I don’t know how many of you have seen the (delightful) movie The Incredibles, but if you have the DVD, take the time to take a close look at about 45 minutes into Chapter 10, where Mr. Incredible is at the house of Edna “E” Mode (the Edith-Head-like character who steals every scene she’s in).
For those of you who don’t know the movie, the “E” character specializes in costume design for Superheroes. Her house is decorated with “Heroes” of various kinds. In this particular scene, there is a large Frieze behind the characters depicting larger-than-life heroes of the Classical kind.
Here’s a view of the lower part of the frieze:
I only show the lower part because what interests me here is the “inscription” that appears immediately to the left of the character’s head. Here’s a close-up:
The text clearly reads right-to-left - which was very common in archaic Greek writing, unsurprisingly since the Greeks adapted their alphabet from the Phoenician alphabet - so the letters are the reverse of normal.
The letter furthest to the right is an archaic Gamma, looking like an angular backwards “C”. The next letter looks like a slightly lopsided “V” and is probably an archaic Lambda. Then comes a letter that looks like a capital “Y”, which is Upsilon: though you have to strain to see the descender of the “Y”. In fact, archaic Upsilon often appeared without a descender (it is of course the precursor of the Latin “V”, which is simply the no-descender style of Upsilon). Then a Diamond shape with a vertical line below it: this is the obsolete Greek letter Koppa (or Qoppa), the source of the Roman “Q”. Then an O, then a backwards, angular “S”, which is a familiar archaic form of Sigma.
So far so good. Nothing unusual about this inscription, though it is a bit inscrutible. “Gluqos”? (Or Glukos or Glucos: pick your poison.) Why would the word for “Sugar” be on an inscription? I vaguely think I may have seen the name “Glaukos” written this way on a vase painting, so maybe that’s it: with the alpha left out?)
Anyway. Of course this isn’t a “real” inscription. (Or is it? Perhaps the artists simply copied an existing piece of artwork, including the writing which perhaps they didn’t even recognize as writing. The the DVD commentary specifically mentions this frieze and says that it was painted by a Paul Topolos and then digitally made to look 3-D.
The plot thickens somewhat. Topolos is obviously a Greek name; perhaps this artist was knowingly drawing on his heritage.
Of course – is this even Greek at all? The particular shapes of the letters look to me to be more West Greek than East Greek, and possibly even Etruscan. The stylistic shape of the Western version of the Greek alphabet is what gave rise to the Roman Alphabet. You can easily see how the angular gamma led to our “C” (and “G”), for instance.
Anyway. What do people think? Is this a copy of a real painting/sculpture somewhere? If it isn’t a copy of something “real”, then why in heaven’s name would the artist have gone to the trouble to put an archaic-looking inscription here? Is the appearance of the word a complete accident, or is it supposed to mean something? (The word “glucos” doesn’t figure in the story anywhere.) Do people agree with my interpretation of the letters?
Aparently I did get right the names of Aiax and Axilleus.