Linear B was deciphered in 1952 by English architect and self-taught linguistMichael Ventris[6] based on the research of the American classicistAlice Kober.[7] It is the only Bronze Age Aegean script to have been deciphered, with Linear A,Cypro-Minoan, andCretan hieroglyphic remaining unreadable.[8]
Linear B consists of around 87 syllabic signs and over 100ideographic 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 texts appear to have been mostly confined to administrative contexts, mainly at Mycenaean palatial sites.[9] In the handwriting of all the thousands of clay tablets, a relatively small number of scribes have been detected: 45 inPylos (west coast of thePeloponnese, inSouthern Greece) and 66 inKnossos (Crete). The use of Linear B signs on trade objects like amphora was more widespread.[10] Once the palaces were destroyed, the script disappeared.[11]
Linear B has roughly 200 signs, divided into syllabic signs withphonetic values andideograms withsemantic values. The representations and naming of these signs have been standardized by a series of international colloquia starting inParis in 1956. After the third meeting in 1961 at theWingspread Conference Center inRacine, Wisconsin, a standard proposed primarily byEmmett L. Bennett, Jr. became known as the Wingspread Convention, which was adopted by a new organization, theComité International Permanent des Études Mycéniennes (CIPEM: Permanent International Committee of Mycenaean Studies), affiliated in 1970 by the fifth colloquium withUNESCO.[12] Colloquia continue: the 13th occurred in 2010 in Paris.
Many of the signs are identical or similar to those inLinear A; however, Linear A encodes an as yet unknown language, and it is uncertain whether similar signs had the samephonetic values.[13]
The grid developed during decipherment byMichael Ventris andJohn Chadwick of phonetic values for syllabic signs is shown below.[14] (Note that "q" represents the labialized velar stops[ɡʷ,kʷ,kʷʰ], not the uvular stop of the IPA, whereas "j" does represent the IPAvoiced palatal approximant [j], represented by the letter "y" in English words such as "yes" and "yoke".)
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 identifyingnumber for the sign preceded by an asterisk (as was Ventris' and Chadwick's convention).[note 1] If the transcription of the sign remains uncertain, Bennett's number serves to identify the sign.[15] 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.
In addition to the grid, the first edition ofDocuments inMycenaean 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 andpa3 were presumed homophonous topa. 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 asai2 andai3 were removed.pa2 becameqa.[17]
Special values
Character
𐁀
𐁁
𐁂
𐁃
𐁄
𐁅
𐁇
𐁆
𐁈
𐁉
𐁊
𐁋
𐁌
𐁍
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][note 3] Note that *34 and *35 are mirror images of each other, but whether this graphic relationship indicates a phonetic one remains unconfirmed.[18]
Untranscribed and doubtful values
Character
𐁐
𐁑
𐁒
𐁓
𐁔
𐁕
𐁖
𐁗
𐁘
𐀎
𐁙
𐁚
𐁛
𐁜
𐁝
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
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: [•].
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 ofmonosyllabic 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.[19]
Possible exceptions, Chadwick goes on to explain, include the twodiphthongs,𐁀 (ai) and𐁁 (au), as in𐁀𐀓𐀠𐀴𐀍,ai-ku-pi-ti-jo, forAiguptios (Αἰγύπτιος, "Egyptian") and𐁁𐀐𐀷,au-ke-wa, forAugewās (Αὐγείας "Augeas").[note 4] However, a diphthong is by definition two vowels united into a single sound and therefore might be typed as just V. Thus𐁉 (rai), as in𐀁𐁉𐀺, e-rai-wo, forelaiwon (ἔλαιον),[note 5] is of the type CV. Diphthongs are otherwise treated as two monosyllables:𐀀𐀫𐀄𐀨,a-ro-u-ra, forarourans (accusative plural ofἄρουραι, "tamarisk trees"), of the types CV and V.[20] Lengths of vowels and accents are not marked.
𐁌 (Twe),𐁍 (two),𐁃 (dwe),𐁄 (dwo),𐁅 (nwa) and the more doubtful𐁘 (swi) and𐁙 (swa) may be regarded as beginning withlabialized consonants, rather than two consonants, even though they may alternate with a two-sign form:o-da-twe-ta ando-da-tu-we-ta forOdatwenta;a-si-wi-jo anda-swi-jo forAswios (Ἄσιος). Similarly,𐁈 (rya),𐁊 (ryo) and𐁋 (tya) begin withpalatalized consonants rather than two consonants:-ti-ri-ja for-trja (-τρια).
The one sign Chadwick tags as the exception to themonosyllabic rule is𐁇 (pte), but this he attributes to a developmentpte<*pje as inkleptei<*klep-jei.
Linear B does not consistently distinguish betweenvoiced and unvoicedstop consonants or betweenaspirated and unaspirated stops, even though these distinctions arephonemic inMycenaean Greek. (The exception is thedental 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,[21]pa-te ispatēr (πατήρ),pa-si isphāsi (φησί),[note 6]ko-ru iskorus (κόρυς, "helmet"),ka-ra-we isgrāwes (plural ofγρηύς),ko-no isskhoinos ("rope"),to-so istosos (τόσος orτόσσος),to-ra-ke isthōrākes (plural ofθώραξ, "breastplate"). The exceptionald-series for voiced dentals is illustrated bydo-ra fordōra (plural ofδῶρον, "gift").
In some cases aspiration may be marked, but this is optional:pu-te forphutēr ("planter", fromφυτεύω), butphu-te-re forphutēres ("planters"). Initial /h/ may be marked only when followed bya, and only rarely:ha-te-ro forhateron (masculineἅτερος),[22] and yeta-ni-ja forhāniai (ἁνίαι).
Theq-series is used for syllables beginning withlabialized velar consonants (see underMycenaean Greek), a class of consonants that disappeared from classical Greek by regular phonetic change (becoming in various circumstancesβ,π,φ, orδ,τ,θ). These consonants had various sources: inheritance fromProto-Indo-European, assimilation, borrowing of foreign words, especially names. In Mycenaean they are /kʷ/, /gʷ/, and rarely /kʷh/ in names and a few words:[23]a-pi-qo-ro foramphiquoloi (ἀμφίπολοι);qo-u-ko-ro forguoukoloi (βουκόλοι, "cowherders");qa-si-re-u forguasileus (βασιλεύς, "basileus", meaning in this period "court official or local chieftain"),-qo-i-ta for -φόντης.
Thej-series represents the semivowel equivalent to English "y", and is used word-initially and as an intervocalic glide after a syllable ending ini:-a-jo for-αῖος (-aios);a-te-mi-ti-jo forἈρτεμίτιος (Artemitios). Thew-series similarly are semivowels used word-initially and intervocalically after a syllable ending inu:ku-wa-no forkuanos (κύανος, "blue").[24]
Ther-series includes both the /r/ and /l/phonemes:ti-ri-po fortripos (τρίπος, i.e.τρίπους) andtu-ri-so forTulisos (Τυλισός).
Some consonants in some contexts are not written (but are understood to be present), such as word-initials- and-w before a consonant, as inpe-ma forsperma (σπέρμα, "seed"). Thepe-, which was primarily used as its valuepe of grid class CV, is here being used forsper-. 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 foranthrōquos (ἄνθρωπος, "human being, person"). Herea, being primarily of grid class V, is being used asan- and could be used foral,am,ar, and so on.
In the case of clusters of two or three consonants that do not follow the initials- and-w rule or the double consonants:ξ (ks orx),ψ (ps) andqus (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 forKnōsos,[note 7] orku-ru-so forkhrusos (χρυσός, "gold"). The vowels of these signs have been called "empty", "null", "extra", "dead", "dummy" 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 that of the first syllable following the cluster or, if at the end of the word, preceding:ti-ri-po withti- (instead ofta-,te- and so on) to match-ri-. A rare exception occurs in words formed fromwa-na-ka,wanax (ϝάναξ, Homeric and Classical ἄναξ):wa-na-ka-te forwanaktei (dative), andwa-na-ka-te-ro forwanakteros, the adjectival form. This exception may not have applied to all contexts, as an example ofwa-na-ka that follows standard rules has emerged inAgios Vasileios inLaconia. The text readswa-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.[25]
Linear B also uses a large number ofideograms. 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, unlikeJapanese kanji orHittite 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 atripod 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 ofexegesis.[26][failed verification]
Inscriptions in Linear B have been found on tablets,stirrup jars and other objects. Two kinds of tablets have been found: "palm-leaf" shaped tablets, with inscriptions parallel to the long side, and larger "page" shaped tablets, divided into multiple lines. "Palm-leaf" tablets typically record a single transaction, and "page" tablets record a summary of multiple transactions.[38]
Inscriptions are catalogued and classified by, inter alia, the location of the excavation they were found in.
Two tablets found in 1950s excavations resurfaced in the early 2010s; a sketch depicts a third tablet.[64]
Another 170 inscriptions in Linear B have been found on various vessels, for a total of some 6,058 known inscriptions. The primary source of vessel markings are on Inscribed Stirrup Jars, with most found at Thebes, Mycenae, Tiryns, and Khania.[65]
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.[66]
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.[67] TheKafkania pebble, though from an earlier context, is not genuine.[68] The earliest inscription from the mainland is an inscribed clay tablet found atIklaina dating to between 1400 and 1350 BC.[69]
Tablets are divided into series, based on the most common ideogram used in the tablet. For example, the E series deals with grain (gra). The X series is used for tablets with no ideograms, the W series is used for labels and sealings, and Z for inscribed objects other than tablets. When it is possible to identify a subgrouping of the series, based on shape, vocabulary, format, or scribal hand, it is marked by a lowercase letter (for example, the Er series).[70]
An amber seal incised with Linear B signs was found in 2000 at Bernstorf nearKranzberg, southernGermany, and is of much debated authenticity.[71]
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.[72] 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, andmainland Greece are summarized as follows:[73]
TheKnossos archive was dated byArthur 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 untilCarl Blegen excavated the site of ancientPylos 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 byMichael Ventris in 1952,[78] 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.[79] It contains two works,Leonard Robert Palmer'sThe Find-Places of the Knossos Tablets and John Boardman'sThe 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.
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.[80]
As is often the case withcuneiform tablets, when the buildings they were housed in were destroyed by fire many of the tablets were baked which preserved them.[81]
Tablet KN Fp 13, discovered byArthur EvansTablet MY Oe 106 (obverse) exhibited at the GreekNational Archaeological Museum. Bottom: tracing of the inscription (obverse). Right: Tracing of the reverse side depicting a male figure.
The Greeks of the historical era were unable to decipher Linear B, but its ideograms are sometimes mentioned by ancient authors.[82] For example,Plutarch gives an account of the Spartan kingAgesilaus 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.[83]
TheBritish archaeologistArthur Evans, keeper of theAshmolean Museum, was presented by Greville Chester in 1886 with a sealstone from Crete engraved with a writing he took to be Mycenaean.[84]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 ...."[85] 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 forCrete in search of the script. Soon after arrival, atKnossos 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 asamulets calledγαλόπετρες "milk-stones", thought to encourage the production of breast milk.[86]
Starting in 1894, Evans published his theories that the signs evidenced various phases in the development of a writing system inThe Journal of Hellenic Studies, the first article being "Primitive Pictographs and a Prae-Phoenician Script from Crete".[87] 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[88] "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 afirman 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.[89] 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.[90] In 1899, the Constitution of a newCretan 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 theBritish School at Athens for that year,[91] on 5 April, the excavators discovered the first large cache ever of Linear B tablets among the remains of a wooden box in a disusedterracotta 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 4.5 cm (1.8 in) to 19.5 cm (7.7 in) long by 1.2 cm (0.47 in) to 7.2 cm (2.8 in) 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."[91]
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,"[91] 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 theRoyal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland[92] began to use some of the concepts characteristic of Evans's later thought: "palace of Knossos" and "palace ofMinos".Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1900,[93] notes that Evans took up Stillman's theme that the palace was thelabyrinth of mythology in which the half-bovine son of KingMinos 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 calledScripta 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.
InScripta Minoa I,[94] which appeared in 1909, he explained that the discovery of thePhaistos 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[95] he mentioned that he was also including by permission ofFederico Halbherr of theItalian Mission in Crete unpublished tablets fromHagia 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."[96][check quotation syntax]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 forcesinvaded 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 finishScripta Minoa II. After Evans's death,Alice Kober, assistant toJohn 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,[97] 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."[98]
Despite the limited source materials, during this time there were efforts to decipher the newly discovered Cretan script. Australian classicistFlorence Stawell published an interpretation of the Phaistos Disc in the April 1911 issue ofThe Burlington Magazine.[99] She followed this with the bookA 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.[100] Also in 1931, F. G. Gordon'sThrough Basque to Minoan was published by the Oxford University Press. Gordon attempted to prove a close link between theBasque language and Linear B, without lasting success.[101]
In 1949,Bedřich Hrozný publishedLes Inscriptions Crétoises, Essai de déchiffrement, a proposed decipherment of the Cretan scripts.[102] Hrozny was internationally renowned as the translator ofHittitecuneiform 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, andV. I. Georgiev.[103] None of them succeeded with decipherment, yet they added to knowledge and debate.
About the same time,Alice Kober studied Linear B and managed to construct grids, linking similar symbols in groups of threes.[104] 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 belogographic; 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.[105][106]
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.[107] Kober had rejected any speculation on the language represented, preferring painstaking cataloguing and analysis of the actual symbols,[108] though she did believe it likely that Linear A and Linear B represented different languages.[105]
The convention for numbering the symbols still in use today was first devised byEmmett 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 atPylos. 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.[105] Like Kober, Bennett was also an early proponent of the idea that Linear A and B represented different languages.[105] His bookThe Pylos Tablets became a crucial resource for Michael Ventris, who later described it as "a wonderful piece of work".[109]
In 1935, theBritish School at Athens was celebrating its fiftieth anniversary with an exhibition atBurlington House, London. Among the speakers wasArthur Evans, then 84 years old; a teenageMichael Ventris was present in the audience.[110] In 1940, the 18-year-old Ventris had an articleIntroducing the Minoan Language published in theAmerican Journal of Archaeology.[111][112] After wartime service as a navigator withRAF 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.[113]
Ventris andJohn Chadwick, a university lecturer in Ancient Greek philology, 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.[105] Ventris's first public announcement of his breakthrough came on 1 July 1952, onBBC Radio, with Ventris describing the language of Linear B as "A difficult and archaic Greek, seeing that it's five hundred years older than Homer, and written in a rather abbreviated form, but Greek nevertheless."[114] 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.[115] Chadwick, who helped Ventris develop his decipherment of the text and discover the vocabulary and grammar of Mycenaean Greek, noted:[116]
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.[105]
The Ventris decipherment did not immediately meet with universal approval,[117] and was initially viewed with some scepticism.[118] ProfessorA. 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 bookThe Linear B controversy reexamined.[119] Nevertheless, starting from the mid-50s onward the Ventris discovery came to be viewed favourably by scholars, such as professorsCarl Blegen andSterling Dow, which along with Ventris' 1954 article, resulted to the discovery's wide acceptance.[118]
Linear B was added to theUnicode 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.
^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").
^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.
^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 thew and lengthening thee toei.
^E. Hallager, M. Vlasakis, and B. P. Hallager, "The First Linear B Tablet(s) from Khania", Kadmos, 29 (1990). pp. 24–34
^Wren, Linnea Holmer; Wren, David J.; Carter, Janine M. (1987).Perspectives on Western Art: Source Documents and Readings from the Ancient Near East Through the Middle Ages. Harper & Row. p. 55.ISBN978-0-06-438942-6.
^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)
^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."
^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.
^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.
^Evangelos Kyriakidis, "Phonetic attributions of undeciphered characters: The case of sign *56 in Linear B", The Cambridge Classical Journal, vol. 53, Cambridge University Press, pp. 202–28, 2007
^Chadwick, John,The Decipherment of Linear B, 1958,p. 82.
^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 fromPylos, 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.
^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 inEmmett L. Bennett Jr, ed. (1964).Mycenaean Studies: Proceedings of the Third International Colloquium for Mycenaean Studies Held at "Wingspread," 4–8 September 1961. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. pp. 258–259., "Ideogrammatum Scripturae Mycenaeae Transcriptio". The "m" and "f" superscript are male and female.
^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.
^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."
^Ventris & Chadwick either edition do not follow the Wingspread Convention here but have 105a as a HE-ASS and 105c as a FOAL.
^Tzedakis, Yannis; Kolivaki, Vicky (2018). "Background and History of Excavation". In Tzedakis, Yannis; Martlew, Holley; Arnott, Robert (eds.).The Late Minoan III Necropolis of Armenoi. Vol. 1: Introduction and Background. Philadelphia, PA: INSTAP Academic Press. p. 1.ISBN9781623034191.ProQuest2227961808. Retrieved30 April 2022.
^[2] Andreadaki-Vlasaki, Maria, and Erik Hallager, "New and unpublished Linear A and Linear B inscriptions from Khania", Proceedings of the Danish Institute at Athens 5, pp. 7-22, 2007
^Driessen, Jan; Farnoux, Alexandre; Langohr, Charlotte (2015). "Two More Linear B Inscribed Stirrup Jars from Malia". In Panagiotopoulos, Diamantis; Kaiser, Ivonne; Kouka, Ourania (eds.).Ein Minoer im Exil: Festschrift für Wolf-Dietrich Niemeier. Bonn, Germany: Dr. Rudolf Habelt GmbH. p. 60.ISBN9783774939714. Retrieved17 April 2022.
^Demakopoulou, Katie (2015). "The Mycenaean Acropolis of Midea: New discoveries and new interpretations". In Schallin, Ann-Louise; Tournavitou, Iphiyenia (eds.).Mycenaeans Up to Date: The archaeology of the north-eastern Peloponnese – current concepts and new directions. Stockholm: Svenska Institutet i Athen. pp. 193–194.ISBN9789179160630.
^Melena, José L., "A new personal name in the Linear B tablets from Pylos", Kadmos, vol. 62, no. 1-2, pp. 33-42, 2023
^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.
^Olivier, Jean-Pierre. "Eighteen more fragments of linear B tablet from Tiryns." Archäologischer Anzeiger (1983): 413–426
^Janko, Richard (2017). "The Greek Dialects in the Palatial and Post-Palatial Late Bronze Age". In Giannakis, Georgios; et al. (eds.).Studies in Ancient Greek Dialects: From Central Greece to the Black Sea. De Gruyter. p. 107.ISBN9783110532135.
^Catling, H. W., et al., "The Linear B Inscribed Stirrup Jars and West Crete", The Annual of the British School at Athens, vol. 75, pp. 49–113, 1980
^Owens, Gareth, "A Linear B Tablet at University College London", Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, no. 37, Wiley, pp. 95–98, 1990
^Driessen, Jan (2000).The Scribes of the Room of the Chariot Tablets at Knossos. Salamanca: Ediciones universidad de Salamanca.
^Palaima, Thomas G. (2003). "OL Zh1: QVOSQVE TANDEM".Minos.38:373–85.
^Palmer, Ruth (2008). "How to Begin? An Introduction to Linear B Conventions and Resources". In Duhoux, Yves; Morpurgo Davies, Anna (eds.).A Companion to Linear B: Mycenaean Greek Texts and Their World.
^Summer, Amanda. "The Birth of Bureaucracy." Archaeology, vol. 65, no. 4, Archaeological Institute of America, 2012, pp. 33–39
^Skelton, Christina. "Re-Examining the Pylos Megaron Tablets", KADMOS, vol. 48, no. 1-2, 2010, pp. 107–123
^Salomon, Marilyn J. (1974).Great Cities of the World 3: Next Stop... Athens. The Symphonette Press. p. 15.
^Palmer, L.R.; Boardman, John (1963).On the Knossos Tablets. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
^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
^Hallager, Erik, Maria Vlasakis, and Birgitta P. Hallager, "New Linear B Tablets from Khania", pp. 61-87, 1992
^Crawford, James (2019).Fallen glory: the lives and deaths of history's greatest buildings. New York: Picador. p. 45.ISBN978-1-250-11831-8.OCLC1076499808.
^Clowes, William Laird; Markham, Clements Robert; Mahan, Alfred Thayer; Wilson, Herbert Wrigley; Roosevelt, Theodore; Laughton, Leonard George Carr (1903).The Royal Navy. Vol. VII. London: Sampson, Low, Marston and Company. pp. 444–448.ISBN978-1-86176-017-3.{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
^"Archaeology: Crete".Appletons' Annual Cyclopedia and Register of Important Events of the Year 1900. Vol. Third Series, V, Whole Series, XI. 1901. pp. 25–28.
^abcdefPope, Maurice (2008). "The Decipherment of Linear B". In Duhoux, Yves; Davies, Anna Morpurgo (eds.).A Companion to Linear B: Mycenaean Texts and their World. Vol. 1. Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium: Peeters. pp. 3–11.ISBN9789042918481.
^[4] Kober, Alice E., "The Minoan Scripts: Fact and Theory.", American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 52, no. 1, pp. 82–103, 1948
^[5] Thomas G Palaima, "Michael Ventris's Blueprint: Letters reveal how a British architect and two American scholars worked to decipher a Bronze Age script and read the earliest writings in western civilization", Discovery: Research and Scholarship at the University of Texas at Austin, 1993
^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
Forsdyke, John (1957).Greece before Homer, Ancient Chronology and Mythology. New York: Norton.
McDorman, Richard E. (2010).Language and the Ancient Greeks and On the Decipherment of Linear B (A Pair of Essays). Richard E. McDorman.ISBN978-0-9839112-3-4.
[6] 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
Tracy, Stephen V. (2018). "The Acceptance of the Greek Solution for Linear B".Hesperia: The Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens.87 (1):1–16.doi:10.2972/hesperia.87.1.0001.ISSN0018-098X.
Ventris, Michael (1988).Work notes on Minoan language research and other unedited papers. Edizioni dell'Ateneo 1988 Roma.
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Bennett, E.L., "Names for Linear B Writing and for its Signs", Kadmos 2, pp. 98–123, 1963
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Christidis, Anastasios-Phoivos, ed., "A history of Ancient Greek: From the beginnings to Late Antiquity", Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007ISBN978-0521833073
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Duhoux, Yves, and Anna Morpurgo Davies, eds., "A companion to Linear B: Mycenaean Greek texts and their world", Vol. 1, Louvain, Belgium: Peeters, 2008
Ferrara, Silvia (2010). "Mycenaean texts: The Linear B Tablets". In Bakker, Egbert J. (ed.).A Companion to the Ancient Greek Language. Wiley-Blackwell.
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Freo, M. D., Nosch, M.-L., & Rougemont, F., "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, 2010
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[7] Salgarella, Ester, and Anna P. Judson, "Signs of the times? Testing the chronological significance of Linear A and B palaeography", Ariadne, pp. 359–379, 2025
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