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Linear B is a script that was used for writing Mycenaean, an early form of Greek. It preceded the Greek alphabet (which was an adaptation of the Phoenician alphabet) by several centuries: it seems to have died out with the fall of Mycenaean civilization; the intervening period, in which there is no evidence of written language, is known as the Dark Ages.

The script appears to be related to Linear A, an undeciphered earlier script used for writing the Minoan language, and the later Cypriot syllabary; derivation from another writing system is held to be the reason for its poor compliance with the phonemic principle. It is partly syllabic, with additional logographic signs that are "determinative", or "designational" (yielding "classes", and "types"). As such, it rather resembles modern Japanese writing in graphemic structure.

The Script

Linear B has roughly 200 signs, divided into syllabic signs with phonetic values and logograms (or ideograms) with semantic values.

Syllabic signs

Linear B is assigned Unicode Range 10000–1007F for syllabic signs and 10080–100FF for logograms.

-a -e -i -o -u
𐀀 a 𐀁 e 𐀂 i 𐀃 o 𐀄 u
d- 𐀅 da 𐀆 de 𐀇 di 𐀈 do 𐀉 du
j- 𐀊 ja 𐀋 je 𐀍 jo 𐀎 ju
k- 𐀏 ka 𐀐 ke 𐀑 ki 𐀒 ko 𐀓 ku
m- 𐀔 ma 𐀕 me 𐀖 mi 𐀗 mo 𐀘 mu
n- 𐀙 na 𐀚 ne 𐀛 ni 𐀜 no 𐀝 nu
p- 𐀞 pa 𐀟 pe 𐀠 pi 𐀡 po 𐀢 pu
q- 𐀣 qa 𐀤 qe 𐀥 qi 𐀦 qo
r- 𐀨 ra 𐀩 re 𐀪 ri 𐀫 ro 𐀬 ru
s- 𐀭 sa 𐀮 se 𐀯 si 𐀰 so 𐀱 su
t- 𐀲 ta 𐀳 te 𐀴 ti 𐀵 to 𐀶 tu
w- 𐀷 wa 𐀸 we 𐀹 wi 𐀺 wo
z- 𐀼 za 𐀽 ze 𐀿 zo

The names of these signs are only roughly phonetical, since most are used to represent a whole class of syllables each, see Mycenaean language. Note that "j" represents the semivowel equivalent to English "y", and is used as a glide (e.g. -a-jo for -αῖος), the "r" characters were used to write both the /r/ and /l/ phonemes, and the "q" series is used for indo-eurpoean /kʷ/, /gʷ/, /kʷʰ/ and /gʷʰ/. There are some additional syllabic signs, the values of some of which are unknown, disputed, or infrequent. They are referred to either by a number, or by some hypothetical phonetic approximation, for example 64, a2, a3, au, nwa, pu2, etc.

The writing system is apparently an offshoot of Linear A, which, having been apparently designed to write the Minoan language, did not fit the sounds of Greek too well. The Myceneans who used the syllabary had to work around this, until several hundred years later, when the first Greek alphabet was developed.

Logograms

Due to the nature of the texts preserved, logographic representations of items counted are very frequent. Not all of their values are known, and their pronunciation is, at best, the object of educated guessing. The logograms represent concepts such as MAN, WOMAN, COW, BULL, OIL, WINE, CLOTH, GOLD, BRONZE etc. There are several dozen signs representing various kinds of pots and vessels. (Example: tripod, for ti-ri-po-de, followed by the logogram for "3-footed pot".)

Archives

Corpus

The tablets are classified by the location of their excavation.

  • KN Knossos: ca. 4360 tablets
  • PY Pylos : 1087 tablets
  • TH Thebes (mycenaean /Tegway/): 99 tablets + 238 published in 2002.
  • MY Mycenae: 73 tablets
  • TI Tiryns: 27 tablets.
  • KH Chania: 4 tablets
  • another 170 inscriptions in Linear B were found on vessels.

The publication of the Thebes tablets (L. Godart and A. Sacconi, 2002) was long anticipated, and their actual content was rather disappointing compared to what had been hinted at by the editors in the previous years.

If it is genuine, the Kafkania pebble, dated to the 17th century BC, would be the oldest known Mycenean inscription, and hence the earliest preserved testimony of the Greek language.

Chronology

According to Cynthia Shelmerdine (as summarised in "Where Do We Go From Here?"), the main archives for Linear B are associated with these stages of Late Minoan and Helladic pottery:

LM II:

  • Knossos, Room of the Chariot Tablets
LM IIIA2 or IIIB:
  • Knossos, main archive
LM IIIB:
  • Chania, tablet Sq 1, also 6659 and KH 3 (possibly Linear B)
end LH/LM IIIB1:
  • Chania, tablets Ar 3, Gq 5, X 6
  • Mycenae, tablets from Oil Merchant group of houses
  • Thebes, Ug tablets and Wu sealings
end LH IIIB2:
  • Mycenae, tablets from the Citadel
  • Tiryns, all tablets
  • Thebes, Of tablets and new Pelopidou Street deposit
  • Pylos, all but five tablets

LM III is equivalent to LH III from a chronological perspective.

Majority opinion dates the main archive of Knossos to LM IIIA:2 (the 14th century BC).

"LM" IIIB's material culture represents Cretan alternatives to LH ware, and is not homogenous (and since it was not controlled by Knossos, it is retains the title "Minoan" only as shorthand).

As for LH IIIB: it likely begins in the 1310s or 1300s BC, after Mursilis II's sack of Miletus; it ends around 1200 BC.

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 and also to groups of "men watching the coastline".

The tablets were kept in groups in baskets on shelves. When some of the palaces burned in large-scale fires precipitated by earthquakes or volcanic events (see Knossos), the fires made "fired-clay tablets" of a portion of the tablets found. Impressions of the basket weaving have been left in the clay.

Decipherment

The first clay tablet at Knossos was discovered by the British archaeologist Arthur Evans on March 31, 1900 and on April 6 he discovered a significant hoard of tablets (measuring 5x10 inches).

The convention for numbering the symbols still in use today was first devised by US Professor Emmett Bennett, who, by 1950, had deciphered the metrical system. He was also an early proponent of the idea that Linear A and B represented different languages.

Michael Ventris and John Chadwick performed the bulk of their decipherment of Linear B between 1951 and 1953. At first, Ventris chose his own numbering system, and agreed with Evans' hypothesis that Linear B was not Greek, however later switched back to Bennett's system, and ultimately reached the conclusion that Linear B was indeed an early form of Greek.

Before their work, Alice Kober had studied Linear B and had managed to construct grids, linking symbols that seemed to have a strong grammatical relationship. Kober had 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 far too few characters to be logographic; therefore, each character should represent a syllable.

Using the knowledge that certain characters shared the same beginning or ending sounds, Kober built a table similar to the one below; she was unable, however, to link the characters to actual phonetics.

Based on her work, and after making some inspired assumptions, Ventris was able to figure out the pronunciation of the syllables. The deciphering of Linear B proved that it was a written form of Greek, to the amazement of Ventris himself, but also in direct contradiction to the general scientific views of the times. Chadwick, an expert in historical Greek, helped Ventris decipher the text and rebuild the vocabulary and grammar of ancient Cretan Greek.

Ventris' discovery was of immense significance, because he actually showed that a Greek-speaking Minoan-Mycenaean culture existed on Crete. The large majority of Linear B tablets were inventories and bureaucratic documents, with large tables of numbers and sums. This helped historians analyze the structure of ancient Minoan civilization.

Trivia

On the television game show, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, one $500,000 question was "Deciphered in 1952, Linear B is an early form of what language?" Alternate choices to the correct answer Greek were Latin, Russian and Arabic. Contestant Tom Hubler answered correctly. He left the game on the million dollar question taking the money with him.

See also

Further reading

  • 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.
  • 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.
  • for a general outline of the Linear B deciphering story, from Schliemman to Chadwick.

External links

Hellenic scripts | Syllabary writing systems | Bronze Age writing systems | Aegean civilization

Linear B | Linearschrift B | Γραμμική Β | Lineal B | Linéaire B | Lineal B | Linearno B pismo | Lineare B | Lineair B | 線文字B | Linear B | Linear B | Pismo linearne B | Escrita linear B | Lineárne písmo B | Lineaari-B-kirjoitus | Linear B

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Linear B".

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