It’s writing, but what kind of writing is left vague. On the one hand, alphabetic writing definitely existed at the time the Iliad was composed, and that’s the most obvious referent. At the same time there’s some wiggle-room for how you interpret it, because of
- uncertainties around the functions of writing in the 7th century BCE;
- the description of the writing is heavily disguised by false archaism;
- the story-type — not the Iliad itself — may be based on a much older Near Eastern story device.
For reference, the passage is Iliad 6.152-211, where Glaukos relates the story of his ancestor Bellerophontes (later called Bellerophon). The bit about the ‘murderous signs’ is at lines 167-170 and 176-178: here it is in Green’s translation —
Kill Bellerophōn he [Proitos] would not: his conscience shrank from that.
But he sent him to Lycia, and gave him fatal tokens,
many murderous signs incised in a folded tablet,
to be shown to his father-in-law, and secure his death. …
- … then he [Iobates] questioned his guest, asked to see whatever
- message he’d brought him from his son-in-law, Proitos.
- Now after he got his son-in-law’s wicked message, …
- The sources of Fry’s information
Fry’s info is very out of date: he’s operating with hypotheses from a century ago, not with current information. He’s right to the extent that it has been debated for centuries whether this passage is a reference to writing per se, or some form of proto-writing, or pictures, or magical symbols, or what have you.
The debate is important because in the past this passage has interfered terribly in scholars’ attempts to date the composition of the Iliad. The earliest evidence of Greek alphabetic writing dates to around 800 BCE, but the ancient Greeks themselves thought Homer was more than a century older than that. Modern scholars, too, for a long time people wanted to take the ancient reports at face value and date the Iliad to before 800, or even before 900. So they were inevitably going to have problems with this passage.
Now, way way back, before the decipherment of Linear B, there was a vein of commentary that saw the story as a relic of the Bronze Age. Hence Fry’s notion of Homer being aware of Linear B. Here for example is Walter Leaf’s comment, published in 1900:
[on line 130] There can be little doubt that the following passage, like the few others where Dionysos is mentioned in H[omer] … dates from the very latest part of the Epic period.
[on line 168] It is impossible to doubt that this famous passage really implies a knowledge of the art of writing, especially since A. J. Evans’ remarkable discoveries in Crete … have proved the existence of written symbols in countries touching the Aegaean Sea on all sides at a date far preceding even the earliest period to which the origin of Greek Epic poetry can be assigned. But of course this does not imply a general knowledge of the art, still less the use of it for literary purposes.
Comments like these are deeply wrong, on multiple counts. First, we now know that Dionysos is in fact one of the very oldest members of the Greek pantheon. Second, there’s precisely zero chance that the poet was aware of Linear B script (and in any case that script was never used for sending messages so far as we know).
There’s virtually nothing Mycenaean about Homer, but Leaf was convinced that the epic tradition had its origins in the Mycenaean period. Homer does contain a handful of elements that must originate in things no later than 1200 BCE — three elements, to be precise (one place name, one artefact, and one word) — but in general there’s no reason to suppose that much material is older than 800 BCE, let alone older than 900 BCE, let alone … etc etc. Some aspects of the material culture described in the poem firmly point to the first half of the 600s BCE. So if we’re talking about writing, it’s definitely going to be an Archaic period alphabetic script, and definitely not Linear B.
Over time, the goalposts of the debate over the dating of the Iliad drifted later and later. By the 1950s, Finley was dating Homeric society to the 9th century BCE. Then Linear B was deciphered and some scholars wanted to push the date even further forward; others wanted to push it back again, so that they could have a Homer who was writing about Mycenaean culture, which they now knew was Greek. But that kind of nostalgic sentimentality has faded too. Since the 1980s there’s been scarcely anyone who would be confident that the Iliad knows very much about life before 750 BCE. And as I said there are plenty of indications of material culture that can be pinned to the second quarter of the 600s.
Here’s the relevant note from the most recent major commentary on the Iliad, the Basel commentary (the 2016 English edition, which is already very different from the 2008 German edition):
Wooden writing tablets, joined with hinges and covered with wax on the interior, were known in the Near East, and possibly also in Greece, already in the 2nd millenium BC: an example of unknown provenance, dated to the 14th/13th cent. BC, was preserved in the shipwreck at Ulu Burun near Kaş (south coast of Turkey) …; the existence of wooden writing tablets in Mesopotamia, Syria and the Hittite kingdom is attested in Bronze Age written sources — in turn transmitted in stone and clay …; small bronze hinges that may have belonged to folding writing tablets were discovered in Pylos and Knossos … — In Greece, writing tablets came into (renewed) use, following the non-literate Dark Ages, by the 8th cent. at the latest; they were likely adopted from the Phoenicians along with the alphabet (délta/déltos, the letter name and a technical term for a ‘writing tablet’, is a Semitic loan word …
Most of this is just background. The key points are in the last sentence:
Homer calls the writing tablets déltoi, and this is a Phoenician loanword. UNSPOKEN IMPLICATION: the context is firmly in the Archaic period.
Wooden writing tablets were in use in Greece no later than the 700s BCE. UNSPOKEN IMPLICATION: the story is about a written message, using the contemporary Greek alphabetic script.
False archaism
I’d lean towards seeing the way that Glaukos describes writing as a classic case of false archaism. False archaism is when you want your story to seem old, so you stick in random old things, things designed to give a flavour of oldness, regardless of whether they have anything to do with the setting. The classic examples of false archaism I like to give are the woad used by Celtic warriors in the films Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and Braveheart, supposedly set ca. 1190 and 1297 respectively, that is, a thousand years out of place.
There’s plenty of evidence of false archaism in Homer too, for reasons which should make sense straightaway: it’s a story imagined as taking place in a distant past, so there’s a strong motivation for lots of archaic flavour. It’s sometimes easy to pick it out. The poet is aware that in the past iron wasn’t as commonly used, so they treat it as a prestige object (which it never was in reality), while at the same time describing it as incredibly useful for agricultural implements (much more realistic). The poet describes the use of chariots as if they were mounted infantry (not real), taking a real 7th century BCE military asset — mounted infantry (real) — and adding making it seem more archaic by adding a piece of aristocratic kit from the distant past, namely the chariot. There’s no such thing as overseas trade, except when there is.