A writing system with pictorial elements (writing signs or semasiographic codes) found on seals and sealings of the Late Prepalatial and Protopalatial periods (2000-1700 BC). Some of the signs depict religious or cult symbols such as the bucranium, the double axe, the branch and the sistrum. The Archanes Script was first discovered on seals from the cemetery of Archanes Phourni, but it has also been found in other regions of Crete. The survival of Archanes Script signs in Cretan Hieroglyphic and Linear A is the strongest evidence that the two main Minoan scripts of the Protopalatial period arose from a common ancestral writing system.