Linear B Explained

Linear B
Type:	Syllabary
Typedesc:	with additional ideograms
Time:	–1200 BC
Status:	Extinct
Languages:	Mycenaean Greek
Fam1:	Linear A
Sisters:	Cypro-Minoan syllabary
Iso15924:	Linb
Sample:	NAMA Linear B tablet of Pylos.jpg

Linear B is a syllabic script that was used for writing in Mycenaean Greek, the earliest attested form of the Greek language.^[1] The script predates the Greek alphabet by several centuries, the earliest known examples dating to around 1400 BC.^[2] It is adapted from the earlier Linear A, an undeciphered script potentially used for writing the Minoan language, as is the later Cypriot syllabary, which also recorded Greek. Linear B, found mainly in the palace archives at Knossos, Kydonia,^[3] Pylos, Thebes and Mycenae,^[4] disappeared with the fall of Mycenaean civilization during the Late Bronze Age collapse. The succeeding period, known as the Greek Dark Ages, provides no evidence of the use of writing.

Linear B was deciphered in 1952 by English architect and self-taught linguist Michael Ventris^[5] based on the research of American classicist Alice Kober.^[6] It is the only Bronze Age Aegean script to have been deciphered, with Linear A, Cypro-Minoan, and Cretan hieroglyphic remaining unreadable.^[7]

Linear B consists of around 87 syllabic signs and over 100 ideographic signs. These ideograms or "signifying" signs symbolize objects or commodities. They have no phonetic value and are never used as word signs in writing a sentence.

The application of Linear B appears to have been confined to administrative contexts. In all the thousands of clay tablets, a relatively small number of different people's handwriting have been detected: 45 in Pylos (west coast of the Peloponnese, in Southern Greece) and 66 in Knossos (Crete).^[8] Once the palaces were destroyed, the script disappeared.^[9]

Script

Linear B has roughly 200 signs, divided into syllabic signs with phonetic values and ideograms with semantic values. The representations and naming of these signs have been standardized by a series of international colloquia starting in Paris in 1956. After the third meeting in 1961 at the Wingspread Conference Center in Racine, Wisconsin, a standard proposed primarily by Emmett L. Bennett, Jr. became known as the Wingspread Convention, which was adopted by a new organization, the Comité International Permanent des Études Mycéniennes (CIPEM: Permanent International Committee of Mycenaean Studies), affiliated in 1970 by the fifth colloquium with UNESCO.^[10] Colloquia continue: the 13th occurred in 2010 in Paris.

Many of the signs are identical or similar to those in Linear A; however, Linear A encodes an as yet unknown language, and it is uncertain whether similar signs had the same phonetic values.^[11]

Syllabic signs

The grid developed during decipherment by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick of phonetic values for syllabic signs is shown below.^[12] (Note that "q" represents the labialized velar stops pronounced as /[ɡʷ, kʷ, kʷʰ]/, not the uvular stop of the IPA.)

Initial consonants are in the leftmost column; vowels are in the top row beneath the title. The transcription of the syllable, which may not have been pronounced that way, is listed next to the sign along with Bennett's identifying number for the sign preceded by an asterisk (as was Ventris' and Chadwick's convention).^[13] If the transcription of the sign remains uncertain, Bennett's number serves to identify the sign.^[14] The signs on the tablets and sealings often show considerable variation from each other and from the representations below. Discovery of the reasons for the variation and possible semantic differences is a topic of ongoing debate in Mycenaean studies.

Special and unknown signs

In addition to the grid, the first edition of Documents in Mycenaean Greek contained a number of other signs termed "homophones" because they appeared at that time to resemble the sounds of other syllables and were transcribed accordingly: pa₂ and pa₃ were presumed homophonous to pa. Many of these were identified by the second edition and are shown in the "special values" below.^[16] The second edition relates: "It may be taken as axiomatic that there are no true homophones." The unconfirmed identifications of *34 and *35 as ai₂ and ai₃ were removed. pa₂ became qa.^[17]

Special values
Character
Transcription	a2 (ha)	a3 (ai)	au	dwe	dwo	nwa	pte	pu2 (phu)	ra2 (rya)	ra3 (rai)	ro2 (ryo)	ta2 (tya)	twe	two
Bennett's number	25	43	85	71	90	48	62	29	76	33	68	66	87	91

Other values remain unknown, mainly because of scarcity of evidence concerning them.^{[16] [18]} Note that *34 and *35 are mirror images of each other, but whether this graphic relationship indicates a phonetic one remains unconfirmed.^[19]

Untranscribed and doubtful values
Character
Transcription	18	19	22	34	35	47	49	pa3?	63	swi?	ju?	zu?	swa?	83	86	89
Bennett's number	18	19	22	34	35	47	49	56	63	64	65	79	82	83	86	89

In recent times, CIPEM inherited the former authority of Bennett and the Wingspread convention in deciding what signs are "confirmed" and how to officially represent the various sign categories. In editions of Mycenaean texts, the signs whose values have not been confirmed by CIPEM are always transcribed as numbers preceded by an asterisk (e.g., *64). CIPEM also allocates the numerical identifiers, and until such allocation, new signs (or obscured or mutilated signs) are transcribed as a bullet-point enclosed in square brackets: [•].

Spelling and pronunciation

The signs are approximations, since each may be used to represent a variety of about 70 distinct combinations of sounds within rules and conventions. The grid presents a system of monosyllabic signs of the type V/CV. Clarification of the 14 or so special values tested the limits of the grid model, but Chadwick eventually concluded that even with the ramifications, the syllabic signs can unexceptionally be considered monosyllabic.^[20]

Possible exceptions, Chadwick goes on to explain, include the two diphthongs,  (ai) and  (au), as in, ai-ku-pi-ti-jo, for Aiguptios (Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: Αἰγύπτιος, "Egyptian") and, au-ke-wa, for Augewās (Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: Αὐγείας "Augeas").^[21] However, a diphthong is by definition two vowels united into a single sound and therefore might be typed as just V. Thus  (rai), as in, e-rai-wo, for elaiwon (Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: ἔλαιον),^[22] is of the type CV. Diphthongs are otherwise treated as two monosyllables:, a-ro-u-ra, for arourans (accusative plural of Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: ἄρουραι, "tamarisk trees"), of the types CV and V.^[23] Lengths of vowels and accents are not marked.

 (Twe),  (two),  (dwe),  (dwo),  (nwa) and the more doubtful  (swi) and  (swa) may be regarded as beginning with labialized consonants, rather than two consonants, even though they may alternate with a two-sign form: o-da-twe-ta and o-da-tu-we-ta for Odatwenta; a-si-wi-jo and a-swi-jo for Aswios (Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: Ἄσιος). Similarly,  (rya),  (ryo) and  (tya) begin with palatalized consonants rather than two consonants: -ti-ri-ja for -trja (-Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: τρια).

The one sign Chadwick tags as the exception to the monosyllabic rule is  (pte), but this he attributes to a development pte<*pje as in kleptei<*klep-jei.

Linear B does not consistently distinguish between voiced and unvoiced stop consonants or and between aspirated and unaspirated stops, even though these distinctions are phonemic in Mycenaean Greek. (The exception is the dental series, where syllables starting with the voiced dental stop are written differently from syllables starting with the voiceless unaspirated or voiceless aspirated dental stop.) For example,^[24] pa-te is patēr (Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: πατήρ), pa-si is phāsi (Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: φησί);,^[25] ko-ru is korus (Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: κόρυς, "helmet"), ka-ra-we is grāwes (plural of Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: γρηύς), ko-no is skhoinos ("rope"), to-so is tosos (Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: τόσος or Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: τόσσος), to-ra-ke is thōrākes (plural of Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: θώραξ, "breastplate"). The exceptional d-series for voiced dentals is illustrated by do-ra for dōra (plural of Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: δῶρον, "gift").

In some cases aspiration may be marked, but this is optional: pu-te for phutēr ("planter", from Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: φυτεύω), but phu-te-re for phutēres ("planters"). Initial /h/ may be marked only when followed by a, and only rarely: ha-te-ro for hateron (masculine Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: ἅτερος),^[26] and yet a-ni-ja for hāniai (Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: ἁνίαι).

The q-series is used for syllables beginning with labialized velar consonants (see under Mycenaean Greek), a class of consonants that disappeared from classical Greek by regular phonetic change (becoming in various circumstances Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: β, Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: π, Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: φ, or Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: δ, Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: τ, Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: θ). These consonants had various sources: inheritance from Proto-Indo-European, assimilation, borrowing of foreign words, especially names. In Mycenaean they are /kʷ/, /gʷ/, and rarely /kʷh/ in names and a few words:^[27] a-pi-qo-ro for amphiq^uoloi (Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: ἀμφίπολοι); qo-u-ko-ro for g^uoukoloi (Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: βουκόλοι, "cowherders"); qa-si-re-u for g^uasileus (Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: βασιλεύς, "basileus", meaning in this period "court official or local chieftain"), -qo-i-ta for -Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: φόντης.

The j-series represents the semivowel equivalent to English "y", and is used word-initially and as an intervocalic glide after a syllable ending in i: -a-jo for Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: -αῖος (-aios); a-te-mi-ti-jo for Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: Ἀρτεμίτιος (Artemitios). The w-series similarly are semivowels used word-initially and intervocalically after a syllable ending in u: ku-wa-no for kuanos (Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: κύανος, "blue").^[28]

The r-series includes both the /r/ and /l/ phonemes: ti-ri-po for tripos (Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: τρίπος, i.e. Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: τρίπους) and tu-ri-so for Tulisos (Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: Τυλισός).

Some consonants in some contexts are not written (but are understood to be present), such as word-initial s- and -w before a consonant, as in pe-ma for sperma (Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: σπέρμα, "seed"). The pe-, which was primarily used as its value pe of grid class CV, is here being used for sper-. This was not an innovative or exceptional use, but followed the stated rules. Syllable-final -l, -m, -n, -r and -s are also not written out, and only word-final velars are notated by plene writing: a-to-ro-qo for anthrōq^uos (Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: ἄνθρωπος, "human being, person"). Here a, being primarily of grid class V, is being used as an- and could be used for al, am, ar, and so on.

In the case of clusters of two or three consonants that do not follow the initial s- and -w rule or the double consonants: Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: ξ (ks or x), Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: ψ (ps) and q^us (which later did not exist in classical Greek), each consonant in the cluster is represented by a type CV sign that shares its consonant value: ko-no-so for Knōsos,^[29] or ku-ru-so for khrusos (Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: χρυσός, "gold"). The vowels of these signs have been called "empty", "null", "extra", "dead" and other terms by various writers as they represent no sound. There were rules though, that governed the selection of the "empty" vowel and therefore determined which sign was to be used. The vowel had to be the same as the one of the first syllable following the cluster or, if at the end of the word, preceding: ti-ri-po with ti- (instead of ta-, te- and so on) to match -ri-. A rare exception occurs in words formed from wa-na-ka, wanax (ϝάναξ, Homeric and Classical ἄναξ): wa-na-ka-te for wanaktei (dative), and wa-na-ka-te-ro for wanakteros, the adjectival form. This exception may not have applied to all contexts, as an example of wa-na-ka that follows standard rules has emerged in Agios Vasileios in Laconia. The text reads wa-na-ko-to (genitive) and is written on a sealing nodule dating to the late 14th or early 13th century, slightly earlier than other Linear B texts found on mainland Greece.^[30]

Ideograms

Linear B also uses a large number of ideograms. They express:

• the type of object concerned (e.g. a cow, wool, a spear),
• a unit of measure.

They have no phonetic value and are never used as word signs in writing a sentence, unlike Japanese kanji or Hittite cuneiform. Ideograms are typically at the end of a line before a number and appear to signify to which object the number applies. Many of the values remain unknown or disputed. Some commodities such as cloth and containers are divided into many different categories represented by distinct ideograms. Livestock may be marked with respect to sex.

The numerical references for the ideograms were originally devised by Ventris and Bennett and divided into functional groups corresponding to the breakdown of Bennett's index. The groups are numbered beginning 100, 110, 120 etc., with some provision of spare numbers for future additions; the official CIPEM numberings used today are based on Ventris and Bennett's numbering, with the provision that three or four letter codes (written in small capitals), based on Latin words that seemed relevant at the time, are used where the meanings are known and agreed. Unicode (as of version 5.0) encodes 123 Linear B ideograms.

The ideograms are symbols, not pictures of the objects in question; for example, one tablet records a tripod with missing legs, but the ideogram used is of a tripod with three legs. In modern transcriptions of Linear B tablets, it is typically convenient to represent an ideogram by its Latin or English name or by an abbreviation of the Latin name. Ventris and Chadwick generally used English; Bennett, Latin. Neither the English nor the Latin can be relied upon as an accurate name of the object; in fact, the identification of some of the more obscure objects is a matter of exegesis.^[31]

Ideograms

Glyph	Code point^[32]	Bennett^[33]	CIPEM^[34]	English^[35]
People and animals
	U+10080	100^[36] A-	VIR vir	MAN
	U+10081	102 A-	MUL mulier	WOMAN
	U+10082	104 Cn	CERV cervus	DEER
	U+10083	105 Ca S-	EQU equus	HORSE
	U+10084	105 Ca	EQU^f	mare^[37]
	U+10085	105 Ca	EQU^m	stallion
	U+10025	106 QI *21	OVIS ovis	SHEEP
		WE *75	we-ka-ta Bous ergatēs	"Adjunct to ox" (1973)^[38]
	U+10086	106^b C- D-	OVIS^f	EWE
	U+10087	106^a C- D-	OVIS^m	RAM
	U+10052	107 RA *22	CAP capra	GOAT
	U+10088	107^b C- Mc	CAP^f	SHE-GOAT
	U+10089	107^a C-	CAP^m	HE-GOAT
	U+10042	108 AU *85 C-	SUS sūs	PIG
	U+1008A	108^b C-	SUS^f	SOW
	U+1008B	108^a C-	SUS^m	BOAR
	U+10018	109 MU *23 C-	BOS bōs	OX
	U+1008C	109^b C-	BOS^f	COW
	U+1008D	109^a C-	BOS^m	OX/BULL
Units of measurement
	U+1013F	110	Z kotylai	Volume Cup^[39]
	U+1013E	111	V khoinikes	Volume
	U+1013C	112	T	Dry
	U+1013D	113	S	Liquid
	U+1013B	114		Weight
		21		Weight
		2		Weight
	U+1013A	115	P	Weight
	U+10139	116	N	Weight
	U+10138	117	M dimnaion^[40]	Weight
	U+10137	118	L talanton	TALENT
		72 G-		Bunch?
		74 S-		Pair
		15 S-		Single
		61		Deficit
By dry measure
	U+1008E	120 E- F-	GRA grānum	WHEAT
	U+1008F	121 F-	HORD hordeum	BARLEY
	U+10090	122 F- U-	OLIV olīva	OLIVES
	U+1001B	NI *30 F	FICUS	FIGS
	U+1000E	65	FARINA	FLOUR "some kind of grain"^[41]
	U+10091	123 G- Un	AROM arōma	CONDIMENT / SPICE
		KO *70 G-		Coriander
	U+1002D	SA *31 G-		Sesame
		KU *81 G-		Cumin
		SE *9 G-		Celery
		MA *80 G-		Fennel
		124 G-	PYC	cyperus
	U+10092	125 F-	CYP	cyperus?
		126 F-	CYP+KU	cyperus+ku
	U+10093	127 Un	KAPO	fruit?
	U+10094	128 G-	KANAKO	safflower
By liquid measure
	U+10095	130	OLE ŏlĕum	oil
	U+10096	131	VIN vinum	wine
	U+10098	133		unguent
	U+10099	135		honey
By weight
By weight or in units
Counted in units
Vessels^[42]
	U+100DF	200	sartāgo	BOILING PAN
	U+100E0	201	TRI tripūs	TRIPOD CAULDRON
	U+100E1	202	pōculum	GOBLET?
	U+100E2	203	urceus	WINE JAR?
	U+100E3	204 Ta	hirnea	EWER
	U+100E4	205 K Tn	hirnula	JUG
	U+100E5	206	HYD hydria	HYDRIA
	U+100E6	207		TRIPOD AMPHORA
	U+100E7	208	PAT patera	BOWL
	U+100E8	209	AMPH amphora	AMPHORA
	U+100E9	210		STIRRUP JAR
	U+100EA	211		WATER BOWL?
	U+100EB	212	SIT situla	WATER JAR?
	U+100EC	213	LANX lanx	COOKING BOWL
Furniture
	U+100C4	220 Ta	scamnum	FOOTSTOOL
	U+100C5	225	ALV alveus
Weapons
	U+100C6	230 R	HAS hasta	SPEAR
	U+100C7	231 R	SAG sagitta	ARROW
	U+100C8	232 Ta	232	AXE
	U+100C9	233 Ra		DAGGER
	U+100CA	234	GLA gladius	SWORD
Chariots
	U+100CC	240 Sc	BIG biga	WHEELED CHARIOT
	U+100CD	241 Sd Se	CUR currus	WHEEL-LESS CHARIOT
	U+100CE	242 Sf Sg	CAPS capsus	CHARIOT FRAME
	U+100CF	243 Sa So	ROTA rota	WHEEL

Sample text

Modern translation of the first 100 lines of the Iliad into reconstructed Mycenaean Greek! Line ! Mycenaean Greek
(Linear B script)! Transcription! Transliteration

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100

Archives

Corpus

Inscriptions in Linear B have been found on tablets, stirrup jars and other objects; they are catalogued and classified by, inter alia, the location of the excavation they were found in.

Prefix	Location	Number of items and/or notes
ARM		1 stirrup jar.^[43]
DIM or IOL^[44]		1 kylix shard and 1 stone (possibly a weight).^[45]
EL		1 stirrup jar.^[46]
GL		1 stirrup jar bearing either an inscription or a potter's mark.^[47]
HV	Agios Vasileios (Xerocampion, Laconia)	211 inscribed pieces, comprising ca. 115 tablets, 9 sealing nodules and 3 labels as of 21 September 2021.^[48]
IK		1 tablet.^[49]
KH		ca. 8 tablets, 42 stirrup jars, 2 cups and a bowl.^[50] ^[51] ^[52]
KN		ca. 5500 fragments, comprising ca. 4158 tablets, 31 sealing nodules and 35 labels.^[53]
KR	Kreusis (Livadostra, Boeotia)	1 stirrup jar.
MA		4 stirrup jars.^[54]
MAM	Mameloukou Cave (Perivolia, Kissamos)	1 stirrup jar.
MED	Medeon (Steiri, Boeotia)	1 ivory seal.^[55]
MI		4 sealing nodules and 4 stirrup jars.^[56]
MY		73 tablets
OR		1 stirrup jar bearing either an inscription or pseudo-script.
PY		ca. 1,026 tablets, 24 sealing nodules, 22 labels and 7 stirrup jars.^[57] ^[58]
TH		99 tablets + 238 published in 2002 (L. Godart and A. Sacconi, 2002). See also: Thebes tablets.
TI		27 tablets and fragments, ca. 51 stirrup jars and a possibly inscribed skyphos.^[59] ^[60]
VOL	Kastro-Palaia (Volos)	Two tablets found in 1950s excavations resurfaced in the early 2010s; a sketch depicts a third tablet.^[61]

Another 170 inscriptions in Linear B have been found on various vessels, for a total of some 6,058 known inscriptions.

For several decades scholars have worked to join tablet fragments together, thus making the tablets and their information more complete while reducing their numbers as a whole.^[62]

The oldest Linear B tablets are probably those from the Room of Chariot Tablets at Knossos, and date to the latter half of the 15th century BC.^[63] The Kafkania pebble, though from an earlier context, is not genuine.^[64] The earliest inscription from the mainland is an inscribed clay tablet found at Iklaina dating to between 1400 and 1350 BC.^[65]

An amber seal incised with Linear B signs was found in 2000 by amateur archaeologists at Bernstorf near Kranzberg, southern Germany, and is of much debated authenticity.^[66]

Chronology

Timeline of Bronze Age eastern Mediterranean scripts

The Aegean is responsible for many of the early Greek language words that have to do with daily life such as words for tools and items that are seen every day.^[67] The sequence and the geographical spread of Cretan hieroglyphs, Linear A, and Linear B, the three overlapping, but distinct, writing systems on Bronze Age Crete, the Aegean islands, and mainland Greece are summarized as follows:^[68]

Writing system	Geographical area	Time span^[69]
Cretan hieroglyphs	Crete	–1700 BC
Linear A	Crete, Aegean Islands (Kea, Kythira, Milos, Santorini), and Laconia	–1450 BC^[70]
Linear B	Crete (Knossos), and mainland (Pylos, Mycenae, Thebes, Tiryns)	−1200 BC

Timeline of Linear B

The main archives for Linear B are associated with these stages of Late Minoan and Helladic pottery:^[71]

Relative date	Period dates	Location	Locale or tablet
LM II	1425–1390 BC		Room of the Chariot Tablets
LH IIIA1/early LH IIIA2	1400–1370 BC		1 tablet found in refuse pit^[72]
LM IIIA2 or LM IIIB	1370–1340 BC or 1340–1190 BC		main archive
LM IIIB	1340–1190 BC		tablets Sq 1, 6659, KH 3 (possibly Linear B)
LH/LM IIIB1 end^[73]			tablets Ar 3, Gq 5, X 6 tablets from Oil Merchant group of houses Ug tablets and Wu sealings
LH IIIB2, end			tablets from the Citadel all tablets Of tablets and new Pelopidou Street deposit all but five tablets

Sixteen tablets found at the Megaron at Pylos are also thought to be dated to LHIIIA.^[74]

Controversy on the date of the Knossos tablets

The Knossos archive was dated by Arthur Evans to the destruction by conflagration of about 1400 BC, which would have baked and preserved the clay tablets. He dated this event to the LM II period. This view stood until Carl Blegen excavated the site of ancient Pylos in 1939 and uncovered tablets inscribed in Linear B. They were fired in the conflagration that destroyed Pylos about 1200 BC, at the end of LHIIIB. With the decipherment of Linear B by Michael Ventris in 1952,^[75] serious questions about Evans's date began to be considered. Most notably, Blegen said that the inscribed stirrup jars, which are oil flasks with stirrup-shaped handles imported from Crete around 1200, were of the same type as those dated by Evans to the destruction of 1400. Blegen found a number of similarities between 1200 BC Pylos and 1400 BC Knossos and suggested the Knossian evidence be reexamined, as he was sure of the 1200 Pylian date.

The examination uncovered a number of difficulties. The Knossos tablets had been found at various locations in the palace. Evans had not kept exact records. Recourse was had to the day books of Evans's assistant, Duncan Mackenzie, who had conducted the day-to-day excavations. There were discrepancies between the notes in the day books and Evans's excavation reports. Moreover, the two men had disagreed over the location and strata of the tablets. The results of the reinvestigation were eventually published by Palmer and Boardman, On the Knossos Tablets.^[76] It contains two works, Leonard Robert Palmer's The Find-Places of the Knossos Tablets and John Boardman's The Date of the Knossos Tablets, representing Blegen's and Evans's views respectively. Consequently, the dispute was known for a time as "the Palmer–Boardman dispute". There has been no generally accepted resolution to it yet.

Contents

The major cities and palaces used Linear B for records of disbursements of goods. Wool, sheep, and grain were some common items, often given to groups of religious people. A number of tablets also deal with military matters.^[77]

As is often the case with cuneiform tablets, when the buildings they were housed in were destroyed by fire many of the tablets were baked which preserved them.^[78]

Discovery and decipherment

Ancient Greece

The Greeks of the historical era were unable to decipher Linear B, but its ideograms are sometimes mentioned by ancient authors.^[79] For example, Plutarch gives an account of the Spartan king Agesilaus II (r. 400–360 BC) sending a bronze tablet with "many letters marvellously old, for nothing could be made of them" to Egyptian priests in the hope they could understand them.^[80]

Arthur J. Evans's classification of scripts

The British archaeologist Arthur Evans, keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, was presented by Greville Chester in 1886 with a sealstone from Crete engraved with a writing he took to be Mycenaean.^[81] Heinrich Schliemann had encountered signs similar to these, but had never identified the signs clearly as writing, relating in his major work on Mycenae that "of combinations of signs resembling inscriptions I have hitherto only found three or four ...."^[82] In 1893 Evans purchased more sealstones in Athens, verifying from the antiquarian dealers that the stones came from Crete. During the next year he noticed the script on other artefacts in the Ashmolean. In 1894 he embarked for Crete in search of the script. Soon after arrival, at Knossos he saw the sign of the double axe on an excavated wall, considering this the source of the script. Subsequently, he found more stones from the various ruins being worn by Cretan women as amulets called Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: γαλόπετρες "milk-stones", thought to encourage the production of breast milk.^[83]

Starting in 1894, Evans published his theories that the signs evidenced various phases in the development of a writing system in The Journal of Hellenic Studies, the first article being "Primitive Pictographs and a Prae-Phoenician Script from Crete".^[84] In these articles Evans distinguished between "pictographic writing" and "a linear system of writing". He did not explicitly define these terms, causing some confusion among subsequent writers concerning what he meant, but in 1898 he wrote^[85] "These linear forms indeed consist of simple geometrical figures which unlike the more complicated pictorial class were little susceptible to modification," and "That the linear or quasi-alphabetic signs ... were in the main ultimately derived from the rudely scratched line pictures belonging to the infancy of art can hardly be doubted."

Meanwhile, Evans began to negotiate for the land purchase of the Knossos site. He established the Cretan Exploration Fund, with only his own money at first, and by 1896 the fund had purchased one-fourth of Kephala Hill, on which the ruins were located, with first option to buy the rest. However, he could not obtain a firman excavation permit from the Ottoman government. He returned to Britain. In January 1897, the Christian population of Crete staged its final insurrection against the Ottoman Empire. The last Ottoman troops were ferried off the island by the British fleet on 5 December 1898.^[86] In that year also, Evans and his friends returned to complete purchase of the site. By this time, the Fund had other contributors as well.^[87] In 1899, the Constitution of a new Cretan Republic went into effect. Once Evans had received permission to excavate from the local authorities, excavation on the hill began on 23 March 1900.

According to Evans's report to the British School at Athens for that year,^[88] on 5 April, the excavators discovered the first large cache ever of Linear B tablets among the remains of a wooden box in a disused terracotta bathtub. Subsequently, caches turned up at multiple locations, including the Room of the Chariot Tablets, where over 350 pieces from four boxes were found. The tablets were 4.5cm (01.8inches) to 19.5cm (07.7inches) long by 1.2cm (00.5inches) to 7.2cm (02.8inches) wide and were scored with horizontal lines over which text was written in about 70 characters. Even in this earliest excavation report, Evans could tell that "a certain number of quasi-pictorial characters also occur which seem to have an ideographic or determinative meaning."^[88]

The excavation was over for that year by 2 June. Evans reported: "only a comparatively small proportion of the tablets were preserved in their entirety,"^[88] the causes of destruction being rainfall through the roof of the storage room, crumbling of small pieces, and being thrown away by workmen who failed to identify them. A report on 6 September to the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland^[89] began to use some of the concepts characteristic of Evans's later thought: "palace of Knossos" and "palace of Minos". Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1900,^[90] notes that Evans took up Stillman's theme that the palace was the labyrinth of mythology in which the half-bovine son of King Minos lurked. In the report, the tablets are now called a "linear script" as opposed to the "hieroglyphic or conventionalized pictographic script". The linear script has characters that are "of a free, upright, European character" and "seem to have been for the most part syllabic". Evans reasserts the ideographic idea: "a certain number are unquestionably ideographic or determinative."

The years after 1900 were consumed by excavations at Knossos and the discovery and study by Evans of tablets, with a projected comprehensive work on Cretan scripts to be called Scripta Minoa. A year before the publication of volume I, he began to drop hints that he now believed the linear script was two scripts, to be presented in the forthcoming book.

In Scripta Minoa I,^[91] which appeared in 1909, he explained that the discovery of the Phaistos Disc in July 1908 had caused him to pull the book from the presses so that he could include the disk by permission, as it had not yet been published. On the next page^[92] he mentioned that he was also including by permission of Federico Halbherr of the Italian Mission in Crete unpublished tablets from Hagia Triada written in a linear script of "Class A". To what degree if any Halbherr was responsible for Evans's division of the "linear script" into "Class A" and "Class B" is not stated. The Knossos tablets were of Class B, so that Evans could have perceived Class A only in tablets from elsewhere, and so recently that he needed permission to include the examples.

Evans summarized the differences between the two scripts as "type" or "form of script;' that is, varieties in the formation and arrangement of the characters. For example, he says "the clay documents belonging to Class A show a certain approximation in their forms to those presenting the hieroglyphic inscriptions ... the system of numerals is also in some respects intermediate between that of the hieroglyphic documents and that of the linear Class B."^[93] The first volume covered "the Hieroglyphic and Primitive Linear Classes" in three parts: the "pre-Phoenician Scripts of Crete", the "Pictorial Script" and "the Phaistos Disk". One or two more volumes publishing the Linear A and Linear B tablets were planned, but Evans ran out of time; the project required more than one man could bring to it. For a good many of the years left to him, he was deeply enmeshed in war and politics in the Balkans. When he did return to Knossos, completion and publication of the palace excavations took priority. His greatest work, Palace of Minos, came out in 1935. It did include scattered descriptions of tablets. He died in 1941, soon after Nazi forces invaded Crete.

The Knossos tablets had remained in the museum at Irakleion, Crete, where many of them now were missing. The unpublished second volume consisted of notes by Evans and plates and fonts created by Clarendon Press. In 1939, Carl Blegen had uncovered the Pylos Tablets; pressure was mounting to finish Scripta Minoa II. After Evans's death, Alice Kober, assistant to John Myres and a major transcriber of the Knossos tablets, prompted Myres to come back from retirement and finish the work. Emmett L. Bennett, Jr. added more transcriptions. The second volume came out in 1952 with Evans cited as author and Myres as editor,^[94] just before the discovery that Linear B writes an early form of Greek. An impatient Ventris and Chadwick declared: "Two generations of scholars had been cheated of the opportunity to work constructively on the problem."^[95]

Early attempts

Despite the limited source materials, during this time there were efforts to decipher the newly discovered Cretan script. Australian classicist Florence Stawell published an interpretation of the Phaistos Disc in the April 1911 issue of The Burlington Magazine.^[96] She followed this with the book A Clue to the Cretan Scripts, published in 1931. Stawell declared all three Cretan script forms to represent early Homeric Greek, and offered her attempts at translations.^[97] Also in 1931, F. G. Gordon's Through Basque to Minoan was published by the Oxford University Press. Gordon attempted to prove a close link between the Basque language and Linear B, without lasting success.^[98]

In 1949, Bedřich Hrozný published Les Inscriptions Crétoises, Essai de déchiffrement, a proposed decipherment of the Cretan scripts.^[99] Hrozny was internationally renowned as the translator of Hittite cuneiform decades previously. His Minoan translations into academic French, though, proved to be considerably subjective, and incorrect.

From the 1930s to 1950s there was correspondence between, and papers published by, various international academic figures. These included Johannes Sundwall, K. D. Ktistopoulos, Ernst Sittig and V. I. Georgiev.^[100] None of them succeeded with decipherment, yet they added to knowledge and debate.

Alice Kober's triplets

About the same time, Alice Kober studied Linear B and managed to construct grids, linking similar symbols in groups of threes.^[101] Kober noticed that a number of Linear B words had common roots and suffixes. This led her to believe that Linear B represented an inflected language, with nouns changing their endings depending on their case. However, some characters in the middle of the words seemed to correspond with neither a root nor a suffix. Because this effect was found in other known languages, Kober surmised that the odd characters were bridging syllables, with the beginning of the syllable belonging to the root and the end belonging to the suffix. This was a reasonable assumption, since Linear B had far too many characters to be considered alphabetic and too few to be logographic; therefore, each character should represent a syllable. Kober's systematic approach allowed her to demonstrate the existence of three grammatical cases and identify several pairs of signs that shared vowels or consonants with one another.^{[102] [103]}

Kober also showed that the two-symbol word for 'total' at the end of livestock and personnel lists, had a different symbol for gender. This gender change with one letter, usually a vowel, is most frequent in Indo-European languages.^[104] Kober had rejected any speculation on the language represented, preferring painstaking cataloguing and analysis of the actual symbols,^[105] though she did believe it likely that Linear A and Linear B represented different languages.

Emmett L. Bennett's transcription conventions

The convention for numbering the symbols still in use today was first devised by Emmett L. Bennett Jr. Working alongside fellow academic Alice Kober, by 1950 Bennett had deciphered the metrical system, based on his intensive study of Linear B tablets unearthed at Pylos. He concluded that those tablets contained exactly the same script as the Linear B found at Knossos, and he classified and assigned identification numbers to the Linear B signs as he prepared a publication on the Pylos tablets. Like Kober, Bennett was also an early proponent of the idea that Linear A and B represented different languages. His book The Pylos Tablets became a crucial resource for Michael Ventris, who later described it as "a wonderful piece of work".^[106]

Michael Ventris' identification as Greek

In 1935, the British School at Athens was celebrating its fiftieth anniversary with an exhibition at Burlington House, London. Among the speakers was Arthur Evans, then eighty-four years old. A teenage Michael Ventris was present in the audience.^[107] In 1940, the 18-year-old Ventris had an article Introducing the Minoan Language published in the American Journal of Archaeology.^{[108] [109]}

After wartime service as a navigator with RAF Bomber Command, and a post-war year in Occupied Germany, he returned to civilian life, and completed qualification as an architect. Ventris continued with his interest in Linear B, corresponding with known scholars, who usually but not always replied.^[110]

Michael Ventris and John Chadwick performed the bulk of the decipherment of Linear B between 1951 and 1953. At first Ventris chose his own numbering method, but later switched to Bennett's system. His initial decipherment was achieved using Kober's classification tables, to which he applied his own theories. Some Linear B tablets had been discovered on the Greek mainland. Noticing that certain symbol combinations appeared only on the tablets found in Crete, he conjectured that these might be names of places on the island. This proved to be correct. Working with the symbols he could decipher from this, Ventris soon unlocked much text and determined that the underlying language of Linear B was in fact Greek. This contradicted general scientific views of the time, and indeed Ventris himself had previously agreed with Evans's hypothesis that Linear B was not Greek.

Ventris' discovery was of significance in demonstrating a Greek-speaking Minoan-Mycenaean culture on Crete, and thus presenting Greek in writing centuries earlier than had been previously accepted.^[111]

Chadwick, a university lecturer in Ancient Greek philology, helped Ventris develop his decipherment of the text and discover the vocabulary and grammar of Mycenaean Greek. He noted:^[112]

That any Linear B tablets are written in a language other than Greek still remains to be demonstrated; but that words and usages not exactly paralleled in later Greek occur is both certain and to be expected. But we must not resort to "non-Greek" whenever we come up against an insoluble problem.

The first edition of their book, Documents in Mycenaean Greek, was published in 1956, shortly after Ventris's death in an automobile accident.

The Ventris decipherment did not immediately meet with universal approval.^[113] Professor A. J. Beattie of Edinburgh published his doubts in the later 1950s. Saul Levin of the State University of New York considered that Linear B was partly Greek but with an earlier substrate, in his 1964 book The Linear B controversy reexamined.^[114] However over time the Ventris discovery has been generally accepted.

Unicode

See main article: Linear B Syllabary (Unicode block), Linear B Ideograms (Unicode block) and Aegean Numbers (Unicode block).

Linear B was added to the Unicode Standard in April, 2003 with the release of version 4.0.

The Linear B Syllabary block is U+10000–U+1007F.The Linear B Ideograms block is U+10080–U+100FF.The Unicode block for the related Aegean Numbers is U+10100–U+1013F.

A variety of fonts encode Linear B.^[115]

See also

• Aegean civilizations
• Aegean numerals
• Cypriot syllabary
• Cypro-Minoan syllabary
• Linear A
• Old European script
• Proto-Greek language
• PY Ta 641
• Trojan script
• The Riddle of the Labyrinth, a 2013 popular book detailing the decipherment of Linear B

References

Sources

• Carpenter, Rhys (1957). "Linear B", Phoenix, Vol. 11, No. 2 (Summer, 1957), pp. 47–62.
• Book: Chadwick, John . John Chadwick . The Decipherment of Linear B . 2nd . 1990 . . 1958 . 978-0-521-39830-5 .
• Book: Chadwick, John . John Chadwick . The Mycenaean World . . 1976 . 978-0-521-29037-1 .
• Book: Chadwick, John . John Chadwick . Linear B and Related Scripts; "Reading the Past" . . 1987 . 978-0-520-06019-7. has the Enkomi clay tablet, circa 1500 BCE., examples of Linear B tablets, and translated, the basic Linear B syllabary, the Cypriot syllabary and discussions thereof, and short sections on Linear A, and the Phaistos Disk.
• Book: Fox, Margalit . Margalit Fox . 2013 . The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code . . 978-0062228833.
• Book: John . Forsdyke . Greece before Homer, Ancient Chronology and Mythology . 1957 . Norton . New York .
• Book: Levin, Saul . The Linear B Decipherment Controversy Re-examined . . 1964 . 288842.
• Book: McDorman, Richard E. . Language and the Ancient Greeks and On the Decipherment of Linear B (A Pair of Essays) . 2010 . 978-0-9839112-3-4.
• https://sites.utexas.edu/scripts/files/2020/05/1996-TGP-ContiguitiesInTheLinearBTabletsFromPylos.pdf T.G. Palaima, "Contiguities' in the Linear B Tablets from Pylos", in E. de Miro, L. Godart, A. Sacconi eds., Atti e memorie del secondo congresso interazionale di micenologia (Rome 1996) pp. 379–396, 1996
• Palaima, Thomas G., "Unlocking the Secrets of Ancient Writing: The Parallel Lives of Michael Ventris and Linda Schele and the Decipherment of Mycenaean and Mayan Writing", University of Texas at Austin, Eleventh International Mycenological Colloquium, 2000.
• Book: Robinson, Andrew . Andrew Robinson (author) . The Story of Writing . . 1995 . 978-0-500-28156-7 . registration . Chapter 6, Linear B, pp. 108–119: discusses Arthur Evans, his work, the Cypriot clues, the syllabary, Alice Kober, the "Grid", and a sample tablet transliterated, and translated into English.
• Robinson, Andrew The Man Who Deciphered Linear B: the story of Michael Ventris (2002) Thames & Hudson
• Book: Singh, Simon . Simon Singh . Anchor . The Code Book . 2000 . 978-0-385-49532-5 . The Code Book. for a general outline of the Linear B deciphering story, from Schliemann to Chadwick.
• Book: Ventris, Michael . Michael Ventris . Work notes on Minoan language research and other unedited papers . Edizioni dell'Ateneo 1988 Roma . 1988.
• Book: Michael Ventris . Ventris . Michael . Chadwick . John . Documents in Mycenaean Greek . Second . 1973 . . Cambridge . 978-0-521-08558-8.
• Ventris, Michael; Chadwick, John (1953) "Evidence for Greek Dialect in the Mycenaean Archives", The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 73, (1953), pp. 84–103.
• Book: Wiseman, Rob . 2010 . A Mycenaean Iliad: A linguistic reconstruction of the opening one hundred lines of the Iliad in Normal Mycenaean . .

Further reading

• Bakker, Egbert J., ed. 2010. A companion to the Ancient Greek language. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
• Bennett, E.L., "Names for Linear B Writing and for its Signs", Kadmos 2, pp. 98–123, 1963
• Bennett, E.L., "Linear B Sematographic Signs", Minos Revista de filología egea 1, pp. 55–72, 1972
• Chadwick, John (1958). The decipherment of Linear B. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
• Christidis, Anastasios-Phoivos, ed. 2007. A history of Ancient Greek: From the beginnings to Late Antiquity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
• Colvin, Stephen C. 2007. A historical Greek reader: Mycenaean to the koiné. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Fox, Margalit. "The Riddle of the Labyrinth". HarperCollins Publishers Inc. New York, NY.
• Freo, M. D., Nosch, M.-L., & Rougemont, F. (2010). "The Terminology of Textiles in the Linear B Tablets, including Some Considerations on Linear A Logograms and Abbreviations". In: C. Michel & M.-L. Nosch (Eds.). Textile Terminologies in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean from the Third to the First Millennnia BC (Vol. 8). Oxbow Books. pp. 338–373. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1cfr985.21
• Godart, L., & Andreadaki-Vlazaki, M. (2022). A new Linear B tablet from Khania: KH X 8. A new Linear B tablet from Khania: KH X 8., pp. 37–42
• Hooker, J. T. 1980. Linear B: An introduction. Bristol, UK: Bristol Classical Press.
• Horrocks, Geoffrey. 2010. Greek: A history of the language and its speakers. 2nd ed. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
• Judson, Anna P. 2020. "The Undeciphered Signs of Linear B: Interpretation and Scribal Practices". Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/50556D5B86414A3958575FB2C24B6FD1/S1750270522000057a.pdf/div-class-title-learning-to-spell-in-linear-b-orthography-and-scribal-training-in-mycenaean-pylos-div.pdf Judson, Anna P., "Learning to spell in Linear B: orthography and scribal training in Mycenaean Pylos." The Cambridge Classical Journal, 1–31, 2022
• Morpurgo Davies, Anna, and Yves Duhoux, eds. 1985. Linear B: A 1984 survey. Louvain, Belgium: Peeters.
• ––––. 2008. A companion to Linear B: Mycenaean Greek texts and their world. Vol. 1. Louvain, Belgium: Peeters.
• Owens, Gareth. "WAS SE-TO-I-JA AT ARCHANES?", KADMOS, vol. 33, no. 1, 1994, pp. 22–28
• Palaima, Thomas G. 1988. "The development of the Mycenaean writing system". In Texts, tablets and scribes. Edited by J. P. Olivier and T. G. Palaima, 269–342. Suplementos a "Minos" 10. Salamanca, Spain: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas.
• Palmer, Leonard R. 1980. The Greek language. London: Faber & Faber. .
• E. Salgarella, "Aegean Linear Script(s). Rethinking the Relationship Between Linear A and Linear", Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020.
• Srivatsan, Nikita, et al. "Neural Representation Learning for Scribal Hands of Linear B." International Conference on Document Analysis and Recognition. Springer, Cham, 2021
• Ventris, Michael, and John Chadwick. 1973. Documents in Mycenaean Greek. 2nd ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
• Young, Douglas, "Is Linear B Deciphered?", Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 512–42, 1965

External links

• Minoan Language Linear A Linked to Linear B in Groundbreaking Research – Greek Reporter – April 20, 2022
• Web site: Simon. Ager. Linear B. Omniglot. 6 January 2009. 1998–2009.
• Web site: Google Noto Fonts: Beautiful and free fonts for all languages: Linear B.
• Web site: DĀMOS: Database of Mycenaean at Oslo. University of Oslo. Federico. Aurora. Dag Trygve Truslew. Haug. et al..
• Fox. Margalit. Alice E. Kober, 43; Lost to History No More . New York Times . 11 May 2013. 13 May 2013.
  • Linear B online transliterator
• Linear B Explorer
• Web site: Gallery of Unicode Fonts: Linear B Syllabary. David. McCreedy. Weiss. Mimi. WAZU, Japan. 11 January 2009.
• Palaeolexicon – Web site: Palaeolexicon.com. Word study tool of Ancient languages, including Linear B.
• Book: Thomas G.. Palaima. Elizabeth I.. Pope. F. Kent. Reilly III. The Parallel Lives of Michael Ventris and Linda Schele and the Decipherment of Mycenaean and Mayan Writing. 2000. University of Texas. Austin. 13 January 2009. 978-0-9649410-4-5.
• Web site: Raymoure. K.A.. Linear B Transliterations. Minoan Linear A & Mycenaean Linear B. Deaditerranean. 2012. https://web.archive.org/web/20160318004206/http://minoan.deaditerranean.com/linear-b-transliterations/. 18 March 2016.
• The Prehistoric Archaeology of the Aegean – The Foundation of the Hellenic World at Dartmouth College
• Web site: LiBER – Linear B Electronic Resources Portal. Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, CNR. Maurizio. Del Freo. Francesco. Di Filippo.

Notes and References

1. Web site: Palaeolexicon - Mycenaean Greek and Linear B . 2024-06-21 . www.palaeolexicon.com.
2. https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/classics/news/professor-shelmerdine-s-exciting-mycenaean-find Professor Shelmerdine's Exciting Mycenaean Find
3. E. Hallager, M. Vlasakis, and B. P. Hallager, "The First Linear B Tablet(s) from Khania", Kadmos, 29 (1990). pp. 24–34
4. Book: Wren. Linnea Holmer. Wren. David J.. Carter. Janine M.. Perspectives on Western Art: Source Documents and Readings from the Ancient Near East Through the Middle Ages. 1987. Harper & Row. 978-0-06-438942-6. 55.
5. Web site: Cracking the code: the decipherment of Linear B 60 years on . Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge. 13 October 2012. 31 May 2017.
6. Book: Fox, Margalit. The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code. Ecco Press (Harper Collins) . 2013. 978-0-06222883-3.
7. Book: Packard, David W. . Minoan Linear A . 1974 . University of California Press . 0-520-02580-6 . Berkeley . 1055287.
8. Book: Hooker, J.T.. Linear B: An Introduction. Bristol Classical Press UK. 1980. 978-0-906515-69-3.
9. Ventris and Chadwick 1973, p. 60.
10. Emmett L. Bennett Jr., "Mycenaean studies : proceedings of the Third International Colloquium for Mycenaean Studies held at 'Wingspread,' 4–8 September 1961", University of Wisconsin Press (January 1, 1964)
11. Ventris and Chadwick (1973), page 37, quotes Bennett: "where the same sign is used in both Linear A and B there is no guarantee that the same value is assigned to it."
12. Ventris and Chadwick (1973), Fig. 4 on page 23 states the "Proposed values of the Mycenaean syllabary", which is mainly the same as the table included in this article. The "grid" from which it came, which was built up in "successive stages", is shown in Fig. 3 on page 20.
13. In the Unicode character names, Bennett's number has been rendered into a three-digit code by padding with initial zeros and preceding with a B (for "Linear B").
14. Ventris and Chadwick (1973), Fig. 9 on page 41 states Bennett's numbers from 1 through 87 opposite the signs being numbered. The table includes variants from Knossos, Pylos, Mycenae and Thebes opposite the same numbers.
15. In linguistics C and V in this type of context stand for consonant and vowel.
16. Ventris and Chadwick (1973), page 385.
17. Ventris and Chadwick (1973), pages 391–392.
18. Sign *89 is not listed in Ventris & Chadwick's (1973) tables, but it does appear in the appendix of Bennett (1964) as part of the Wingspread convention.
19. KYRIAKIDIS, EVANGELOS. "PHONETIC ATTRIBUTIONS OF UNDECIPHERED CHARACTERS: THE CASE OF SIGN *56 IN LINEAR B." The Cambridge Classical Journal, vol. 53, Cambridge University Press, 2007, pp. 202–28
20. Ventris & Chadwick (1973), pages 385–391.
21. Ventris and Chadwick use Roman characters for the reconstructed Mycenaean Greek and give the closest later literary word in Greek characters. Often the phonetics are the same, but equally as often the reconstructed words represent an earlier form. Here the classical Greek was formed by dropping the w and lengthening the e to ei.
22. The w is dropped to form the classical Greek.
23. Ventris and Chadwick (1973), page 43.
24. The examples in this section except where otherwise noted come from the Mycenaean Glossary of Ventris & Chadwick (1973).
25. Classical words typically have the of the Attic-Ionic dialect where Linear B represents the original Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: α.
26. Ventris & Chadwick (1973), pages 388–391.
27. Ventris & Chadwick (1973), page 45. The authors use q instead of k: q^u, g^u and q^uh, following the use of q- in transcription.
28. Ventris & Chadwick (1973), page 44.
29. Double letters, as in Knossos, were never represented; one was dropped.
30. Petrakis . Vassilis P. . 2016 . Addenda to "Writing the wanax: Spelling peculiarities of Linear B wa-na-ka and their possible implications" . Minos: Revista de Filología Egea . 39 . 407–408 . 5 June 2020.
31. Chadwick, John, The Decipherment of Linear B, 1958, p. 82.
32. Note that the codes do not represent all glyphs, only the major ones.
33. This table follows the numbering scheme worked out by Ventris and Bennett and presented in Ventris and Chadwick (1973) in the table of Figure 10, pages 50–51. The superscript a refers to Bennett's "Editio a", "a hand from Pylos, of Class III". The superscript b refers to Bennett's "Editio b", "a hand of Knosses". The superscript c refers to Bennett's "Editio c", "a hand of Pylos, of Class I". The non-superscript letters represent the class of tablets, which precedes the individual tablet number; for example, Sa 787 is Tablet Number 787 of the class Sa, which concerns chariots and features the WHEEL ideogram.
34. Figure 10 in Ventris and Chadwick (1973) states only the English names of the ideograms where they exist, but the Latin is given where it exists in Book: Emmett L. Bennett Jr . Mycenaean Studies: Proceedings of the Third International Colloquium for Mycenaean Studies Held at "Wingspread," 4–8 September 1961 . 1964 . Madison . University of Wisconsin Press . 258–259., "Ideogrammatum Scripturae Mycenaeae Transcriptio". The "m" and "f" superscript are male and female.
35. Given in capital letters if it repeats Ventris and Chadwick (1973) Figure 10; otherwise, in lowercase. Note that not all the CIPEM glyphs appear in Figure 10.
36. Ventris and Chadwick (1973) page 391: "100 MAN is now used for all forms of the ideogram, so that 101 and 103 are now suppressed."
37. Ventris & Chadwick either edition do not follow the Wingspread Convention here but have 105^a as a HE-ASS and 105^c as a FOAL.
38. The 1956 edition has "Kind of sheep".
39. Chadwick (1976) page 105.
40. "Double mina", Chadwick (1976) page 102.
41. Ventris & Chadwick (1973) page 392.
42. Ventris and Chadwick (1973) page 324 has a separate table.
43. Book: Tzedakis . Yannis . Kolivaki . Vicky . Tzedakis . Yannis . Martlew . Holley . Arnott . Robert . 2018 . Background and History of Excavation . The Late Minoan III Necropolis of Armenoi . subscription . 1: Introduction and Background . Philadelphia, PA . INSTAP Academic Press . 1 . 9781623034191 . 30 April 2022. .
44. Book: Del Freo . Maurizio . Del Freo . Maurizio . Perna . Massimo . 2016 . Classificazione dei documenti e regole di trascrizione . Manuale di Epigrafia Micenea: Introduzione allo studio dei testi in lineare B . 1 . Padova, Italy . Libreria Universitaria . 247 . 9788862927161 . 30 April 2022.
45. Adrimi-Sismani . Vasso . Godart . Louis . 2005 . Les Inscriptions en Linéaire B de Dimini/Iolkos et leur contexte archéologique . Annuario della Scuola Archeologica di Atene e delle Missioni Italiane in Oriente . 83 . 1 . 46–69 . 30 April 2022.
46. Book: Cosmopoulos . Michael B. . 2015 . Bronze Age Eleusis and the Origins of the Eleusinian Mysteries . subscription . Cambridge UP . 123 . 10.1017/CBO9780511820700 . 9780511820700 . 5 May 2022.
47. Zurbach . Julien . 2006 . Les vases inscrits en Linéaire B: Tentative d'interprétation globale . Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Athenische Abteilung . 121 . 24.
48. An Assemblage of Linear B Administrative Documents from Ayios Vasileios, Laconia. Virtual Lectures. Vassilis. Petrakis. presented on 21 September 2021. 15th Mycenological Colloquium. British School at Athens. 23 February 2022. 5:01 minutes in. 17 November 2021. Youtube.
49. Cosmopoulos . Michael B. . 2019 . State Formation in Greece: Iklaina and the Unification of Mycenaean Pylos . American Journal of Archaeology . . 123 . 3 . 358 . 10.3764/aja.123.3.0349 . 198037416 . subscription . 20 March 2022.
50. Book: Hallager . Erik . Hallager . Birgitta P. . Hallager . Erik . 2011 . The Linear B Inscriptions and Potter's Marks . The Greek-Swedish Excavations at the Agia Aikaterini Square, Kastelli, Khania 1970–1987 and 2001 . 4: The Late Minoan IIIB:1 and IIIA:2 Settlements . Stockholm . The Swedish Institute at Athens . 414–426 . 9789179160609 . 23 April 2022.
51. Andreadaki-Vlazaki . Maria . Godart . Louis . 2014 . Three new Linear A and B tablets from Khania . Pasiphae: Rivista di filologia e antichità egee . 8 . 11–18 . 23 April 2022.
52. Andreadaki-Vlazaki . Maria . Godart . Louis . 2022 . A new Linear B tablet from Khania: KH X 8 . Pasiphae: Rivista di filologia e antichità egee . 16 . 37–42 . subscription . 23 April 2022.
53. Book: Melena . José L. . Firth . Richard J. . 2019 . The Knossos Tablets . subscription . 6th . Philadelphia, Pennsylvania . INSTAP Academic Press . 425–457, 481–679 . 9781623034184 . 16 April 2022. .
54. Book: Driessen . Jan . Farnoux . Alexandre . Langohr . Charlotte . Panagiotopoulos . Diamantis . Kaiser . Ivonne . Kouka . Ourania . 2015 . Two More Linear B Inscribed Stirrup Jars from Malia . Ein Minoer im Exil: Festschrift für Wolf-Dietrich Niemeier . Bonn, Germany . Dr. Rudolf Habelt GmbH . 60 . 9783774939714 . 17 April 2022.
55. Marazzi . Massimiliano . 2009 . Il corpus delle iscrizioni in lineare B oggi: organizzazione e provenienze . Pasiphae: Rivista di filologia e antichità egee . 3 . 142 . 13 May 2022.
56. Book: Demakopoulou, Katie . Schallin . Ann-Louise . Tournavitou . Iphiyenia . Mycenaeans Up to Date: The archaeology of the north-eastern Peloponnese – current concepts and new directions . Stockholm . Svenska Institutet i Athen . 2015 . 193–194 . The Mycenaean Acropolis of Midea: New discoveries and new interpretations . 9789179160630.
57. Montecchi . Barbara . 2020 . The Inscriptions in Linear B . review . The Classical Review . Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association . 71 . 1 . 17 . 10.1017/S0009840X20001900 . 232223668 . subscription . 20 March 2022.
58. Judson . Anna P. . 2013 . The Linear B Inscribed Stirrup Jars . Kadmos . De Gruyter . 52 . 1 . 88 . 10.1515/kadmos-2013-0005 . 163791226 . subscription . 20 March 2022 .
59. Melena, J. L. and J.-P. Olivier. (1991). Tithemy: The Tablets and Nodules in Linear B from Tiryns, Thebes and Mycenae. Suplementos a Minos 12. Salamanca.
60. Olivier, Jean-Pierre. "Eighteen more fragments of linear B tablet from Tiryns." Archäologischer Anzeiger (1983): 413–426
61. Book: Janko, Richard . Giannakis . Georgios . Crespo . Emilio . Filos . Panagiotis . 1 . Studies in Ancient Greek Dialects: From Central Greece to the Black Sea . De Gruyter . 2017 . 107 . The Greek Dialects in the Palatial and Post-Palatial Late Bronze Age . 9783110532135.
62. OWENS, GARETH. "A LINEAR B TABLET AT UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON." Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, no. 37, Wiley, 1990, pp. 95–98
63. Book: Driessen, Jan. The Scribes of the Room of the Chariot Tablets at Knossos. Ediciones universidad de Salamanca. 2000. Salamanca.
64. Palaima. Thomas G.. 2003. OL Zh1: QVOSQVE TANDEM. Minos. 38. 373–85.
65. News: Ancient Tablet Found: Oldest Readable Writing in Europe. Ker. Than. 30 March 2011. National Geographic. 1 April 2011.
66. Harding . Anthony . Hughes-Brock . Helen . 2017 . Mycenaeans in Bavaria? Amber and gold from the Bronze Age site of Bernstorf . review . Antiquity . Cambridge University Press . 91 . 359 . 1382–1385 . 10.15184/aqy.2017.147 . 164227841 . subscription . 31 March 2022.
67. Book: Neer, Richard. Greek Art and Archaeology. Thames & Hudson. 2012. 978-0500288771. New York. 44.
68. Olivier. J.-P.. Cretan writing in the second millennium B.C.. World Archaeology. February 1986. 17. 3. 377–389. 10.1080/00438243.1986.9979977.
69. Beginning date refers to first attestations, the assumed origins of all scripts lie further back in the past.
70. Book: Daniels. Bright. Peter T.. William. The World's Writing Systems. 1996. Oxford. Oxford University Press. 0-19-507993-0.
71. Book: Shelmerdin, Cynthia W.. Cline. Eric H.. Eric H. Cline. Harris-Cline. Diane. The Aegean and the Orient in the Second Millennium: Proceedings of the 50th Anniversary Symposium, Cincinnati, 18–20 April 1997. Aegaeum. 1998. Universite de Liege, Histoire de L'art Et Archeologie de la Grece Antiquei. Where Do We Go From Here? And How Can the Linear B Tablets Help Us Get There?. The table is heavily indebted to this chapter.
72. Summer, Amanda. "The Birth of Bureaucracy." Archaeology, vol. 65, no. 4, Archaeological Institute of America, 2012, pp. 33–39
73. LM III is equivalent to LH III from a chronological perspective.
74. Skelton, Christina. "Re-Examining the Pylos Megaron Tablets", KADMOS, vol. 48, no. 1-2, 2010, pp. 107–123
75. Book: Salomon, Marilyn J.. Great Cities of the World 3: Next Stop... Athens. The Symphonette Press. 1974. 15.
76. Book: L.R.. Palmer. John. Boardman. On the Knossos Tablets. Oxford. 1963. Clarendon Press.
77. Driessen, Jan, and Colin Macdonald. "Some Military Aspects of the Aegean in the Late Fifteenth and Early Fourteenth Centuries B.C." The Annual of the British School at Athens, vol. 79, [British School at Athens, Cambridge University Press], 1984, pp. 49–74
78. HALLAGER, ERIK, VLASAKIS, MARIA and HALLAGER, BIRGITTA P.. "NEW LINEAR B TABLETS FROM KHANIA", vol. 31, no. 1, 1992, pp. 61–87
79. Forsdyke, Greece Before Homer, p. 40.
80. Forsdyke, Greece Before Homer, pp. 41, 42.
81. .
82. Book: 114. Mycenæ. Heinrich. Schliemann. William Ewart. Gladstone. New York. Charles Scribner's Sons. 1880. 978-0-405-09851-2.
83. Book: Crawford, James. Fallen glory: the lives and deaths of history's greatest buildings. 2019. Picador. 978-1-250-11831-8. New York. 45. 1076499808.
84. A.J.. Evans. Primitive Pictographs and a Prae-Phoenician Script, from Crete and the Peloponnese. Journal of Hellenic Studies. 14. 1894. 270–372, 394. 10.2307/623973. 623973. 163720432 .
85. Arthur J.. Evans. Journal of Hellenic Studies. XVII. 327–395. Further Discoveries of Cretan and Aegean Script. 1898. 10.2307/623835. 623835. 2027/hvd.32044005544283. 163638328 . free.
86. Book: The Royal Navy. William Laird. Clowes. Clements Robert. Markham. Alfred Thayer. Mahan. Herbert Wrigley. Wilson. Theodore. Roosevelt. Leonard George Carr. Laughton. 1903. Sampson, Low, Marston and Company. London. VII. 444–448. 978-1-86176-017-3.
87. Book: Brown, Cynthia Ann. Arthur Evans and the Palace of Minos. Ashmolean Museum: illustrated. Ashmolean Museum. 1983. Oxford. 9780900090929. 15–30.
88. The Annual of the British School at Athens. VI: Session 1899–1900. 1901. Arthur J.. Evans. Knossos: Summary Report of the Excavations in 1900: I The Palace. 3–70 .
89. Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. XXX (New Series, III). 1900. Arthur J.. Evans. Crete: Systems of Writing. 90. 91–93 . 10.2307/2842725. 2842725.
90. Encyclopedia: Appletons' Annual Cyclopedia and Register of Important Events of the Year 1900. Archaeology: Crete. Third Series, V; Whole Series, XI. 25–28. 1901 .
91. Book: Evans, Arthur J.. Scripta Minoa: The Written Documents of Minoan Crete: With Special Reference to the Archives of Knossos. Arthur Evans. I: The Hieroglyphic and Primitive Linear Classes with an Account of the Discovery of the Pre-Phoenician Scripts, their Place in Minoan Story and their Mediterranean Relations: with Plates, Tables and Figures in the Text. Oxford. 1909. The Clarendon Press.
92. Scripta Minoa I, page ix.
93. Scripta Minoa I, page 36.
94. Book: Evans, Arthur J.. Scripta Minoa: The Written Documents of Minoan Crete: With Special Reference to the Archives of Knossos. Arthur Evans. II: The Archives of Knossos: Clay Tablets Inscribed in Linear Script B Edited from Notes, and Supplemented by John L. Myres. Oxford. 1952. The Clarendon Press.
95. Documents in Mycenaean Greek, page 11.
96. 858643. An Interpretation of the Phaistos Disk. The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs. 19. 97. 23–38. Stawell. F. Melian. 1911.
97. Stawell, F. Melian, "Suggestions towards an Interpretation of the Minoan Scripts.", American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 120–41, 1924
98. Chadwick, Decipherment... p.28
99. Chsdwick, Decipherment.., pp27–8
100. Chadwick, Decipherment pp30–32
101. Fox, (2013) pp.163–7
102. Book: Pope . Maurice . The Decipherment of Linear B . Duhoux . Yves . Davies . Anna Morpurgo . A Companion to Linear B: Mycenaean Texts and their World . 1 . Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium . Peeters . 2008 . 3–11 . 9789042918481.
103. http://webdocs.cs.ualberta.ca/~hayward/crypto/kober.pdf
104. Robinson, (2002) p.71
105. Fox, (2013) pp.107–9
106. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/9034011/Emmett-Bennett.html Emmett L. Bennett Jr – obituary – Daily Telegraph, London, 23 January 2012
107. https://sites.utexas.edu/scripts/files/2020/05/1993-TGP-MichaelVentrisBlueprint.pdf
108. Robinson, pp32–3
109. Ventris, M. G. F., "Introducing the Minoan Language.", American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 44, no. 4, pp. 494–520, 1940
110. Chadwick, Decipherment 1961 Pelican edition pp. 47–9
111. [Jacquetta Hawkes]
112. Book: Brill Archive. 978-90-04-08934-1. Best. Jan G. P.. Woudhuizen. Fred C.. Lost Languages from the Mediterranean. 1989 .
113. Treweek, A. P., "CHAIN REACTION OR HOUSE OF CARDS? AN EXAMINATION OF THE VALIDITY OF THE VENTRIS DECIPHERMENT.", Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, no. 4, pp. 10–26, 1957
114. Book: Linear B Decipherment Controversy Re-Examined, the .
115. Web site: Judson . Anna P. . Aegean scripts in the digital age: a guide to fonts . It's All Greek To Me . 20 August 2022 . en . 7 October 2021.