TBP as a Major Research Article in 2015! The Mycenaean Linear B Syllabary, Completely Revised 2014, with 61 Syllabograms & 31 Supersyllabograms: Click to ENLARGE


Here, for the first time in history in the 64 years since Michael Ventris’ astonishing feat of the decipherment of almost the entire Linear B Syllabary in 1952, with subsequent updates and tweaks introduced by his colleague, Prof. John Chadwick, over the decades to come, and with further refinements introduced by Prof. Thomas G. Palaima in the 1990s, is the completely revised Table of Mycenaean Linear B Syllabograms, showing all 61 syllabograms identified to date, and for the first time ever, the 31 Supersyllabograms, which no one has ever seen except on this blog, since it is we, my colleague, Rita Roberts and myself, who discovered them in the first place. The supersyllabograms as we understand them are bound to have a tremendous impact on our understanding of just what the Linear B syllabary is meant to represent. As you shall all discover sometime early on in 2015, the Linear B syllabary is not simply just a syllabary, but much more than that. Linear B is a shorthand syllabary, the first and last of its kind, as well as the first methodically organized system of shorthand in human history until the advent of modern shorthand secretarial systems in the nineteenth century.

Modern Shorthand: Click to ENLARGE


As it stands now, we believe that the 31 Supersyllabograms we have already discovered, isolated and defined, right down to 27 (the other 4 remaining undecipherable), are bound to make big waves in the Linear B research community when we finally publish our in-depth, comprehensive research study on them sometime in 2015, since they can account for a large chunk of the remaining 10 % or so of Linear B recalcitrant to decipherment... until now, that is.     

But what exactly is a Supersyllabogram? Well, we have actually already defined it several times over here on our blog, and if you wish to learn all about supersyllabograms, all you really need to do is read all the posts on them under the Category, SUPERSYLLABOGRAMS (top of this page). For the time being at least, this is the only way you will be able to learn anything about sypersyllabograms, since they are neither to be found nor defined anywhere else on any Linear B research sites or documents anywhere on the Internet or in print. We were the first to identify and isolate supersyllabograms for what they truly are, which is:

A supersyllabogram is the first syllabogram, in other words, the first syllable of a Mycenaean Greek word in Linear B. All subsequent syllabograms or syllables are suppressed by the scribe, who uses the supersyllabogram in place of the Linear B word spelled out completely. Thus, as you can readily see, supersyllabograms are in fact a form of shorthand, not shorthand as we understand it nowadays, but shorthand nevertheless. Beyond this, I cannot say more here on this post without getting into the nitty-gritty details, but if you are a Linear B researcher or translator, and are truly serious about the newest developments in the field of Linear B studies, then I strongly urge you to read all the posts on supersyllabograms on our blog, as per our instructions above. Believe me, the reading will make for a real eye-opener.

In the meantime, this is how Linear B Supersyllabograms actually look on a Linear B tablet: Click to ENLARGE:


As with all new breakthroughs in any field of research, in this instance, ancient linguistics, our Theory of Supersyllabograms is bound to be controversial, but that is precisely what we expect it to be. Some in the field of Linear B research will pretty much agree with us, some will agree in part, others will cast real doubt on our findings and still others will undoubtedly cast our theory straight overboard. But this is what scientific research is all about. Even if we are proven to be “right” or “wrong”, wholly or in part, or whatever may come of our bold venture into the “unknown”, one thing is certain. Things will never be the same after this!

As for myself, I have tried and tested our theory against hundreds of Linear B tablets, and in almost every single case, the “meanings” of the supersyllabograms stand the acid test. They hold up, they are consistent, and they make perfect sense in the specific contexts in which they appear on the Linear B tablets where they are found. If you want to check this all out on your own, go right ahead. Please be our guest! Read all the posts under the Category SUPERSYLLABOGRAMS, and please feel free to get back to us, comment on any and all posts you feel should be commented on or critiqued, and we promise to get back to you.

Thank you


Richard