Archaeologists Use Minoan Script to Unlock Mycenaean Linear B Records

Linear B tablet. Credit: Sharon Mollerus / CC BY 2.0 / Wikimedia Commons

Researchers person utilized clues from Minoan script to decode Mycenaean Linear B records and shed caller airy connected however Bronze Age scribes recorded spices, roots, and different goods utilized successful the past perfume industry.

The study, led by Silvia Ferrara and published by De Gruyter, examines 2 still-debated signs successful Linear B, the publication utilized by Mycenaean Greek administrators. The findings suggest that scribes utilized cautious graphic choices to debar disorder successful palace records.

Linear B tablets from Pylos and Knossos amusement that Mycenaean palaces managed a large perfume industry. Workers mixed olive oil with spices and aromatics. These scented oils were apt invaluable commercialized goods. They besides helped palace elites physique wealthiness and prestige.

But the tablets are brief. They database goods and quantities, not recipes. Many signs for ingredients stay unclear. Ferrara and her colleagues studied these signs by comparing them with Linear A, the older Minoan publication utilized connected Crete.

Clues from a basal sign

One cardinal motion is known arsenic Linear B *157. It appears connected tablets from Pylos linked to perfume-making. The tablets besides database ingredients specified arsenic coriander, cyperus, honey, wine, and wool.

Earlier scholars suggested that *157 whitethorn notation to a “root.” The caller survey strengthens that idea. Researchers reason that portion of the motion looks similar a works root. Another portion whitethorn basal for the archetypal dependable of the Mycenaean Greek connection for root.

Bronze Age Minoan inscriptions written successful Linear A from Phaistos. Credit: Wikimedia Commons, Zde, CC-BY 4.0

The squad past compared the motion with a akin people successful Linear A. That sign, called A646, appears connected a tablet from Haghia Triada successful Crete. Both signs stock a akin shape. Both besides harvester a root-like awesome with different motion placed supra it.

Researchers suggest that the Minoan motion whitethorn person worked similarly. It whitethorn person marked a basal oregon root-like works product. That would mean Mycenaean scribes whitethorn person inherited oregon adapted an older Minoan mode of signaling goods.

The survey does not assertion afloat certainty. Linear A remains undeciphered. But the examination offers a caller way for speechmaking signs that person agelong resisted interpretation.

Perfume records go clearer

The survey besides looks astatine different motion radical written arsenic KA+PO. Scholars person often linked it with the Greek connection for “fruit.” But Ferrara and her colleagues reason that the motion apt did not mean mean effect successful these records.

The crushed is context. A afloat written form, ka-po, appears astatine Knossos and seems to notation to fruit, perchance olives. But KA+PO appears astatine Pylos successful perfume-related tablets. It is listed with spices and aromatics, not fruit.

Researchers reason that scribes utilized 2 antithetic forms for 2 antithetic goods. The written signifier ka-po apt meant “fruit.” The joined motion KA+PO whitethorn person meant a spice, adust stalk, oregon aromatic works worldly utilized successful perfume-making.

This matters due to the fact that it shows that Linear B scribes were not careless grounds keepers. They utilized ocular strategies to abstracted goods that could different beryllium confused.

A much precise penning system

Linear B is often seen arsenic constricted due to the fact that it could not easy grounds each sounds successful Greek. Some written words could beryllium work successful much than 1 way. But the survey suggests that scribes had ways to lick this problem.

They utilized afloat spellings for immoderate items. They utilized joined signs oregon logograms for others. These choices helped palace officials work inventories rapidly and accurately.

The findings besides amusement the worth of looking backmost to Linear A. Although the Minoan publication is inactive not understood, its signs whitethorn assistance explicate however Mycenaean scribes built their ain penning system.

The survey offers much than a speechmaking of 2 past signs. It shows however tiny marks connected clay tablets tin uncover the logic of palace administration, trade, and trade accumulation successful the Bronze Age Aegean.