartvelology, N2, Ilia State University Press, Tbilisi, 2014, 116–118.

Kvashilava, G., 2014b. On Reading the Vessel Name – KA-TI of Linear A Inscription on Tablet HT 63 (HM 57). Kartvelology, N2, Ilia State University Press, Tbilisi, 2014, 118–130.

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Published Date:

04/04/2026

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