the oxford handbook of the bronze age aegean
TRANSCRIPT
THE OXFORD HANDBOOK OF
THE BRONZE AGE AEGEAN
( ca. 3000-1000 BC)
Edited by
ERIC H. CLINE
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
2010
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The Oxford handbook of the Bronze age Aegean/ edited by Eric 1 -1. Cline.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-19-536550-4
1. Civilization, Aegean. 2. Bronze age-Aegean Sea Region.
3. Aegean Sea Region-Antiquities.
4. Excavations (Archaeology)-Aegean Sea Region.
I. Cline, Eric 1-1.
II. Title: Handbook of the Bronze Age Aegean.
DF220.O946 2010
939.'101-dc22 2009014131
Undertaken with the assi�tance of the Institute for Aegean Prehistory
13579 8642
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
22. Trade, 291
Bryan E. Burns
23. Weapons and Warfare, 305
Ioannis Georganas
Seals and Writing/Administrative Systems
24. Minoan Seals and Sealings, 317
Judith Weingarten
25. Mycenaean Seals and Seatings, 329
John G. Younger
26. Cretan Hieroglyphic ~nd Linear A, 340
Helena Tomas
27. Linear B, 356
Thomas G. Palaima
28. Cypro-Minoan, 373
Nicolle Hirschfeld
Material Crafts
29. Materials and Industrie s, 387
Doniert Evely
30. Minoan Pottery, 405
Birgitta Ha/lager
31. Mycenaean Pottery, 415
Jeremy B. Rutter
32. Textiles, 430
Brendan Burke
33. Jewelry, 443
Robert Laffineur
Events
34. Eruption of Thera/Santorini, 457
Sturt W Manning
35. The Trojan War, 475
Trevor Bryce
CONTENTS IX
CHAPTER 27
LINEAR B
THOMAS G. PALAIMA
LINEAR B is a Lat e Bronze Age (ca . 1500-1200 BCE) writing system w ithin the
distin ctiv e tradition of Cretan and Cretan-inspired sc ripts (Cretan Hieroglyphic
and Lin ear A, Cypro-M ino an, and Cypriot e Syllabic) that spann ed nea rly two
mill enni a (ca. 2100 to ca. 225 BCE) (Barton ek 2003, 16-49; Chadwick 1987;
Duhou x 1989; Palaima 1989, figure s 4 and 9; O livier 2008). It is an adaptation of th e ea rlier (ca. 1900-1450 BCE) Lin ear A, with wh ich it share s peculiarities
in th e use of both th e signs that repre sent so und s (phono grams) and the signs
that represent objects (id eograms) or the wo rds for tho se objects (lo gog rams )
(D uh oux 1985; 1989, 63, 72-76). Unlik e the oth er Bronze Age scripts in thi s tradition ( Cretan Hieroglyphic,
Lin ear A, and Cypro-Minoan), Linear B has been deciphered-b y British architect
Micha el Ventris . Ventris announced hi s achievement for th e first tim e in per sonal
hand w ritt en letter s of June 18, 1952, to two clo se collaborators, Emmett L. Bennett
Jr. and Sir John L. Myres (Robinson 2002, 102-106; Palaima, Pope, and Reilly
2000). Th e primary language in th e pre served Lin ear B text s is Greek (Ventris and
Chadwick 1953), as it was devel oping in the 14th and 13th centuries BCE. Like th e
hi stori cal Greek lexicon, the lexicon of the Linea r B text s (Ventri s and Chadwick
1973, 527-9 4; Aura Jorro 1985, 1993) contains loan words th at come from the lan
guag es of the many cu ltur es with whi ch first th e Minoans during th eir two palatial
period s (M M II-LM IB) and then th e Mycenaeans during th eir pa latia l period (LH
II-LH IIIB ) were in co nta ct. Thi s includ es the lan guag es of th e so-ca lled substrat e
cultur es with which the Greek speake rs intera cted when they entered the Balkan
penin sula and as they then sp read ou t ove r the Aegean area (Brown 1985, 1-19;
Hester 1968; Renfrew 1998).
Th e Linear B texts, therefore, give us information about an imp ortant forma
tive stage of th e Greek lang uag e and how it was affected by language contact with
LINEAR B 357
surrounding cultures . They also provide our earliest primary written evidence
about all facets of Mycenaean palatial civilization. Finally, because what we call the
Mycenaean Linear B script is an adaptation of Minoan Linear A, Linear B texts give
us insights into how speakers of the still undeciphered Minoan language(s) and of
early Greek analyzed spoken languag e and how they represented it in writing as 'v is
ible speech' (Sharypk.in 2008; Woodard 1997; Palaim a and Sikkenga 1999).
THE DISCOVERY AND PUBLICATION OF TEXTS
The first scientificall y excava ted Linear B tablets were unco vered by Sir Art hur Evans
at th e site of Knos sos on Crete on March 30, 1900 (Evans 1900, 18, 55-58; MacGillivray
2000, 177-78, 181-85). Many more texts were uncov ered in th e succeeding years of
excavation. There are no w about forty-two hundred texts from Knossos, man y of
which are small fragments (Shelm erdine 2008b, 181133; Bartonek 2003, 30).
Evans was th e first great schol ar of Aegean writing systems (Pa laima 2000a).
The adjective 'great' is no exaggeration. In fact, Evans's inter ests in early writing
systems are what led him to become an excavator (Myres 1941). Evans devised the
first typolo gy of Bronze Age Aegean scripts in Scripta Minoa I (Evans 1903- 1904,
1909) and then turn ed hi s attention to other m atters ( e.g., reconst ruction of the
Knossos site and full, synthetic publication of its excava tion [Evans 1921-1935] and
even Balkan diploma cy in the aftermath of World War I).
Conse quentl y, Evans's plann ed companion volume on Linear B, Scripta Minoa II,
was published only in 1952. It was a major reworking of the manu script he left at his
death in 1941 to the care of Sir John L. Myres. Myres, who was not a specialist in script s,
first enlisted in 1947 major help from Alice E. Kober, arguably the foremost scholar
working on Aegean writing in the 1940s. After Kober's death in 1950, Myres received
help from Emmett L. Bennett Jr., whose work on the Pylos tablet s had been interrupt ed
by his service analyzing Japane se encoded texts during World War IL The only other
scholar who did sustain ed and consistently sober analytical work on the linear scr ipts
before 1941 was Johann es Sundwall of Finland (Sundwall 1920, 1932, 1936).
Scripta Minoa II (Evans 1952), however, was prevented from becoming th e fully
scientific publication that Alice Kober wanted it to be for two reasons . First, dir e
postwa r eco nomi c co ndition s made it necessary for the Clarendon Press to use
plates and fonts (for charts of signs and drawing s and trans cr iptions of texts ) that
had been produced for Evans when Scrip ta Minoa I and Palace of Minos were pub
lished. Second, Myres viewed it as his obligation to publish a faithful edited version
of the book that Evans had partiall y written, not the up-to-date scientific study that
Kober and Bennett were capable of producing. Scripta Minoa II , when it appeared,
was already a fossil.
In the decades after Evans's initial finds at Knossos, there were two major imped
iments to further progress on Linear B: Few of the nearly eighteen hundred tablet s
358 THEMATIC TOPICS
that Evans had un cove red from Kno ssos were carefully publish ed and availab le to
scholars , and th ere we re no further discove ries to add to the vari ety and quantity of
th e Lin ea r B dat a. The probl em with nonpublication of the Kno ssos mat erial was
partly remedied whe n Palace of Minos, volume IV, ap pea red in 1935 (Evans 1921-
1935). It presented a selection of tabl ets with learned comm entar y. Significant help
with th e seco nd prob lem came when Professor A. D. Keramo poull os at Th ebes in
1921 began his discove ry of a large depo sit of tr anspor t st irrup jars, twenty-eight of
which bore paint ed Linear B inscriptions (Wace 1921, 272-73).
The o th er im po rt ant pr edecipherment discovery of tab lets was made by Carl
W. Blegen in 1939, whe n excava tin g at th e site of Pylos in Messen ia in th e south
west Greek mainl and (Blegen and Kourouniotis 1939). The advent of Wo rld War II
dela yed the publication of th ese 636 tablets, but in 1951 they were given to the scho l
arly wo rld in a carefu l, regular ized transcription by Emmett L. Benn ett Jr. (Benne tt
1951), based up on his eq ually painstaking wo rk on the forms of signs of the sylla
bary in his earlier dissertatiqn (Ben nett 1947).
NUMBERS AND GENERAL TIME PERIOD OF TEXTS
In the fifty- six years since th e decipherment of Linear B, the corpus of Lin ear B
inscripti ons has great ly expanded. We now have m ore th an five tho usa nd inscrib ed
clay records from Khan ia and Knossos on Crete and from Pylos, Mycenae, Tiryns,
M idea, and Thebes on the mainland (Barto nek 2003, 30; De l Freo 2008, 213-22). The
limited numbers of clay records are explained by the fact that th ey are pre served
on ly when acc ident ally fired in the destru ction of th e buildings in which th ey were
located. The rul e is: no fire, no tablet s.
Thi s also severely limit s the coverage that the se economic docume nt s provide of human eco nom ic, political, reli gious, and socia l ac tivities. Th e Linear B texts
were never intended to be long last ing. They were writt en, sto red, and consulted
in conn ect io n with th e administrative year in progress. They look back at th e year
past and ahead at th e year comin g. There is no syste m in th e tablets eq uivalen t to
th e hi stor ical Greek practi ce of dat in g decrees or other in scription s by reference
to eponymo us magi strate s (arc hon s) , pries ts, or prieste sses . We have evidence for
on ly one or at most two or three rand om ly selected and und ated years at any given
Mycenaea n site. Thus, we have littl e way o f reco nstru ctin g tr end s, beyond a single
year, over tim e. Th ere has been, ho wever, some at ten tio n paid to th e chron ology of
texts within a given ad mini strative ph ase (Palaima 1995).
In additi on, painted inscription s on ca. 160 tran spor t stirrup jars are known
from five sites o n Cret e (Malia, Knossos, Armenoi, Khania, and Monastiraki)
and seve n sites on th e Greek m ainland (Tiryn s, Midea, Mycenae, Eleusis , Kreus is,
Thebes, and Orchomenos) (Van Alfen 2008). Th ere is also a single stone 'para llel
epiped' from th e import ant north ern site of Iolko s, which was identified lon g ago
LINEAR B 359
by Nilsson (1932) as a potential major palatial site. It has three sign s in scribed into it
(Del Freo 2008, 215-16 and note 82).
All of the inscribed mat erial com es from the 14th and 13th centuri es BCE (at Pylos
the transition into the 12th), and all of it com es from the environ s of significant settle
ment s (Dri essen 2008). We have no good evidence yet th at Linear B was used at the
smaller settlem ents within the stru ctur e of regional organization in Mycenaean palatial
territ ories th at are called second - or third -o rder centers (Benn et 1990, 1998).
AN UNLIKELY INSCRIBED PEBBLE
It has been propo sed th at our earliest Linear B text is an in scrib ed pebbl e from an
insign ificant M iddl e Helladi c settl em ent in the dist rict of Elis, found supp osedly in
a mid -M H III (i.e., ca. 1650 BCE) cont ext (Del Freo 2008, 216-17) . Here follow th e
many reaso n s to reject thi s prop osal ( as argued fully by Palaima 2006 b ). Th e very status of th e site where it was found m akes it highly dubi ous, as does th e
fact th at the galet, as it is kn own in Mycenological circles, was discovered on April Fool's
Day (April 1, 1994). Also humorou sly suspicious is the inscribed image of a doubl e ax
surr ound ed by cartoo nlike rays ( compl etely unp ara lleled in Minoan or Iviycenaean art ).
As regards writin g style, the Linear B signs are not early prototyp ical form s that we
would expect in 1650 BCE, but th ey are in the style of the ma in scribe at Pylos ca. 1200
BCE (450 years after the date of th e pebbl e). Wh en th e sign group s are read, they give th e
nam es and nicknam es of th e son of the excavator and possibly his father. It is surpri sing
th at this object has been publi shed as a genuin e inscription and almo st un conscionable
that it is now being cited, wheth er un critically or with reservations, in handb ooks and
discussions of the history of Linear B ( e.g., Barton ek 2003, 73- 74; Dri essen 2008, 76).
TYPOLOGY OF CLAY DOCUMENT INSCRIPTIONS
Even be fore th e deciph erm ent , Kober and Benn ett exp loited th e typol ogy of th e
clay inscrip tions in Linear B as a m eans of stud ying th eir texts. All Linear B tablets are dev ised so th at they can be held in one hand, while writin g with th e oth er. We
even find th e finger impre ssion s of scrib es along th e edges of the texts where the y
gripp ed th e tablets (Palaima 1988).
Th e two m ain shapes are (1) lon g, narro w tablets that Evans called leaf shaped
becau se th ey remind ed him of palm-l eaf docum ent s fro m south Asia; and (2) rect
angular , page-shaped texts (Palmer, 2008a , 61, figur e 2.1). Th e leaf-shaped tabl ets are
used m ainl y for document s focu sed on discrete record s within larger bookkeepin g
assignm ent s. Go od exampl es are th e inspecti o n invent orie s of individu al sets of
360 THEMATIC TOPICS
armor (and helmets) in the Pylos Sh series (Palaima 1996a); ration allotments to
dependent women work groups in the Pylos Aa, Ab, and Ad series (Chadwick 1988;
Palmer 1989); the receipts of six taxed commodities in the Pylos Ma series, which
the principal districts making up the territory of the palatial state of Pylos each
have to give (Ventris and Chadwick 1973, 289-95, 464-66); honey being shipped to
the sanctuary of Zeus specifically for Zeus and Dionysos in Khania Gq 5 (Palaima
2004a, 448); and the assignment of armor, a chariot, and a pair of horses to indi
vidual warriors in the Room of the Chariot Tablets at Knossos (Driessen 1996).
Page-shaped tablets are used to q)mpile and summarize the information that
might originally have gone on a number of leaf-shaped documents or to record the
responsible parties involved in transactions and activities involving large numbers
of individuals, localities; or institutions. These tablets generally are records of distri
bution, delivery, collection, mobilization, inventory, or census. Good examples are a
simple record of rowers of a single ship coming from five communities in Messenia
(Pylos An 1: Killen 1983)i bronze allocation to groups of smiths (Pylos Jn series:
Smith 1993); the mundane daily allotment of grain to individuals and workers who
perform different services within the palatial system (Thebes Fq series: Palaima
2006a); and the list of human beings connected with organizations involving the
lawagetas and the basileus (KN As 1516: Driessen 1985).
Clay is used in Mycenaean administration also for nodules. These are small
lumps of clay molded around knotted string and impressed with a seal (Hallager
1996, 31-38; [Palmer, 2008a, 61, figure 2.1] ). Linear B-inscribed nodules usually serve
as records of single transactions (Palaima 1996b, 2000b ). The best example here is
the set of sixty-one such devices (fifty-six inscribed) discovered at Thebes and deal
ing with animals being provided for a sacrificial feast (Piteros, Olivier, and Melena
1990 ). The inscriptions and seal impressions in the Theban nodules identify respon
sible parties, place names (including Thebes itself and Amarunthos and Karustos
in Euboea), the kinds of animals, and the conditions under which these contribu
tions are made (whether 'paid' as a kind of religious obligation or 'finished off,' i.e.,
brought into a state fit for sacrifice) (translation and discussion in Palaima 2004b,
220-21, 225-28, 237-39 ).
Finally, clay was pressed flat against the outer surface of transport baskets made
of woven, pliant plant fiber (generically 'wicker'). These 'labels' were then inscribed
with brief descriptions of the tablets that were placed inside the baskets. The baskets
were carried from one location to another. The labels from Pylos all come from the
centrally located Archives Complex.
GENERAL TECHNIQUES OF ANALYSIS
A key resource in interpreting the Linear B documents is palaeography (Palaima
forthcoming), literally the study of 'old writing.' Many of the common signs of
LINEAR B 361
the Linear B script are complex in form, with lines cro ssing or running into one
another. Moist clay generally preserv es a clear record of the habitual ord er in which
individual tablet writers made particular signs and the peculiar ways the y dre w
component elements. This and other idiosyn cratic featur es, such as tablet layout,
vocabulary, subj ect m atter, and spe lling variants, have made it possible to identify
'scribal hand s.' By studying their work, we can reco nstruct, at least partiall y, th e
admini strati ve systems (includin g central archives) in which the tablet writ ers fun c
tioned (Palaima 2003a).
Three speciali zed studie s (O livier 1967, Palaima 1988, Dr iessen 2000) of scr ibes and th eir wor k have been cru cial in deter minin g how to int erp ret sets and othe r
group s of tabl ets from Knosso s and Pylos and even how to establi sh th e relative
chronology of th e tablets from a ·parti cular site. The stud y of tr aces of palm prints on
tablet surfa ces, mad e, it seems, by youn g apprentic es and older ret irees who assisted
the tablet writers in th eir work (Sjoq uist an d Astr bm 1985, 1991) has also added to our und erstan din g of how tab let'writer s int eracted with each other.
A major recent advan ce is th e app lication of phylogenetic system atics to th e
palaeogra phic al data (Skelton 2008). Skelton has used thi s biolo gical research
m ethod to determ ine th e most probable lin e of chronol og ical developm ent of th e
styles of th e id entifi ab le scribal hands an d to tra ce po ssible affinities among tab let writ ers. Signifi cantl y, Skelto n's study independently iso lated th e same groups
of texts th at scho lars of palaeography had considered so mehow problemat ical or
anom alou s. The phylogenetically deter min ed chron ology is right in lin e, too, with th e relative chronolo gy devised by palaeographers. It also puts the forgery (see earlier) kno wn as the Kafkania galet where it would belon g stylist ically, 1200 BCE, if it
were genu ine.
CHRONOLOGY OF THE TABLETS
Th e Linear B tab lets have a chronol og ical range. Most problematical, as might be
expec ted because scientific m ethod s for th e control an d recor din g of data were not very advanced at th e tim e, are the earliest excava ted tablets from th e site of Knossos,
spec ifically those th at come from the Room of the Chariot Tablets (RCT). Driessen
(2000, 2008, 70-72) has argu ed convin cingly on th e basis of text typology, sm all lin
guistic pecu liariti es, th e discovery amo n g the se tab lets of 'tr ansition al' types of clay
sealin gs, palaeogra phi cal singularit y, and the decided lack of any pro sopographic al
conn ectio n between th e RCT texts and th e rest of th e Kno ssos tablet s, th at th e RCT
tablet s are earlier th an oth er Knossos tablets . The RCT tablet s may be d ated to LH
IIIA1 (ca. 1390- 1340 BCE). In spring 1990, three tablet s were discovered at the Khania site in a secur e end of
LH IIIB1 context (early to mid-1 3th century BCE). The handwriting and formatting
style of th ese tablets wa s very similar but not identical to that found on th e tablet s
362 THEMATIC TOPICS
of Scribe n5 at Knossos (O livier 1993, 1996; Palaima 1993). This suggests that at least
some of the remaining Knossos tablets shou ld be dated to this phase.
On the mainland, tablets from the so-ca lled houses at Mycenae and various
locations on the citade l of Thebes, as well as from Midea, Tiryns, and the major
de struction phase at Pylos, date from mid - to very late LH IIIB, even transitional
into LH IIIC (ca . 1250-1190 BCE). Exceptions are a few contextually isolated tablet s from Pylos that also show palaeographic al and lexical pecu liariti es. Th ese may come
from LH IIIA (Dr iessen 2008, 73). A tabl et from Petsas House at Mycenae (She lton
2003) comes from an LH IIIA 2 context.
THE STRUCTURE OF THE LINEAR B SCRIPT
Even befor e the decipherment of Linear B, schol ars like Bennett, Evans, Kober,
Sundwall, and Ventris cou ld distingui sh within th e Linear B text s signs that repr e
sented words through th eir phonetic parts (phono gram s) and signs that stood for
objects (ideograms) or th e whole words (logograms) for those objects. For the se
components and how th ey work separately and together, see Duhou x (1985, 11-19)
and Palmer (2008a, 31-35) . As m entioned earlier, Linear B has a set of phonogr am s (see figure 27.1) that
represent discrete elements of so und (pure vowels (V] or open-sy llabic combi
nation s of consonant plus vowel f CV]). There are about eighty-seven such signs
now identified. About sevent y-five of these have been given secur e or very prob
able values. The 'spe llin g rul es,' we have latel y come to think, reflect the natural
ways in which native speake rs of Minoan and Greek, or bilingual Minoan/Greek
speakers, conceived of words. For example, writers of Linear B spe ll the later Greek
word for ' human being' anthropos a-to-ro-kwo, where both then that precedes the
later Greek th eta Ith/ and the final s are not written; th e aspiration of the It! is not
written; th e length of th e first/a/ vowel is not repr esented; and the sequenc e thr
is wr itten to-ro with what is called a 'du mmy vowe l' taken from the syllable that
this seq uence of consonants begin s. Finally, the last syllable in thi s exam ple begins
with a consonant called a labiov elar (a combination of a palatal stop and the glide
/w/ tr eated as a basic so und, or phon eme, in th e languag e). Labiovelar s in specific
environments develop into various simple consonants in hi stori cal Greek (i .e., they
disappear from Greek speec h).
In order to repre sent the peculiar features of th e Minoan lan guag e, Linear A
script used a set of syllabic signs that stand for combinations of stop conso nant s (e.g.,
/ti and !di) and palatal and labial glides (lyl and lwl) plus, of course, vowels. Linear
B preserves some of th ese signs as holdover s (Duhoux 1985, 41-48). So, for example,
the word in the sphere of chariot whee l construction that means 'prov ided with a
termis' (referring to a kind of insertion technique used at the points on whee ls where
the spokes met the rims) is spe lled alternatively te-mi-de-we-te and te-mi-dwe-te. In
LI NE A R B 363
08 38 28 61 10
a ~ e A i 't' 0 [J u F 01 45 07 14 51
da ~ de 1x di rn
do ? du «( I 57 46 36 65
j a • j e ~ j o T j u Vrt 77 44 67 70 81
ka EB ke m ki ~ ko CV' ku • 1 80 13 73 15 23
ma ~ me ,,.
mi V mo =1/ mu r 06 24 30 52 55
na y ne f 111 y no ll!Js A nu ~
03 72 39 II 50
p~ :j: pe ~ pi Iii po t, pu 11' 16 78 21 32
qa '?' qe § - qi i qo -y-60 27 53 02 26
ra , ~ re r r i ; ro t ru ~ 31 09 41 12 58
sa y se r si It\ so t=/ SU E 59 04 37 05 69 la C te + - - ti IT\ to f tu w 54 75 40 42
wa FA we 2 wi ti WO E 17 74 20
za f ze [ zo 1' 25 43 85 29
a, t a3 T\ au ~ pu2 • mhu? \ti 76 33 68 66
ra, ii rai <P ro, * ta, w - - '
7 1 91 Figur e 27. 1. Linear B dwe two ~
phon ogra ms classified by their ph onet ic values (based 18 47 ''f!\
on im ages from Duh oux and 49
Morpur go Davies 2008; 79 82 83 86 89 w court esy of Ruth Palmer) .
both of these spellin gs, the Ir/ that p recedes Im/ is no t rep resented. However, in one
spelling th e consonant sequence ar ising in word forma tion fro m suffixat ion (termidwent-) is tr eate d as a sequ ence of two consonant sound s (de-we), wh ile in the ot her
spellin g, thi s con sonant cluster is heard and rep resent ed in a Minoa n way-a lmost
as a single ph onem e ( dwe). 'Ex tr a' signs, like dwe, which are usefu l but not neces
sary, and th e 'parti al spellings' we ju st looke d at give th e Linear B syllabary a look of
inefficiency, especially in contr ast with th e late r Cypriot e syllabary (Olivier 2008).
However, th ey are rightl y explaine d as good evidence for th e conti nuin g influ ence
364 THEMATIC TOPICS
Human s 100 102
MAN n WOMAN rr An imals 104 105 105 105m
DEER l'.t> HORSE ~ HORSEr ~ HORSEm ~
1061 106"' 1071 107m
SHEEPr °fi SHEEP111 ~ GOATrA GOAT"' "t
108' 108m 109 109"'
PIGf I?' PIGm p BOV!Dr '?if BOVIO"' 'ff Vege table 120 121 122 123 produ cts BARLEY' .zp- WHEAT? I OLIVE 7 SPICE st3
125 129 130 13 1
CY PER US ( f LOIIR ~ OIL 1' WINE ITT 144 174 176 JO SAffRON cD "1121 TREE y fl GS y
Metal 140 141 167
BRONZE ~ GOLD ~ INGOT ~ Fiber and cloth 31 145 146 159
FLAX ,If WOOL ~c1~ CLOTH ~ CLOTH Q Animal 151 152 153 154 product s HORN ~ OX HIDE 1# SHEEPSKIN© 9 Vases 155 ,,JC 200 "JC 201 moo 202 ·~0
"
o;::;,, ~ TRIPOD hf 0 203 'MO 204 %>< 205VA>to 206'M<0
u ~ \) ~ 207 ,,,,,·, 208 ""' 209
,.,.·. 2 10 ""'
~ v AMPHORA 'fJ STIRRUP JAR O" 211 "J' 2 12 v.s>c 2 13 >JC 215 "JC
w &;} '-7 KYLIX Y 226VA'1·. 227 "'·'" 229 rtOC 250 .,,,c
~ RHYTON b 6 qt' Armor and 162 163 191 230 wea pons BREASTPLATE ~ ARMOR SET 010 HELMET q SPEAR"\,
23 J ARROW 232 SACRIFICIAL AX 233 SWORD ~ 254 JA YELIN ~ - 7Y Chariots 240 24 1 242 CHARIOT 243
CHARIOT~~ CHA SSIS~ ~ BOX [1.,--'" WHEEL EB
Figure 27.2. Selected Linear B ideogra ms according to category
(ba sed on ima ges from Duhoux and Morpurgo Davies 2008;
courtesy of Ruth Palmer).
of Minoan cultur e within Mycenaean cu ltur e. Several hund red tabl et writers had no
difficult y using th e script effectively and routinel y on a dail y basis.
On e final way th at we can tra ce Minoan elem ents in th e Linear B script is among
th e ideogram s (see figur e 27.2) . Th e ideog ram for ' figs' in Linear Bi s also used as th e
phonogram for th e phon etic va lue /nil. Greek used th e loa n wo rd sukon for ' figs,'
with initial syllable /su/, so we assume that /nil in Lin ear A was th e initi al syllable
of th e Minoan word for 'figs.' This is confirmed by a lexicog raphic al entr y th at tells
us th at th e word nikuleon is the Cretan word for 'figs' (Duhoux 1989, 71). There are
severa l other such exampl es.
LINEAR B 365
In the rep ertory of Linear B signs for objects, many of the signs for military equip
ment, vessels, and cloth are representational . We can immediately see that a sign repre
sents a tripod, a chariot chassis, or fringed cloth . The sign for 'hor se' is clearly a horse.
Other signs have been made mor e abstract by their long history in Cretan writing, which
goes back to th e earliest period of Linear A economic record s. Thus , whether signs *120
and *121 repr esent 'wheat' and 'barley' or vice versa (Palmer 20086) is a contro versial
issue that has to be decided on the basis of their occurren ce within specific Linear B texts
and sets of texts and not on the basis of their appearan ce.
EDITIONS AND OTHER TooLs OF RESEARCH
An extensi ve, up-to-date list of research too ls is pro vided by Palmer (2008a, 51-55),
so it need not be duplicat ed here. Non etheless, so me comment ary and slight sup
plementing are in order.
All but the most recently discovered Linear B tablets are now publi shed in official
corp us edition s or carefully edited volum es of tr anscripti ons . How ever, th ese edition s
are designed for the handful of specialists who have learn ed how the script works, mas
tered the techni calities of language, and learn ed eno ugh about the archaeological and
histor ical backgro und of the texts to be able to wor k firsthand with the tablet s and their
tran scriptions and prop ose interpretation s of their te;,._'1s that fit what we know about
Greek in the late Bronze Age and the prot ohistorical contexts of the records.
Spec ial collection s of tab lets, like the inscrib ed sealin gs from Thebes, pe rfum ed
oil tablets, or th e tab lets from the RCT at Knossos, have had compr ehensive studi es
publi shed. Arguably th e greates t aid to int erpr etation is the pub lication by a single
scholar , Franc isco Aur a Jorro, of a bibli ograp hicall y compr ehensive, two -volum e
lexicon of Mycenaean Greek (Aura Jorro 1985, 1993). There has been no new full
grammar of Linear B since Vilborg (1960).
The m ain gene ral handb ooks (Ventris and Chadwick 1973; Hill er and Panagl
1976; Ho oker 1980; Mo rpur go Davies and Duhoux 1985) th at offer tr anslation s and
int erpretati ons of selected docum ents are now suppl em ent ed (Ruip erez and Melena
1990; Bart onek 2003; Bern abe and Lujan 2006; Duhoux and Morpurgo Davies 2008).
A multi auth o red upd ate of Ventri s and Chad wick (1973) is well und er way, as is
anoth er syste m at ic sur vey o f textual evidence for th emes in Aegea n pr ehi story th at
Italian scholar Mass im o Perna is editin g. Desc ripti ve analyti cal bib liog raphi es of
specialized work connected with th e Linear B texts also ap pear regularly in Studies in Mycenaean Inscriptions and Dialect (SM ID ), no w pub lished by th e Program in
Aegean Scr ipts and Prehi story at the Un iversity of Texas at Austin and ava ilable
online at http :// paspserver.class.ute xas.e du / ind ex.html.
Finall y, Mycenological spec ialists hold a major int ernational conf erence abo ut
once every five years. The se provide a fairly compre hensive look at advanc es and
trend s in the field over time .
366 THEMATIC TOPICS
There are two final points to make about scholarship surrounding the Linear B
texts , one po sitive and on e a warning. First, the focus of the field has shifted away from
the originally inevitable (in the twenty-five or so years after the decipherment) con
centration on publi cation of the document s and interpreting th e language of the texts
and th e specialized semantic s of their vocabular y. All of the general studi es of aspects
of th e Mycenaean palatial period now include specialist articles and chapters that give
stat e-of-th e art looks at what the tabl ets tell us and, even more important , what they
do not tell us (i.e., the limit ations th <;1t we have to impo se on speculation ).
Second, because int erpretation of th ese texts requir es such an arr ay of schol
arly skills, th e int erpr etation of newly di scovere d tabl ets ha s until recently involved
exten sive inform al collaborati on during a period of inten sive preliminar y stud y. It
is necessa ry to say that ' the int erpret ation of the mo st recentl y discove red Theb es
tabl ets did not follow thi s pr act ice. Many rad ical and outright wrong ideas were put
forward in the first official publi cation of th e texts. Unfortun ately, specialists in other
areas, without any way of jud ging, may use th ese ideas as definitiv e explanations of
the texts and what th ey mean. Reviews (Palaima 20036) and special semin ars have
tri ed to corr ect thi s anom aly (Deger- Jalkot zy and Panagl 2006). Caveant lectores.
WHAT THE TEXTS TELL us A sur vey of th e ideog ram s and th e numb ers assoc iated with them gives us a general
sense o f the main focuses of th e eco nomi es of Mycenaean palatial terr itories.
Basic agricultural ideogra ms (grains, figs, olives, olive oil, wine) are standard in
Linear A and Linear B. Linear B tablets from Kno ssos give us records of major har
vests. One Knos sos tabl et record s about a million liters of grain as a harve st (amii.)
at th e site of da-wo in th e Mesara. Other texts give us terminolo gy for agricultural
specialists ( e.g., 'ove rseers of figs' opisiikoi; 'ove rseers of digging' opiskaphewes; 'win
nower s' *akhnewes). Food and land parcels on which food crops could be grown are
the major ways palatial centers and village communities co mp ensat ed individu als
for labor and other services. In each loca lity, th e apportioning and use of commun al
land was overseen by a diimos, a collective gro up, presumably of elder s, which is ety
molo gically co nn ected wi th the idea of 'apportioning .' Th e ' holding ' of land parcels
brought with it ob ligat ions, and it was often a rewa rd for serv ices rend ered to local
communities or th e palatial centers.
There are extensive land tenur e series at Pylos (Ventri s and Chadwick 1973,
252-74, 443-56) involving individu als termed 'servants'-in wh at sense is hard to
know-of th e deit y, specialist craft spersons of the wanax ('king'), and individual s
(again including work specialist s) who are assoc iated with th e liiwiigetiis (a milit ary
leader and official in charge of overseeing the role of 'a liens' in a palatial territory;
see Nikoloudis 2006, 2008). Nonfood product s like flax, terebinth, and wood are
also carefully monitored because they were essential for vital palatial industries:
LINEAR B 367
flax in the manufacture of articles made out of cloth (in thi s case, lin en), includin g
sails; terebinth in perfumed oil production; and wood in the con struction of ships,
buildings, furniture, chariots, and weaponry.
Animals are also carefully monitored in texts that reveal how the palatial cen
ters controll ed economic ac tivities and or gani zed economic operation s. Th e texts
also give evidenc e of the degree to which the palatial system relied on (1) influential
individuals ( elites known conven tionally as 'collector s' and also 'followers' of th e
king; and local ' big m en' known as gwasilewes); (2) in st ituti ons ( especially coun cils
of elders, geronsiai; collect ives und er the influ ence of gwasilewes; and sanctu ar ies);
and (3) locales th at had statu s and power befo re the pal atial cent ers cam e int o exis
tence and that continue to play a major rol e in controllin g eco nomic affairs.
Sheep were th e focu s of admini stration in th e woo l produ ction indu stry (Nosch
2008). Th e Kno ssos tabl ets famo usly monitor a hundr ed thousand sheep in flocks
controll ed by collector s, sheep owners, and the deit y known at potnia. Howe ver,
sheep are also singled out as sac rificial offerin gs (sphakteria) and listed as such on
records of th e reso urce s assemb led for commensa l ceremonies. Likewi se, bull s,
goats, and pig s are listed as sacrificial offerin gs, but they are also record ed as eco
nom ic item s, used for th eir hid es and other body parts. Male bov ids are allocated
in teams as drau ght an im als, and we also have gro up s of cow herd s listed together
with wall build ers on a major constru ction project. For all of these anima ls, wo rds
for speci alized att end ant s (i.e., herdsmen, alth ough th e soc ial implic ations of th e
modern equi valent s are doubtle ss misl eadin g) are att ested.
Here we ha ve already given the correct impr ession th at th e pal atial cent ers con
struct ed remarkabl y success ful economic engines within th eir region s. Th e pal atial
system maximi zed produ ct ivity and mad e it po ssible for th e Mycena eans to com
pete in the int ernational eco nom y of th e period (Palaima 2007). Th e pi ctur e the
tablets give us of the successfu l mobili zation of reso ur ces within regions is reflected
in the archaeo logically att ested development (Benn et 2007).
Of primar y concern, as Thucydides stresses in hi s surv ey of Greek pr ehistory
and histor y, is milit ary pr epare dne ss, which pro vided protection against attacks,
whether from rival pal atial terri tories or for eign cultur es. These had th e pot enti al to
disrupt and reduce the effectiveness of the exp loitation of natural resourc es (food
stuffs and raw mat erial s like timb er) that were th e ba sis of the palatial eco nomi es.
Th e Mycenaean milit ary industrial compl ex, th erefo re, had a dominant po si
tion within th e eco nomy and soc iety of the palatial territ ories (Palaim a 1999). Near ly
half of the definiti ve monog rap h on archaeological ideogra ms (Vand enab eele and
Olivier 1979) is devo ted to arm or, weapo nr y, horses, chariots, and wheels. A single
tablet from Pylos (J n 829) reco rds a prospecti ve co llection of recycled bron ze (fro m
sanctuari es and from of-fi.cials overseeing agricultura l labo r) sufficient for 33,000
arrowheads or 142 spear heads. All of the sites except Midea (with very few tablets)
attest to the production, refurbi shing, and di stributi on of military equipme nt.
One tablet alone at Pylo s lists 151 chariot wh eels. Th e chariot for ce at Kno ssos
in the period of the RCT text s numbers between 173 and 250 chariots with hors es
and accompanying sets of armor. Other Knos sos record s deal with th e m anufactur e
368 THEMATI C TOPICS
of swords. Of the four tablets from Khania, one fragmentary text reco rds 10 pairs of
chariot wheels. At Pylos, one recently int erpreted record (An 1282) lists assignments
of groups of men (broken down into groups of 18 and 36) assigned to work on char
iots, chari ot wheels, flint (fo r spear- or arrowheads), horse feeding sacks, and spear
and javelin shaft s. Pylos also has page-s haped tablet s that track th e assignm ent of
large numb ers of men to 'coasta l watch er ' contingents and to rowing groups. In the
latt er case ther e are expli cit refere'nces to their obligation to row, to gro up s of men
designat ed by foreign ethnic s, and to the involvement of th e lawagetiis an d po ssibly
even the wanaks in the mobilization of th ese men.
Th ere are so me 5,000 per so ns listed in collective groups as dependent labor on
th e Pylos texts (Hiller 1988) and roughly another 800 or so of mor e elevated sta
tu s, listed by perso nal nam e '(Nakass is 2008, 560 ). Set aga inst th e estim ated popula
tion of 50,000 (Wh itelaw 200 1, 64) for the entir e regi on and keepin g in mind the
hap ha zard ly incompl ete natur e of the texts th at we have, th e Linear B tab lets from
Pylos give us a good impr essi'on of successful state formati on and relat ive prosper
ity in a regio n th at in late r historica l tim es never reached such a level of general
well-being. Th e texts help us to see th at th e palatial center s in the various region s
of the Mycenaean world relied on their sta tu s, power s of coe rcion, control of reli
gious ceremo nies, manipulation of net wor ks of social in st ituti ons, an d continuall y
renegot iated relati onship s with high-statu s individual s. All of th ese techniqu es are
visib le in th e Linear B tablet s. They give us good evidence of th e genera l human
instin ct for what Thucydides and Aristotl e call autarkeia, th e self-sufficiency and
self-d eterminati on th at comes to Mycenaean palatial cent ers or historical Greek
poleis only when th ey acquir e, exp loit, and protec t th e reso ur ces of th eir region s.
I dedicate this chapter to my f riend and mentor Emmett L. Bennett, Jr., who turned ninety -one years of age on July 12, 2009, the birthday he is very pleased to share with
Michael Ventris.
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