The pictographic characters, found on seals and discs of Period II.
This racial question can hardly be determined till those Hatti records, whether in cuneiform or pictographic script, which are couched in a native tongue, not in Babylonian, are read.
He considers pictographic languages ranging from the natural Mayan hieroglyphics and Sumerian cuneiform, to recent experiments such as Elephant's Memory.
It is, however, during the Middle Minoan age, the centre point of which corresponds with the XIIth Egyptian dynasty, according to the Sothic system of dating, c. 2000-1850 B.C., that a systematized pictographic or hieroglyphic script makes its appearance which is common both to signets and clay tablets.
During the Third Middle Minoan period, the lower limits of which approach 1600 B.C., this pictographic script finally gives way to a still more developed linear system - which is itself divided into an earlier and a later class.