In the Iliad, Bellerophon delivers a letter. Does this indicate during the period that writing was lost in ancient Greece that people still knew about writing? That is, no one knew how to write, but still knew it existed because of contacts with civilizations like Egypt?

by Seswatha

Or was this portion of the Iliad just a weirdly preserved story that no one understood?

Brass_Lion

Followup question: woah, the ancient Greeks lost writing?! Anyone have detail on what we know about that, or a link to an earlier question on the same?

Moonstrife

Can you clarify the question? What part of Bellerophon delivering a letter indicates that writing was lost during the time the story is being told?

leontegurl

Writing existed in Homer's time. The words related to it came from the Cypriote dialect, because Cyprus had actually retained throughout the period when the rest of the Greeks had no writing.

leontegurl

Writing existed in Homer's time. The words related to it came from the Cypriote dialect, because Cyprus had actually retained throughout the period when the rest of the Greeks had no writing.

leontegurl

Writing existed in Homer's time. The words related to it came from the Cypriote dialect, because Cyprus had actually retained throughout the period when the rest of the Greeks had no writing.

leontegurl

Writing existed in Homer's time. The words related to it came from the Cypriote dialect, because Cyprus had actually retained throughout the period when the rest of the Greeks had no writing.