Tag: Decipherment

Rita Robert’s Translation of Knossos KN 739 Bj 01, the Famous “Interior Decorators” Tablet

Rita Robert’s Translation of Knossos KN 739 Bj 01, the Famous  “Interior Decorators” Tablet

This is a famous Linear B tablet, one of the earliest to be deciphered by Michael Ventris and his colleague and close friend, Dr. John Chadwick, who outlived Ventris by over 40 years.

Click to ENLARGE this tablet:



For me this tablet brings to mind a picture of a girl and boy “maybe apprentices”  helping the women interior decorators. One can imagine the wonderful colours the Minoans were so famous for. We only need to see the glorious frescoes to imagine what these interior decorators were capable of. The inside of Knossos Palace must have been a delight to look upon.

Rita Roberts

Partially Restored Translation of Knossos Tablet KN 536 R j 01, a Real “Patch Job” for Textiles!

Partially Restored Translation of Knossos Tablet KN 536 R j 01, a Real “Patch Job” for Textiles! Click to ENLARGE:

Any attempt at translating this messed up tablet is bound to be only a partial success or something of a partial failure, depending on whether or not you see the glass as half full or half empty. Anyone who knows me is aware of the fact that my philosophy runs to for half full glasses. At any rate, this damn tablet posed plenty of little headaches for me, all of them annoying like mosquitoes, but none of them really challenging, except for the fact that no matter what any Linear B translator does to decipher this tablet, plenty is left in the doldrums.

The copious notes in our illustration of this tablet above are pretty much self-explanatory. About the only thing left for me to explain is the nature of ideograms which contain their supersyllabograms inside of them, as in the case of every last supersyllabogram in the context of textiles or cloth, versus supersyllabograms which either precede or follow the ideogram which they modify, as is the case with all of the SSYS related to sheep, rams, ewes, pigs, sows, bulls and cows, i.e. to all agricultural livestock. They are emphatically not the same.

SSYS which appear either before or after the ideogram which they modify are invariably environmental, which is to say that they describe something about the land, pasturage or what have you surrounding the livestock, such as KI = KITIMENA, a plot of land, O = ONATO, a leased field, PE = PERIQORO, an enclosure or sheep pen, etc. On the other hand, SSYs which appear inside their ideograms, as is the case with all SSYs dealing with textiles or cloth, are invariably attributive, i.e. they describe an attribute or quality of the textiles or cloth to which they refer. So in the context of textiles or cloth, the supersyllabogram inside the ideogram modifies the meaning as follows: PA = “dyed cloth”, PU is a kind of cloth, TE = “well prepared” or possibly “well spun” cloth & WE is another kind of cloth. I have been unable to decipher the remaining 3 SSYs for textiles, KU, SA & ZO. It is clear from all of these examples that the SSYs all take on an adjectival value, modifying the noun PAWEA = textiles or cloth, in other words, they lend an attributive value to the ideogram, which is otherwise simply the noun, PAWEA if the ideogram is blank. This just so happens to be the default for the majority of the ideograms for textiles. They are just blank. However, the Linear B scribes would have to throw a monkey wrench into the ideogram by modifying it with at least one of the aforementioned supersyllabograms, and not so infrequently as you might think.

Richard

Is this cloth gold? Your guess is as good as mine…

Is this cloth gold? Your guess is as good as mine... Click to ENLARGE:



The supersyllabogram KU, as used in the specific context of textiles or cloth, poses real problems to the researcher attempting to decipher it, because there is nothing in any of the Linear B glossaries or lexicons on the Internet which really fits the bill. So we have to make our best guess, which is of course what I have done, right, wrong or whatever, in accordance with my usual practice. There isn’t really much else to say, except to give a tentative translation to each of these tablets. Here are my best guesses:

KN 514 R r 01:
Line 1: 14 rolls of cloth (of gold?) (& delivery? of.... cloth...?)      
Line 2: 18 rolls of cloth (possibly 19) – translation is secure.

KN 515 R r 11:
29? rolls of cloth (of gold?). NOTE: it is really peculiar, but the scribe has reversed the no. 29, placing the digits (9) before the tens (20). This makes no sense to me, but I am not the scribe.

KN 516 R r 12:
2 rolls of cloth (of gold?)

Richard

Is that 11 or 7 New Supersyllabograms (5 SSYs Deciphered) for the Textile Industry in Ancient Knossos?

As with sheep raising and husbandry, the area of the Minoan agri-economy at Knossos to which the Linear B scribes devoted far and away their greatest attention (some 700 or 20 % + of the 3,000 or so tablets I closely examined from Scripta Minoa), supersyllabograms were also frequently used on tablets concerned with the textile industry and cloth.

First of all, a bit of a review for those of you who do not know what a supersyllabogram is. A supersyllabogram, which is a term I recently coined to describe this very common phenomenon on so many Linear B tablets, is simply the first syllabogram, in other words, the first syllable of the Linear B word it represents. Linear B scribes resorted to this practice so often that there can be no doubt that they did so to effect shortcuts to save precious space on the clay tablets, which were after all (very) small. This practice, in addition to that of the frequent use of ideograms to stand in for entire Linear B words makes it quite clear (at least to me) that a good deal of Linear B is in fact shorthand, and the earliest occurrence of it in human history, not to be outdone until the invention of modern shorthand under various guises from 1588 onwards, until the arrival of the ultimate system invented by Pitman in 1837. So once again, the Minoan civilization was far ahead of its time, as I have so often pointed out in other respects on this blog.

As it stands now, my research colleague, Rita Roberts, and I have discovered 14 supersyllabograms, as follows:
1. 7 in the area of sheep husbandry, of which 5 are deciphered with a moderate to high degree of certainty (O, KI, PE, ZA & NE), one for which the putative meaning is tentative at best (PA) and one undeciphered (SE). Click this banner to see all 7 supersyllabograms in the area of sheep raising:

2. For military matters, 1 deciphered supersyllabogram (ZE)
3. For religious matters, 1 deciphered sypersyllabogram (DI), with a fair to moderate degree of certainty &
4. 11 (or just 7?) supersyllabograms in the area of the textile industry (or cloth production), of which 5 are deciphered with a moderate to high degree of certainty (NE, PA, PU, TE & WE), and 1 of which the meaning is very uncertain because the supersyllabogram itself looks almost, but not quite, like the syllabogram SA. The 5 remaining supersyllabograms, of which 4 are variations on WE, and the last is ZO, are all presently unintelligible. If we consider WE & its 4 variations as actually only 1 plain supersyllabogram (WE) with 4 variations, this reduces the number of SSYs for cloth and textiles to 7, which to my mind is more reasonable than 11.

Here are the supersyllabograms for the textile and cloth industry (Click to ENLARGE):

I have decided to decipher all those that I could before posting tablets illustrating each deciphered SSY in the area of textiles and cloth production in the Minoan economy at Knossos, so that when I do post the tablets, it will be a lot easier for you to cross-reference to the chart above & find the exact meaning for whichever of the 5 deciphered SSYs I post tablets. For the time being, here are two tablets, one with the blank ideogram for cloth or textiles, which means precisely that and no more, and one with the SSY TE inside the ideogram for cloth or textiles. The syllabogram TE notably modifies the meaning of the ideogram for cloth or textiles. Here we see two Linear B Tablets on the textile industry, the one on the left with the blank ideogram for cloth, period, the one one the right with the syllabogram TE inside it: Click to ENLARGE:

I recently posted another more complete Linear B tablet using the SSY TE for cloth or textiles, here (Click to see the post):

Taken all together, the supersyllabograms in each category would add up to a total of 16, except that NE & PA are common to sheep raising and the textile industry, but — and I must lay particular emphasis on this — an entirely different meaning obtains for the SSY PA for sheep husbandry and its equivalent for textiles. NE means the same thing for both areas of the Mycenaean agri-economy (sheep raising and textiles). Since NE & PA appear twice in two categories, this reduces the number of supersyllabograms we have discovered to date to 14, of which we have managed to decipher 10 with a moderate to high degree of certainty, the rest either being highly uncertain or simply unintelligible (for the time being).

The 14 supersyllabograms we have so far discovered are then, in alphabetical order: DI KI NA NE O PA PE PU SA TE WE ZA ZE ZO. This is an astonishing turnout, given that there are only about 55 syllabograms all told (give or take, depending on whose charts you consult), not counting the homophones. The fact that we have already confirmed that fully 14 or over 25 % of 55 syllabograms are supersyllabograms speaks volumes to the commonplace use the Linear B scribes made of them as shorthand. Taken in conjunction with well over 100 ideograms, the 14 supersyllabograms appear to lend a good deal of credence to my hypothesis that Linear B was a shorthand to a significant extent. This characteristic Linear B shares with virtually no other ancient script, except perhaps Linear A, but since the latter is undeciphered, we have no way of knowing.

But believe it or not, we still have not accounted for all of the supersyllabograms discovered to date. Thomas G. Palaima actually found and easily deciphered 5 supersyllabograms for the names of Mycenaean settlements and cities on Linear B tablet Heidelburg HE FL 1994. These SSYs are KO for KONOSO or Knossos, ZA for ZAKORO or Zakros, PA for Palaikastro (or Phaistos), PU for PURO or Pylos & MU for MUKENE or Mycenae. This bumps our total back up to 16, in alphabetical order: DI KI KO MU NA NE O PA PE PU SA TE WE ZA ZE ZO, accounting for fully 29 % of all Linear B syllabograms. We cannot blame Prof. Thomas G. Palaima for not recognizing his 5 syllabograms as such as supersyllabograms, since after all there were only 5, so there was no need to isolate them as a phenomenon in and of itself. Yet with the discovery of a further 11 of these little beasties, the situation has entirely changed. They simply have to be isolated, defined and classified, unless we wish to be bogged down in a hopeless quagmire of meaningless syllabograms. And that simply will not do.

Rest assured that there are more supersyllabograms to come, as we have not yet surveyed all the tablets in other areas of the Minoan/ Mycenaean civilization in all its aspects from the cross-section of about 3,000 we minutely examined from Scripta Minoa. Once we have closely examined all 3,000 or so tablets for every possible occurrence of supersyllabograms, we shall compile a complete chart of them. We should be able to complete this task before the end of this year, all things being equal. Once we have accomplished our goal, we shall then post (a) a complete chart of all the supersyllabograms in each category, with duplication or triplication whenever the same SSY is used (with different meanings!) in two or three categories & (b) a revised table of the Basic Values of the Mycenaean Syllabary widely available on the Internet with all of the supersyllabograms in BOLD.

Such a revised table of the basic Linear B syllabograms in Mycenaean Greek is bound to make waves in the Linear B research community. Whether or not my theory of supersyllabograms as a phenomenon in Linear B is, if you like, correct, partially correct, or just wishful thinking and a bunch of hogwash is entirely up to the international Linear B research community at large to decide for themselves over the next few years. Yet I remain quite confident that there is more to this little mystery than meets the eyes. I shall have more to say on the marked difference between supersyllabograms which appear either before or after the ideograms to which they refer (as with all the SSYs for sheep raising) versus those which are invariably inscribed inside the ideograms which they modify. These two classes of supersyllabograms are not the same, as we shall soon see. Richard

“Where are all the sheep today, my shepherd?” And a sheep joke!

The time has come for us to start illustrating all of the supersyllabograms on consecutive charts by category. We shall start today with all 7 of the supersyllabograms associated with sheep, rams & ewes. Here is our first chart (Click to ENLARGE):

For those of you who are new to our blog, a supersyllabogram is simply the first syllabogram, hence the first syllable of any particular Linear B word. So supersyllabograms act as a sort of shorthand, which the Linear B scribes frequently resorted to, along with ideograms, to save precious space on the small clay tablets they had to use. While their meanings change from one category to the next, supersyllabograms always have specific, invariable meanings for each area of interest or category into which they fall. And there can be only one meaning for each SSY in each category.

When it comes to sheep, rams & ewes, I have assigned meanings to 6 of the 7 supersyllabograms in the chart above. The meanings of some of the supersyllabograms relating to sheep, rams & ewes seem to be quite sound, for instance, the SSY O almost certainly stands for ONATO or “lease field”, while the SSY KI in all probability means “a plot of land”, simply because these two words are the only ones beginning with O & KI, which fit the context (sheep) almost like a glove in the very small Linear B lexicon of no more than 3,500 words. These 2 SSYs appear 88 (O) and 41 (KI) times on the 700 odd Linear B tablets I examined relating to sheep, rams and ewes. The SSYs NE (twice) & ZA (3 times) also appear to be pretty much on target, again for the same reason.

The case for PE (35) is even stronger, because the scribe unwittingly obliged us by writing the word out in full in the genitive case, PERIQOROYO, on one of his tablets, KN 1232 E d 462, previously translated on this blog. This is the one and only Linear B tablet from Knossos on which a supersyllabogram is spelled out in its entirety. It was in fact this very SSY which handed me the key to break the code for SSYs. Once our scribe had spilled the beans, he just went his merry way and used only the supersyllabogram PE on all the rest of the tablets he inscribed. But that makes no difference. A PE is a PE is a PE.

As for the other SSYs used in the context of sheep, rams and ewes, NE did not pose much of a problem either, as it appears to mean simply NEWO (masc.) or NEWA (fem.) “new”. But this translation is, to my mind, probably less sound, if only for the reason that it sounds a little too simplistic. Why would anyone want to replace a two syllabogram word with just its first syllabogram, unless he were really lazy? Beats me.

On the other hand, when I consulted the only two really useful Linear B lexicons on the internet, the Mycenaean (Linear B) – English Glossary and Chris Tselentis’ far more comprehensive and far better Linear B Lexicon, I came up utterly dry for the SSY PA in the context of sheep. There is nothing to be found. Zilch. So the only alternative I had was to search through 38 (!) pages of Liddell & Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon (the ultimate standard for ancient Greek) to try and find at least a few alternative translations for Greek words beginning with PA or PHA (found 32 times on 700 tablets), and I did find some. But there is simply no way to verify whether or not any of these words were ever Linear B words, since not a single one of them can be found on any extant Linear B tablets. So we are fishing in muddy waters. Yet, as I always say, better make a stab at it than do nothing. That is always my “philosophy” when it comes to attempting a decipherment of recalcitrant syllabograms or ideograms on Linear B tablets. I am probably wrong, but frankly I don’t really care, because if someone someday actually does figure out what the SSY PA means, all the more power to that person. Still better if a Linear B tablet is ever unearthed in future that actually spells out what this SSY means. Fat chance of that. So the “definition” of the SSY PA is probably going to remain in limbo. Check out my translation in the post where I “define it”. Take it or leave it, as you see fit. Whatever it does mean, it is still an important sypersyllabogram in the context of sheep, as it is used quite frequently.

Finally, the SSY SE, which appears once only on the 3,000 or so Linear B tablets from Knossos in Scripta Minoa, utterly eludes me. I haven’t the faintest clue what it means. Anyway, the scribe who used it must have been high on something, because it was never used again. So I very much doubt anyone will ever be able to decipher it. If you can, all the more power to you.

OK, so now let’s have some fun. Even if you don’t know Linear B, you should be able to translate the supersyllabograms on the (excerpts of) 3 tablets I provide below. And if you do know at least some Linear B, it should be a breeze. So give it a shot, and leave a comment, and I will let you know how close you came to the mark. Remember that some of the SSYs on these 3 tablets are used in combination, so you have to translate all of them to form a phrase that makes sense with the ideogram for ram (see chart above). Enjoy!

Here is your quiz. Click to ENLARGE:

Richard

20 Greek Words in the Arcadian Dialect Translated into Tentative & Actual Linear B

20 Greek Words in the Arcadian Dialect Translated into Tentative & Actual Linear B: (Click to ENLARGE):

As I just did in our previous post with a much larger vocabulary of the Cypriot dialect, from which I extracted as many putative or hypothetical Linear B concrete and semi-abstract words as I could, leaving purely abstract words aside (as they almost never appear in in Linear B in Mycenaean Greek), I am providing 20 hypothetical Linear B equivalents to everyone on our blog or on the Internet fascinated by the near intimate relationship between the Mycenaean and Arcado-Cypriot dialects, written in Linear B and C respectively, with a vocabulary in the Arcadian dialect, somewhat briefer than that I posted for the Cypriot.

By way of introduction, I should like to draw your attention to some highly pertinent facts. In his ground-breaking exhaustive survey of all of the ancient Greek dialects, C. D. Buck, in The Greek Dialects (a), has this to say about the relationship of the Arcadian and Cypriot dialects, which are fact but minor variants on the same dialect (all italics mine):

“No two dialects, not even Attic and Ionic, belong together more obviously than do those of Arcadia and the distant Cyprus. They share in a number of notable peculiarities which are unknown elsewhere. See 189 and Chart I. This is to be accounted for by the fact that Cyprus was colonized, not necessarily or probably from Arcadia itself, as tradition states, but from the Peloponnesian coast, at a time when its speech was like that which in Arcadia survived the Doric migration. This group represents, beyond question, the pre-Doric speech of most of the Peloponnesus whatever we choose to call it... passim...

... There are in fact notable points of agreement between Arcado-Cypriot and Aeolic (see 190.3-6 and Chart I,) which cannot be accidental... passim... and there are certain points of agreement with Attic-Ionic...”

C.D. Buck’s comments pretty much speak for themselves. But it is extremely important to stress the very intimate relationship between Arcado-Cypriot Greek (being the natural conflagration of the Arcadian and Cypriot dialects into one almost seamless continuum) on the one hand to Aeolic and Attic-Ionic on the other, all of these dialects inclusive falling squarely within the orbit of East Greek, as we move chronologically forward in time. On the other hand, along the same timeline, only in reverse chronological order, we can confirm that (proto-)Arcadian and Mycenaean Greek also unquestionably belong to the same class of ancient Greek dialects, namely, the East Greek. This is precisely why I choose to term both Mycenaean and (proto-)Arcadian as proto-Ionic, since that is in fact what these dialects were.

In this perspective, we need to add one more critical comment, again quoting directly from C.D. Buck (although he and I would certainly mirror one another, if we either of us were to say this, even without knowing the other one had. He did say this, and I do.) So allow me to steal the words right out of his mouth, in the sure realization that this is precisely what I, and for that matter, all linguists worldwide would say about the relationship between the ancient Greek dialects would assert... save for a few lone renegades, whom I won’t even bother with, as it is a waste of my breath and our time. C.D. Buck has this to say:

“The most fundamental division of the Greek dialects is that into the West Greek and the East Greek dialects, the terms referring to their location prior to the great migrations. The East Greek are the “the old Hellenic” dialects, that is, those employed by the peoples who held the stage almost exclusively in the period represented by the Homeric poems, when the West Greek peoples remained in obscurity in the northwest. To the East Greek belong the Attic and Aeolic groups... passim... And to the East Greek (dialects) also belong the Arcado-Cyprian.” And, of course, just to be certain we have the whole picture clearly in focus, we must also include Mycenaean Greek and early Arcadian as proto-Ionic, both of which dialects held sway “prior to the great migrations.” Here C.D. Buck is referring specifically to the great Doric invasion of the Greek peninsula ca. 1200-1100 BCE or thereabouts.

The following summary can be drawn with relative ease from C.D. Buck’s linguistic analysis:
1. The division between the East Greek dialects, among which we count the Arcado-Cypriot (subsumed by its slightly different Arcadian and Cypriot variants) plus the Aeolic, Ionic and Attic dialects, as representative, there being others as well... and the West Greek dialects, under the generic, Doric, is clear and distinct. Never the twain shall meet.
2. Since Mycenaean, proto-Arcado-Cypriot and its later metamorphoses, Arcadian and Cypriot, are all in the same dialectical class, i.e. East Greek, any consideration of the function(s), historical rôle and influences of any and all of these dialects in particular play, must be decisively distinguished from the rôle the Doric dialects played, since the former were all firmly in place and fully operative all over the Greek peninsula well before the Doric invasions ca. 1200-1100 BCE. In fact, in the case of Mycenaean Greek, that dialect held sway for at least 300 years prior to the Doric invasions, so that any putative influence or impact of the latter on the former is de facto impossible.
3. The proto-Arcado-Cypriot dialect is clearly the younger cousin of Mycenaean Greek, as is its later evolution into literary Arcado-Cypriot (Arcadian/Cypriot) as found on the Idalion tablet (fifth century BCE). This fact alone serves to reinforce beyond a shadow of a doubt that Doric Greek could have had no influence on Mycenaean Greek any more than it did on Arcado-Cypriot, as both of the latter were, as C.D. Buck underlines, the “the old Hellenic” dialects. Thus, the intimate relationship between Mycenaean and Arcado-Cypriot doubly reinforces the total exclusion of Doric influences, however meagre.
4. It naturally follows from 3., as day follows night, that documents composed in Mycenaean Linear B and in Arcado-Cypriot Linear C are soundly ensconced in the framework of the very same class of ancient Greek dialects, the East Greek.

Henceforth, in this blog, any discussion of the intimate relationship between the Mycenaean and Arcado-Cypriot dialects and of the application of their respective scripts, Linear B and Linear C is firmly set in the framework of this hypothesis, which bears extensive historical linguistic evidence mitigating strongly in its favour.

A few final comments are in order with respect to the actual Linear B correlatives of Arcadian words in the vocabulary above. These observations revolve around the methodological process of cross-correlation between Arcadian documents, in this case in alphabetical Greek, with those in Linear B. What we have already discovered, to our great astonishment and delight, even without taking the requisite step of a thorough methodology of cross-correlation, as discussed at length in our previous post on the relationship between Cypriot and Mycenaean Greek, is that at least one of the words in Linear B extracted from this vocabulary of Arcadian, and very probably two, are clearly and indisputably real attested (A) Linear B words. They are, of course, the Linear B for “and” (QE) and for “girl” (KOWA).

By extension, we may as well add a third, “boy” KOWO, since it is simply the masculine of the former. KOWA appears both in Linear B and in Linear C, and is therefore, by default, attested (A) in both.

This is a rare jewel of a find, and to my mind, it is the very first instance of actual confirmation of any word in the vocabulary of Linear B & C common to Mycenaean and Arcado-Cypriot. This in effect constitutes our very first, albeit baby, step in the cross-correlation of Mycenaean and Arcado-Cypriot vocabulary by means of a tried-and-tested linguistic methodology. How many Mycenaean and Arcado-Cypriot will eventually (nearly) match up, whether scores, some or just a few, I cannot possibly predict right now. But it is certain that we shall eventually be able to compile at least a small vocabulary of equivalent Mycenaean & Arcado-Cypriot words, and as soon as we can (b), I shall be sure to let you know. Such a vocabulary will prove of inestimable value in going a long way to confirming attested Linear C = derivative Linear B words (ALC+DLB), as explained in the previous post.

NOTES:

(a) Buck, C.D. The Greek Dialects. London: Bristol Classical Press, © 1955, 1998. ISBN 1-85399-566-8. xvi, 373 pp.
(b) sometime in 2015 or at the latest, early 2016.
(c) All italics mine.

A Short Vocabulary of Arcado-Cypriot in Alphabetic Cypriot, with Numerous Putative Linear B Transliterations

A Short Vocabulary of Arcado-Cypriot in Alphabetic Cypriot, with Numerous Putative Linear B Transliterations (Click to ENLARGE):

... and a cry for help! You will have to read this entire post thoroughly if you expect to be able to assist me in any way with this prodigious project.

Preparatory to our in-depth study of the Arcado-Cypriot Linear C syllabary, it is probably wise for us to give you a clear idea of exactly how Linear C words actually look once they have been transliterated from the Linear C syllabary into (in this case) Cypriot words in alphabetic Greek.

A few comments are in order. The first thing you will notice is that I have translated many of the Cypriot words in alphabetic Greek straightaway into their putative Linear B counterparts, and not from their original C. There are two reasons for this, the first unavoidable, as there is no font available for Arcado-Cypriot Linear C. What a drag! And there is no way on earth that I am going to drive myself nuts trying to write all of these words in Linear C.

The second reason is eminently practical and linguistically sound (I sincerely hope). Because my eventual goal in the study of Arcado-Cypriot Linear C is not simply to learn the syllabary, which would be nice in and of itself but hardly necessary, unless I simply had to learn it for an ulterior reason. Unfortunately — or more to the point, fortunately — I have no other choice but to learn it since I am roundly obliged to read the famous legal decree in Linear C, the Idalion Tablet, illustrated here:

Why obliged? I must learn it if I wish to cross-correlate any and all words in Linear C on the Idalion tablet, which have an exact or near exact match, or a very similar counterpart in Mycenaean Linear B. This exercise could conceivably be characterized as regressive extrapolation from a later Greek dialect, Arcado-Cypriot and its syllabary (Linear C) to an earlier, Mycenaean Greek and its own (Linear B), although to term the extrapolation as regressive is a bit of a misnomer here, since only one century or so separates these two East Greek proto-Ionic dialects, from the fall of Mycenae ca. 1200 BCE & the sudden disappearance of Linear B from the scene to the equally sudden, dramatic appearance virtually out of nowhere of its younger cousin, Arcado-Cypriot and its syllabary (Linear C). Astonishingly (and for my purposes, very conveniently) these two proto-Ionic dialects are as closely allied as their natural descendents, Ionic and Attic Greek, which rose to prominence some 5 centuries after Linear C first popped up out of the clear blue.

Don’t think for a moment that Linear C was to fall by the wayside as precipitously as did its slightly older cousin, Linear B. Not for the world. Linear C in fact tenaciously held its own for at least 700 years (!) after its first appearance ca. 1100 BCE, i.e. until at least 400 BCE, when the Cypriots finally caved in and accepted the (by then) standardized Greek alphabet for Attic Greek. And it does not even end there. The Cypriots cherished the Idalion tablet in Linear C as one of the key documents of their society and its literature, and above all, as a legal document of the highest import. So of course, they translated the whole thing word-for-word, from the Linear C of Idalion tablet, much larger than any in Linear B, and a tablet cast in bronze, no less, into the Greek alphabetic version... for their descendants who would no longer be able to read Linear C, once it fell into disuse almost as abruptly as had Linear B.

The preservation of this invaluable and priceless historical literary heritage was absolutely de rigueur to the Cypriots. As a result, the bronze Idalion has survived 2,500 years virtually intact and in very fine condition, unlike so many Linear B tablets, which were all cast in clay, and furnace fired, saved only by the lucky (for us!) happenstance that Knossos burned to the ground ca. 1450 BCE, charring and hardening some 4,000 tablets and fragments, while being unceremoniously buried by the huge volcanic eruption of the Thera volcano... or at least as many historians believe to have happened in that particular timeline. As a mere Linear B linguist, who am I to question the chronology of the Thera eruption, whether it was (reputedly) ca. 1600 or 1500 or 1450 BCE? Besides, it suits us linguists just fine, thank you. We gladly accept 1450 BCE or thereabouts as the time of the eruption, since that is when so many Linear B tablets got buried, along with almost all of the 55,000 or so inhabitants of the city of Knossos... a horrible tragedy for them, but a real stroke of good luck for us. Makes you think of Pompeii. But I am rambling.

As I mentioned above, Linear C held its own for 7 centuries, as the preferred literary script for the Arcadians and Cypriots, alongside the Greek alphabet, and no one thought anything of it. It worked fine, so that was that. No point re-inventing the wheel.

In fact, for my own purposes, one of the three primary missions of our blog, that of cross-correlating every single Linear C word on the Idalion tablet for which there is an exact, near exact or very similar counterpart in Mycenaean Linear B is obligatory, whether I like it or not. So as I always say, I might as well like it and have fun. The over-riding purpose for this unavoidable exercise will become crystal clear to our blog members in the next few months. Just hang in there, folks.

Still, for the time being, I have done a big favour to everyone who is the slightest bit fascinated by the extremely close relationship of these two proto-Ionic East Greek dialects, Mycenaean & Arcado-Cypriot Greek, by extrapolating the (exact?... hardly!) Linear B counterparts of a great many concrete and semi-abstract words in the alphabetic Greek vocabulary we see above, entirely skipping the absolute requirement of first cross-correlating the actual Linear C words on the Idalion tablet and any other Linear C tablet I can lay my hands on with their Linear B counterparts, before attempting to cross-correlate the Linear B words with the alphabetical counterparts of the Linear C words.

In other words, for the time being, I have reversed the process, flipping it on its head. I must emphatically stress, however, that this is not even remotely a valid experimental approach to the exercise. To clearly illustrate my point, there are two approaches, the first being largely invalid, the second being largely valid. Please understand, and do not forget, that every single one of the Linear B words you see in the vocabulary above is entirely derivative (D), and nothing more, if it even qualifies as that.

1. (as I have done the extrapolation from the Greek alphabet directly into Linear B, illustrated above), entirely missing the obligatory steps:

Linear B words < -------------- (from) the same words in alphabetic Greek)

versus

2. Extrapolation from the vocabulary in Linear C on the Idalion Tablet and any other, first from Linear C into its alphabetic counterpart, and then regressively extrapolating every single word on the Idalion tablet from its Greek alphabetic version directly into its (putative) equivalent in Mycenaean Linear B, and then taking the final third step of double-checking my translations of every single word transliterated into Linear B, by cross-correlating the Linear B versions with their original Linear C counterparts and (yet again) with their alphabetic counterparts in the Cypriot alphabet (which differs somewhat from the Attic), like this:

From the Linear C words --------------> to the same words in alphabetic Cypriot Greek --------------> to their (putative) counterparts in Linear B, then reversing the entire process: Linear B --------------> Linear C --------------> alphabetic Cypriot,

as a confirmation that I have not made any egregious errors, and if necessary (as is certain to be the case) to repeat the entire process all over again,

Linear C --------------> alphabetic Cypriot Greek --------------> (putative) Linear B, (flip) Linear B --------------> Linear C --------------> alphabetic Cypriot

This procedure is far sounder than the first, which hardly qualifies as a procedure at all. However, 1. above is surely better than nothing, as it gives those of us who are really familiar with Linear B a bit of a handle on what the Cypriot words in this vocabulary might look like in Linear B. I say, might, because the second approach, which is linguistically sound, is the only way to confirm or at least to firm up the (putative) Linear B words you see in the Cypriot vocabulary above.

Every single one of the Linear B words flagged in this Cypriot vocabulary is entirely derivative (D), and not attested (A) in any way whatsoever. Any (close) match with an attested Linear B word (A), i.e. an actual Mycenaean word on any extant Linear B tablet is entirely accidental and fortuitous. This means that even if any of the words I have transliterated from the Cypriot vocabulary using (the sloppy) method 1. above look like (real) words in Linear B, their validity as attributed Linear B words cannot be confirmed in the least. After all, the so-called Linear B words I have cross-correlated with their alphabetic counterparts in this vocabulary are merely astute guesses, nothing more. So it would be inadvisable, if not downright stupid, to assume that in fact any of the Linear B words you see in the vocabulary above are in fact really exactly the same as any real, i.e. attested (A) Mycenaean word in Linear B, even if they look identical. There is simply no way to confirm this, unless we follow the strict methodology in 2. above, and there is no way I can do that right now. I have not even mastered Linear C. It is going to take quite some time, probably six months to a year, so don’t hold your breath.

On the other hand, I would be only too happy to receive feedback from my fellow Linear B translators on whether or not any of my guestimates of (putative) Linear B words is potentially well-grounded or just some fanciful notion I have cooked up in my head. So why not share what you have cooked in your head, so that I can compile a list or alternatives for each word. That way, when I finally get around to completing exercise 2. above, we shall all know which version(s) of any so-called Mycenaean word in Linear B any of us have cooked up really can be cooked and please our linguistic palates. One of 4 things is bound to happen with each derived (D) word in Linear B at the end of our research:

1. one of the versions of any word in Linear B in this vocabulary will prove to be correct (but whose we cannot say yet) or
2. one of the versions of any word in Linear B in this vocabulary may prove to be a reasonable candidate as a derived (D) Linear B word or
3 none of the versions we have cooked up will amount to anything but a hill of beans or
4 one (or possibly even more than 1) of the versions of any derived (D) Linear B word will prove to be (a near) exact match with its Linear C counterpart, in which case that word can be reclassified as derivative Mycenaean, attested Linear C, as follows: word (LBD+LCA). Such a word will come a long way from being merely derivative (D), and a long shot at that, to being a sure candidate for a Mycenaean word that probably did exist, even though it is not attested on any Linear B tablet or fragment. But, since it has proven to be attested on the Idalion tablet or any other in Linear C, we have at least a half-confirmation or better that there is a high probably that this word was Mycenaean. So at the culmination of this long process, while none of the so-called Mycenaean words in Linear B we have successfully cross-correlated with their Linear B counterparts can strictly be classified as attributed (D) in Mycenaean Greek, several, possibly even a great many will, I trust, be classified as partially derivative (D), and partially attributed (A), but only if they are definitely attributed (A) in Linear C (not in alphabetical Greek!) These words will then be classified as LBD+LCA, and tentatively added to the vocabulary of Mycenaean Greek, pending confirmation from future archeological finds. To my mind, such confirmation from attested (A) vocabulary on new tablets or fragments in the future is one heck of an exciting prospect, because even if 2 or 3 words match up perfectly with newly discovered attested (A) Mycenaean words, that circumstantial evidence alone will set in actual context some of my own discoveries of certain LBD+LCA words which match up (almost) perfectly with newly discovered Mycenaean words. What an exciting prospect indeed!

And there you have it, my methodology in a nutshell. If anyone can find any way(s) to improve on this methodology any time in the next six months or so, fire away. Please do not be shy, even if you are just learning Linear B. It would be disastrous for this project if the methodology were full of loopholes. There is no real way I can determine this for myself, because I am looking at it subjectively from the inside out, whereas any of you can at least lend some objectivity to the procedure by helping me iron out the bugs. If you do not come forward, there is simply no way I can be sure I have got this down pretty much pat.

Thanks so much.

Richard

The Queen (Wanakasa) is wearing a new dress for her wedding to the King (wanaka) at Knossos! (Click to ENLARGE):

The Queen (Wanakasa) is wearing a new dress for her wedding to the King (wanaka) at Knossos! (Click to ENLARGE):



This tablet is one of the more straightforward among those we have been posting with the new ideograms, in this instance the two new ideograms for “cloth”, the blank one which of course simply means  “cloth” & the one with TE inside it, which means “finely spun cloth”. The only thing I really need to comment on here is the word TUNANO, which apparently means “(a kind of) dress”, but no one seems quite sure about that. Anyway, what really strikes me about this bizarre word is that it is highly unlikely it is Greek. It could be Minoan, but don’t quote me on that! I checked Dr. John Younger’s excellent all-inclusive repository of Linear A tablets and fragments (there are far far fewer of these than Linear B tablets), and I ran several variants on a search for (something like) TUNANO, but got nowhere. So it would be rash to say the very least that this word is Minoan, but on the other hand...

What do you think?  All comments, no matter silly they may seem to you, are more than welcome. After all, no one knows anything about Linear A, so no matter what any of us says, it is either going to sound silly or not, depending on who you are. So who cares anyway?

Oh and BTW, let me know why the right hand side of this tablet is blank. HINT: WETOS or the running year, i.e. the name the Linear B scribes for the fiscal year. Leave your comment and I will tell you what I think the reason is... which is probably right.

 PS we have just reached and passed our 400th. (!) post on our blog, a mere two months after we passed our 300th. That is one heck of a lot of posts for a blog that is only 17 months old. And the number of posts is growing steadily with each passing month. At this rate, we will pass 500 posts before the end of 2014, and very likely 650-700 by our second anniversary at the end of April 2015. Quite an achievement, if you ask me.  Richard

EREPATO in Mycenaean Greek. Is this the word for “ivory” or “slain in war”? Extensive Circumstantial Evidence for the case against the latter

Here we have Gretchen Leonhardt’s translation of Knossos tablet KN V 684 (Click to ENLARGE):

From the very outset, when I ran across Ms. Gretchen Leonhardt’s highly unusual, irregular translation for the Mycenaean Greek word in Linear B, EREPATO (here latinized for most folks visiting our blog, who cannot read Linear B), my first reaction was to be totally confused, bordering on dazed. I just couldn’t wrap this decidedly esoteric translation around my head. I was stumped. Was Ms. Leonhardt on to something no other researcher has even remotely entertained as a possible translation of EREPATO in the past 62 years since the decipherment of Linear B by the brilliant Michael Ventris? OK, I thought, I will give her the benefit of the doubt, but when my own doubts starting piling up one on top of the other, the benefit of the doubt simply vanished in a puff of smoke. I hasten to add that my doubts as a Linear B researcher and translator, hopefully as adept as Ms. Leonhardt most certainly is, over her newly coined decipherment of this one word alone are founded, not on mere speculation, but on truly practical, experimental and logical factors which together conspire to cast serious doubt on, if not almost certain evidence strongly mitigating against such a translation.

To put a fine point on it, either one or the other of our translations, but not both, can reasonably be said to be close to the mark if not on it.

My reservations are based on the following factors impinging on Ms. Leonhardt’s highly imaginative – and I stress, imaginative – decipherment of EREPATO, and subsequently on the huge impact her translation has on the entire text, warping the meaning of the tablet way out of kilter. Since I have spent months on end ruminating over her translation, I have come up with more and more practical and/or logical objections to it, and there are many. So please bear with me. These are:

[1] Given the minimal context surrounding the word EREPATO on this tablet, it would seem, at least on the surface, that Ms. Leonhardt is perfectly justified in entertaining a newly coined translation that makes sense, once it passes closer scrutiny. So where context is minimal, I must grant Ms. Leonhardt the prerogative to translate this word as she sees fit.

However, there is one Linear B tablet from Pylos containing the very same word, EREPATO, in which context is not minimal at all, but extremely precise. And here it is Click to ENLARGE:

I posit that in the context of the Pylos tablet, bearing on craftsmanship alone, EREPATO can mean one thing and one thing only, “ivory”. Certainly not “slain in war” or “slain by Ares” or more properly “slain by Ares in war”, unless the translator of the Pylos tablet consciously sets out to radically change the meaning of almost all the other words, to force them to conform with his or her pet decipherment of just one single word on the Pylos tablet. But this is patently a very risky, if not outright dangerous, route to pursue, since it is bound to warp huge chunks of Mycenaean vocabulary way out of joint, the more and more one relies on it and pursues it to the exclusion of most if not all other impinging factors for any and all Linear B tablets one intends to translate.

In this light, I would like to ask Ms. Leonhardt if she truly believes the Pylos tablet, of which the context is very precise, namely, the fine craftsmanship of chariot wheels, can be rendered any other way than it has already been. Is it even possible, let alone feasible and – I fear I must say it again - practical or logical to pursue this method of decipherment of this particular tablet?

With all this in mind, I really have no other choice but to invite her to do precisely that, i.e. to decipher this detailed tablet as she sees fit, and to come up with a really convincing alternate translation. When I say “convincing”, I certainly do not mean to me alone (even if it does convince me, even partially) but convincing as a practical alternative substantial version to the community of Linear B translators at large of the very kinds of things Linear B scribes were so bent on tallying, almost exclusively in the domain of inventories or statistics.

[2] This brings us right to our next point, the overarching rôle of inventory keeping and statistical analysis which the Linear B scribes were fixated on, to the exclusion of practically any other consideration, almost without exception. I can hear Ms. Leonhardt proclaim, “But my translation is an inventory.” Fair enough. But here lies the rub... an inventory of precisely what? To her mind, it seems pretty obvious – to a strictly military matter. But it is surely in this regard that the entire translation, let alone the rendering of EREPATO as “slain in war” or “slain by Ares” simply crumbles to pieces. And here is why. It is not a question of tabular context at all, since Ms. Leonhardt has frequently informed me that, to her mind at least, context is not an over-riding factor in the decipherment of any Linear B tablet. Again, fair enough. I’ll buy that, at least for the time-being.

But what Ms. Leonhardt has failed to seriously take into account is the level or frequency of occurrence of Linear B tablets specifically and solely concerned with military matters as their primary focus. And I hate to say this, there is not one single tablet or fragment in the 3,000 (give or take a few) that I have meticulously examined from Scripta Minoa that deals with anything like something as specific as Ms. Leonhardt’s translation, relating - and I emphatically stress – to sweeping up the spoils of war from the battlefield. Not even remotely. But there is more, a lot more to take into account.

[3] In my recent exhaustive statistical analysis of the occurrence of the primary, over-riding concern of the huge cross-section of 3,000 of the Linear B tablets out of some 4,000+ (i.e. 75 %!) I closely examined from Knossos, I was astonished to discover that no fewer than 700+! or 20 %+ of all of them put together deal exclusively with sheep, rams and ewes, and nothing else. Here are the published results of my survey of sheepish tablets (pardon the pun!) Click to ENLARGE:

In fact, the pre-occupation of the Linear B scribes with sheep at Knossos and everywhere else is nothing short of obsessive. Once we get past sheep — I stress again — every other agricultural, economic area of Minoan society, in short, any and all concerns otherwise addressed by the Linear B scribes, at least at Knossos, all come a very distant second to sheep. The Linear B scribes were utterly obsessed with sheep, and the reason is obvious. Sheep raising and husbandry was squarely at the heart of the Minoan/Mycenaean economy. It was, plainly put, the underpinning of their entire socio-economic platform. Now, what really amazes is that not even the consideration of wool, which is the end-product of sheep raising, plays anywhere near the rôle as do the sheep themselves on the 3,000 tablets and fragments I examined. There are only about 100 tablets or 3.3% zeroing in on wool in the entire inventory of 3,000. The situation gets worse and worse, even where other areas of the agricultural economy are concerned, which is after all the real underpinning of Minoan society (however huge the sheep subset is). This includes all other livestock, pigs, bulls and cows etc. regardless. These tablets and fragments account for something like 50 or a mere 1.65 % of all Linear B media.

When it comes to military matters, the situation is positively dismal. Of the 3,000 tablets and fragments at Knossos, only about 125 or a little over 4% deal with military matters whatsoever, all inclusively, from top to bottom, leaving nothing out, including the inventory of chariots as such, some 25 or about 0.8%, and then falling dramatically where the tablets and fragments deal specifically with things such as chariot wheels in working order or in need of repair, chariot bodies (5 as far as I can recall), horses etc. etc. And of all the tablets specifically dealing with military matters, there is not a single one which zeroes in on gathering the trophies and spoils of war. Not one.

Why is this so? Well, I think one of the reasons for this state of affairs is that Knossos itself was a peaceful city, rarely, if ever involved in any wars (except when conquered by the Mycenaeans, if it ever was in the first place), to the extent that it was unwalled and practically undefended. Granted, even if we still allow for Ms. Leonhardt’s highly imaginative translation, the Minoan Linear B scribes at Knossos would have inventoried the spoils or war only for their Mycenaean overlords (if that is even who they were) and for no other reason. Inventories of the actual spoils of war would be of such little concern to the scribes at Knossos that the whole business would have amounted to nothing more than a hill of beans, if that. Yet nowhere else than on this single tablet KN V 684, if we are to grant Ms. Leonhardt’s translation the benefit of the doubt, are military matters the subject of any great concern on any Linear B tablet, except for fixing broken wheels and chariots and boring things like that.

Come to think of it, practically everything the Linear B scribes so loved to inventory (at least at Knossos, where by far the greatest trove of extant tablets is found) sounds crashingly boring to us nowadays. But I put it to you, are not all inventories boring, even ours today? Yet the sole purpose of the Linear B tablets (with paltry exceptions few and far between) was to keep inventories on absolutely everything pertaining to the Minoan agri-economy. I have to say I was not prepared at all for their overwhelming obsession with sheep to the exclusion of so much else in their social fabric. In fact, I was astonished. But there you have it. Boring, yes, but to the Minoan scribes at Knossos, absolutely essential to the smooth functioning of their entire economy from top to bottom. Unfortunately, concern for inventory keeping for military matters was practically at the bottom of the barrel.

Such statistical evidence, if we are to put our faith in statistics, and in the case of Mycenaean Linear B literacy, there is nothing else to rely on, greatly mitigates against the possibility, even remote, of the decipherment Ms. Leonhardt attributes to KN V 684.

So what does this tablet really say? Linear B translators, including myself, decipher it as follows (give or take a few picayune variations). This is my own translation, which in fact Ms. Leonhardt challenged to me decipher (Click to ENLARGE):

As you can see, it is just another boring inventory, in this case of smashed ivory, as opposed to the perfectly intact ivory on the Pylos tablet. But that is what inventories always are, nothing more or less, dull as concrete. This does not mean that they are not significant! They are in fact the only real-time indicators of the Minoan agri-economy we have to go on. I say, thank God the Minoan scribes at Knossos were hell-bent on inventories. The reason is apparent. The King or “wanax” of Knossos and his own subalterns, the overseers of the scribal community, positively demanded it.

[4] I am far from finished. Regressive extrapolation of archaic Greek vocabulary from the Catalogue of Ships in Book II of the Iliad, where the most archaic Greek in the entire Iliad appears, backwards to Mycenaean Greek actually seems to confirm (if we are to accept the premise of regressive extrapolation, and I do) that the word EREPATO in Mycenaean Greek is the exact counterpart of “elephantos” in Homer, which meant only one thing, “ivory” and not “elephant”. If you want to assign it the meaning of elephant too, that is fine with me. But in the context of the Pylos tablet above, that translation is silly. Given the strict application of “ivory” to EREPATO, I am strongly inclined to reject Ms. Leonhardt’s hypothetical “slain in war” or “slain by Ares” out of hand.

[5] And there is even more. In the entire lexicon of the extant Mycenaean vocabulary, there are almost no abstract words. This cannot come as the least surprise, since after all the entire purpose of keeping records in Linear B was to inventory everything and anything the Minoan scribes were obliged by their overseers to keep track of at all cost. The very presence of several words for overseer in Mycenaean Linear B (wanaka = king, damokoro = village overseer or mayor, qasireu = viceroy, korete = governor, opidamiyo = accountable village administrator, rawaketa = general & tereta = master of ceremonies, among others) serves to firmly underscore this phenomenon.

Unfortunately, however, Leonhardt’s “slain in war” or “slain by Ares” flirts almost too closely, if not actually crossing the line, with the semi-abstract. In and of itself, this factor again mitigates against her translation of EREPATO.

[6] But it does much more than just that. It practically invalidates her entire translation, from top to bottom, because she makes the whole thing hinge exclusively on one word only, EREPATO, as she envisions it. The result is that her translation warps the meaning of the integral text of KN V 684 way out of whack.

What particularly disturbs me is the summative, indirect way she translates the tablet. She does not translate it word by word, but instead comes up with a summary, an ideal translation as she envisages it, “I envision the scribe, or another person, roaming the battlefield to loot bodies and to gather... passim... (Greek words omitted) ‘lost things on the ground’ detritus such as weapons, armor and personal items.” OK, let us take a good hard look at this translation, which strikes me far more like a quotation from Homer than an inventory.
(a) Why on earth would a Minoan scribe working exclusively at Knossos, just doing his job, which was solely to keep inventories, be wandering around in a battlefield to loot bodies and to gather detritus? This fanciful scene stretches my powers of reason beyond credulity. And since the Linear B tablets are concerned only with statistical inventories, and nothing else whatsoever, why would the scribes even bother to mention booty they themselves might have pilfered off some bloody battlefield (which, as I say, they never would have done), let alone from soldiers slain by Ares? What on earth did Ares have to do with looting battle fields?... and here I mean, in the scribe’s own mind, not mine. Probably bugger all, if you don’t mind my saying (and even if you do, I am just having a bit of fun). By the way, the word Ares does not appear in Tselentis’ huge Linear B Lexicon.
(b) Can we really imagine that some bloodied, possibly injured, messenger or soldier from the battlefield would come barging into the office of a bunch of bureaucratic scribes half bored out of their skulls to report such esoteric, if not insignificant, information to them? They would either have been horrified at the intrusion, and summarily kicked him out or laughed at him. Not a pretty picture.
(c) Such a herald or messenger would have been completely illiterate (analphabetic), and a member of a lower stratum of Minoan society. The scribes were the only literate people in that society, apart (possibly) from the nobility, and their sole function was to serve their overseers without question, not to kowtow to their own subalterns.
(d) Now here the waters get really muddy. Why does Ms. Leonhardt tell us that she envisions, i.e. imagines this entire scenario, when all we are asked for is a straightforward decipherment and translation of what is ostensibly an inventory, period? The whole exercise of decipherment and translation of Linear B tablets cannot and must not be the demonstrable result of some imagined or fanciful notion of what the tablet appears to say to the mind of the translator, but instead must be the ostensible result of a thorough-going practical, logical contextual and, if at all possible, cross-correlated analysis of any and all tablets referring to any single Mycenaean word one wishes to translate. Otherwise, the whole exercise invalidates itself in a hopeless cycle of purely hypothetical, tautological reasoning, even if it is reasoning at all. Poetry is fine, as poetry. I am a frequently published poet myself. But inventories are as far removed from poetry as a stone is from God.

[7] Compare my own crushingly boring translation with Ms. Leonhardt’s, and you will instantly observe the multiple practical and eminently logical processes I followed to arrive at the run-of-the-mill inventory of smashed ivory that I did. First off (a) given the sparse context of KN V 684, it was even pretty much impossible to verify that EREPATO meant “ivory”. So we had to have recourse to another extant tablet, if such exists, which provides plenty of sound context for the very same word... which is precisely what I did by digging up the Pylos tablet illustrated above.

And guess what? It means “ivory”. Period.

I put it to you that of our two translations, taken as a whole, one or the other must be right, but certainly not both.

I repeat: given the fact that Mycenaean words are almost exclusively concrete, preference for a concrete over an abstract translation of any Mycenaean word on any Linear B medium must take overwhelming if not absolute precedence over the (semi-)abstract. In fact, I would be willing to posit the relatively sound hypothesis, that translation of any Mycenaean word as semi-abstract or an abstract is fraught with so many difficulties, contradictions and loopholes that it is a risky venture at best.

Unfortunately, Ms. Leonhardt’s translation of EREPATO suffers from all of these defects, and because of this, it in turn tinctures the connotation of all the other words she translates, even though her translations are technically correct. The real issue here is that she has taken all of these concrete words, which admit only of denotation, and turned them on their heads, so that taken all together, as an ensemble, as a sentence, if you like, they end up transformed into semi-abstracts with inherent connotations, thus essentially violating their own concrete meaning. It is a flat-out contradiction in terms. This, I venture to say, is a decided step backwards in the decipherment of any medium in Mycenaean Greek written in Linear B. Just read her translation, and you can immediately see that it is the product of her own imagination, rather than of a thorough scientific, linguistic analysis of the actual text, based on such principles as (a)(absence of) context, (b) cross-correlation to contextually (more) precise Linear B media in which context sets the matter aright; (c) with the Idalion tablet in the slightly younger cousin dialect of East Greek Mycenaean Greek, Arcado-Cypriot, composed in Linear C and (d) regressive extrapolation from the Catalogue of Ships in Book II of the Iliad, and other similar procedures.

[8] There still lacks but one final step, which is bound to nip in the bud the matter of the precise meaning of a great many Linear B words once and for all, and that is to resort to cross-correlation between Linear B tablets in Mycenaean Greek and Linear C tablets in Arcado-Cypriot. There are several reasons to adopt this strategy, which I cannot as yet do, as I am still trying to master Linear C, yet another syllabary, which bears no physical resemblance to Linear B, but for which the values of almost every single syllabogram and every single word are either practically identical with their Linear B counterparts, or very similar to them. The fact of the matter is that East Greek proto-Ionic Mycenaean Greek and Arcado-Cypriot are as closely related and as strikingly similar as are Ionic and Attic Greek some five centuries later, give or take.

And there is more. Not only was Arcado-Cypriot written in Linear C (almost exclusively for about 700 years, from ca. 1100 – 400 BCE), it ended up being written solely in the Greek alphabet from ca. 400 BCE onwards, for reasons which we shall not enter into at this time. What happened then goes without saying. All of the Arcado-Cypriot Linear C tablets, including the extremely long famous Idalion tablet, a legal proclamation, were translated into alphabetical Greek. All of the vocabulary on the Idalion tablets and others instantly leaped into clear focus.

The impact of this revolutionary development on the completely accurate translation of the entire vocabulary of the Idalion tablet is enormous. Once we know the precise meaning of the 100s of words on this tablet it is but one small step for man and one huge leap for mankind to cross-correlate the precise meaning of each and every Arcado-Cypriot word which has an exact or close match to its Mycenaean counterpart (and these are in the clear majority), to settle once and for all time the precise denotation of a large number of concrete Mycenaean words, the meaning of which is currently somewhat or seriously ambiguous or in doubt. I can at least assure Ms. Leonhardt that EREPATO is not one of those words, so she is safe on that account... at least for that word, but not for any exclusively concrete Mycenaean word which I successfully match up with its Arcado-Cypriot counterpart. And rest assured, there will be plenty. I do happen to know that the word for “physician” in Arcado-Cypriot Linear C and Mycenaean Linear B (iyate) is practically identical. So no matter how much any Linear B translator struggles to decipher it otherwise, he or she is bound to fail by default. In anticipation of a counter argument I suspect Ms. Leonhardt will advance, that plenty of words on the Idalion tablet are bound to be (semi-)abstract, given that it is a legal decree, I have only this to say. I simply would not even bother to take these words into account, as they would perforce invalidate my own procedure of cross-correlation. A rose is a rose is a rose. I hasten to add that I have read the Idalion tablet in the Arcado-Cypriot Greek dialect.

I am astonished that for the last 62 years no Linear B researcher, expert in decipherment or translator has even bothered to take into consideration the extremely close relationship between these two pre-Ionic East Greek dialects in order to extract the precise meaning from a (large) number of concrete, denotative Mycenaean words, just as one would extract a tooth, let alone that anyone would take the next obvious step, take the trouble to learn Linear C, read the Idalion tablet in both Linear C and in Greek, and methodically have at it, surgically analyzing and cross-correlating every single concrete word on the Idalion tablet that (nearly) matches up with its Mycenaean Linear B equivalent.
This is precisely what I intend to do, to lay to rest any lingering doubts about the meaning of (hopefully) a substantial number of Mycenaean words, and again to cross-correlate the results of these translations to a great number of other (similar) Mycenaean words, based on the orthographic conventions & the syntactical structure (so often identical) of both of these dialects. Once we have the alphabetical version of any concrete Linear C word matched with its Linear B counterpart, it is but one small step to applying the same or similar orthography to its Mycenaean equivalent, let alone to firming up the precise meaning of the word in both dialects. This is going to be hard work, but a lot of fun, because I am more than just reasonably certain the overall results will shock the daylights out of the Linear B research community.

For the time being, I am not going to bother targeting Ms. Leonhardt’s heavy reliance on the West Greek Doric dialect, which bears little resemblance to the East Greek proto-Ionic dialects, Mycenaean Greek and Arcado-Cypriot, since this factor does not directly impinge on the validity or lack thereof of the translation in the context of the methodology by which we are here considering it. This analysis will have to wait until a later post, as it also will require my strictest attention to most of the vocabulary Ms. Leonhardt translates on at least one Linear B tablet.

Richard

The New Linear B Ideogram TE: PARWEA = “well prepared, ready” … Another Nut Cracked: Knossos Tablets KN 552-557

The New Linear B Ideogram TE: PARWEA = “well prepared, ready” ... Another Nut Cracked: Knossos Tablets KN 552-557 (Click to ENLARGE):

With the introduction of the new supersyllabogram/ideogram TE “well prepared, ready” in the context of the logogram for “wool”, the translations of these 5 tablets is pretty much straightforward. This is the first time we are confronted with a supersyllabogram inside an ideogram. There are many others. While the basic ideogram for “cloth” is blank, almost all others contain some syllabogram inside the ideogram. For instance, when the ideogram for “cloth” contains the sypersyllabogram TE inside it, the meaning of the ideogram is immediately altered to reflect the meaning of the entire word beginning with the syllabogram. Once again, Tselentis comes to the rescue.

It just so happens that the one and only Linear B word beginning with TE in his Linear B Lexicon which can possibly apply to cloth is TETUKOWOA, alternately spelled TETUKOWOA. It means “well prepared” or “ready”. This fits almost like a glove with the logogram “cloth”. The further we delve into new supersyllabograms, the more their tentative translations are firmed up. Since we first tentatively deciphered the supersyllabograms KI = KITIMENA (plot of land), MA = MARE (wool), ONATO (lease field), NE (new or young), PA (lost sheep, recovered or found? - very doubtful), PE (enclosure, sheep pen) & ZA (this year) in the context of “wheat”, not “wool”, the evidence appears to be confirming the semantic values consonant with the context, where context is defined as a specific area of the Minoan/Mycenaean agri-economy, trade and artisanship etc., such as sheep raising and husbandry, the underpinning of their entire social fabric. Tablets focusing directly on sheep raising and husbandry account for over 700 or 20+ % of 3,000 Linear B tablets at Knossos, for which I compiled complete statistics. This is an enormous sampling (75 %) of all 4,000 tablets at Knossos, so its accuracy is probably within the range of less than + / -.05 %. All other areas of the Minoan/Mycenaean agri-economy, trade and artisanship etc. fall a distant second to sheep raising and husbandry, including shearing the sheep for wool!

Since the supersyllabogram PE was spelled out as PERIQORO on just one Linear B tablet, we can be almost certain it means “enclosure or sheep pen”, regressively derived from the entry in Liddell & Scott, 1986, pg. 547, for “periobolos” (which is the Greek spelling of this very word) = compassing, encircling, and more specifically an enclosure. Since Mycenaean Greek consists almost exclusively of denotative, concrete nouns, I believe we can safely derive the Mycenaean for this word as enclosure. Additionally, the further back one goes in the historical timeline of pretty much any language, the much more likely the concrete/abstract and abstract meanings of words devolve retrospectively into the concrete alone.

It is but a small step from defining PERIQORO as “enclosure” to an even more remote definition “sheep pen”. This is precisely what I have done, in the confidence that the Mycenaean meaning of the word is highly likely to be “enclosure” and even “sheep pen.” Reversing the historical process to the normal chronological timeline, we note that languages do in fact evolve from the purely concrete to concrete/semi-abstract and finally to concrete/semi-abstract/abstract. For ancient Greek, this process starts with the Mycenaean proto-Ionic dialect and continues unbroken through Arcado-Cypriot to Ionic to Attic Greek. In this process, languages have a strong tendency to abandon the very earliest concrete values in their vocabulary, and replace them with less specific concrete meanings, as for instance in the case of the putative original Mycenaean PERIQORO sheep pen & enclosure to the Attic, enclosure alone, sheep pen having vanished in the dark recesses of the distant past. However, nothing in this process detracts from the definite possibility, even probability that the original Mycenaean, PERIQORO, does mean “sheep pen”, especially in light of the fact that sheep raising and husbandry was at the core of Minoan/Mycenaean society. The remarkable preeminence of sheep husbandry simply serves to reinforce the notion that PERIQORO means, not only enclosure, but also sheep pen. There you have it, the justification for the conclusions I have reached.

Now, taking my cue from the sypersyllabogram PE, I discovered, to my astonishment and delight, that the semantic values of the next 2 syllabograms I was able almost immediately to decipher, i.e. O, KI as ONATO (lease field), KITIMENA (plot of land), for the simple reason that (again) in the context of sheep husbandry alone, they practically leaped from Tselentis right in my face. Sure enough, when I came around to decipher almost 100 tablets with these 3 supersyllabograms, PE, O & KI, they all fit the context of sheep husbandry like a glove. Moreover, the Linear B scribes frequently used them in combination, 2 and even 3 together, so that, for instance, a tablet with all three of these SSYs (PE, O & KI) strung together in front of the ideogram for rams, ewes or sheep, still makes perfect sense. For example, O + KI + PE + 25 rams turns out to mean, “25 rams in a sheep pen (enclosure) on a leased plot of land”. Once the process of decipherment of syllabograms got up its steam, it swiftly yielded 16! more sypersyllabograms, of which we have either tentatively or pretty much firmly defined 12. And many more are yet to be investigated. I suspect that something like 25-30 syllabograms are also supersyllabograms! This startling discovery, if it ultimately proves to stand the test of further linguistic research, is nothing short of revolutionary where the decipherment of much of the remaining residue of Linear B which has defied decipherment to date.

This is nothing short of amazing! It very much appears to confirm my hypothesis that Linear B is in large part shorthand, which makes it utterly unlike any other ancient script. Shorthand, as the Linear B scribes appear to have practised with gusto, did not resurface in such complexity until the 19th. century AD!

None of this surprises me in the least, given the sophistication of Minoan/Mycenaean society. Take for example the fact that the Minoans at Knossos mastered the fundamentals of hydraulics to construct a water conservation and plumbing system that was never repeated in any ancient civilization, and did not resurface in such complexity until the end of the 19th. century (yet again!). What is going on here? I leave it to you to decide for yourself, but as far as I am concerned, the notion the commonly accepted notion that the Minoan/Mycenaean civilization during the extended period of dominance of Linear B (ca. 1450 – 1200 BCE) was prehistoric borders on the absurd. Flatly put, their civilization was not prehistoric, but proto-historic. And there lies a truly significant gap. It is but a small step from a proto-historic to a historic civilization.

Richard

CRITICAL POST! Basic Guide to the Arcado-Cypriot Linear C syllabary compared with Mycenaean Linear B & the Intimate Relationship Between these Two Dialects

CRITICAL POST! Basic Guide to the Arcado-Cypriot Linear C syllabary compared with Mycenaean Linear B & the Intimate Relationship Between these Two Dialects (Click to ENLARGE):

The Linear C Syllabary used to write in the Arcado-Cypriot is entirely different from Linear B (except for a very few syllabograms, Linear C LO = Linear B RO, C NA = B NA, C PA = B PA, C SE = B SE & C TA = B DA, which look similar to or the same as their Linear B counterparts, but almost certainly by accident). It is very important not to be confused by the fact that Linear B has only a R+ vowel syllabogram series, while Linear C has only a L+vowel series, because in fact they are the very same series. Recall that the Japanese cannot pronounce a pure L or pure R. The same phenomenon occurs with the Mycenaean & Arcado-Cypriot dialects, but only half way. The Mycenaeans could not pronounce the consonant L, which clearly explains why they only had the R syllabary series, which had to make do for both L & R + the vowels a e i o u, while Linear C had the exact opposite problem, where the L syllabary series had to make do for both L & R + the vowels a e i o u. Again, a slight variation of the same phenomenon occurs with the Arcado-Cypriot T syllabary series, which which had to make do for both D & T + the vowels a e i o u, because the Arcado-Cypriots apparently could not pronounce the consonant D. Compare with Mycenaean Greek Linear B, which has both the D & T syllabogram series, for the simple reason that the Mycenaeans could pronounce both of these consonants, while apparently the Arcado-Cypriots could not.

All of this boils down to two things: (a) that the Linear B & Linear C syllabaries are entirely unrelated in appearance alone & (b) that, in spite of this, the syllabograms in both Linear B & Linear C all represent precisely the same consonants & vowels, in spite of minor differences in pronunciation (cf. above). This means that once you have learned the syllabograms for both Linear B & Linear C, the underlying morphemes or words must be (almost) the same in both dialects, again with minor differences in pronunciation. For instance, the word IYATE (or IJATE) has the exact same meaning in both dialects = “physician”, in spite of the fact that the syllabograms in Linear B bear no physical resemblance to those in Linear C. Note that there are no logograms or ideograms in Linear C. The scribes simply did away with them as spurious.

But this has no effect whatsoever on the phonemic values of the syllabograms in both dialects & in both syllabaries, which are almost always identical, except in those cases where pronunciation in one dialect prohibits the exact same pronunciation in the other, as explained above. Yet even where the pronunciation differs in each of these dialects, this difference is of no real consequence.

Take for instance, this. Any possible ambiguity in the meaning of the word, IYATE, in Mycenaean Greek, has now been resolved once and for all, and simply vanishes. I happen to know this for a fact, because I took the trouble to learn and read the Linear C version of this word in Arcado-Cypriot, which just so happens to be identical to its Linear B counterpart. And in case anyone chooses to protest, “But how can you be sure that the Linear C word does mean ‘physician’?” The answer to that is as plain as the nose on my face. The Idalion tablet was translated, word-for-word, from Linear C into alphabetic Greek in the fifth century BCE. Problem solved. No hay más problema nada. The ambiguity is resolved once and for all. It simply vanishes. You can see where I am going with the ball.

The Historical Evolution of the Scripts used for Arcado-Cypriot and their Impact on Semantic Meaning in Mycenaean Greek:

It is absolutely essential to understand four things about the Arcado-Cypriot dialect before we proceed any further. These are:
[1] The Arcado-Cypriot dialect is the younger cousin of the Mycenaean Greek. They are both East Greek Proto-Ionic dialects as closely allied to one another as the much later Ionic and Attic dialects were. The implications of this extreme similarity are bound to be nothing short of definitive where the clarification of (much) more accurate definitions of Mycenaean words is concerned. More on this below.
[2] In spite of everything that almost all historians in ancient history and linguists specializing in ancient linguistics have been asserting since the successful decipherment of Linear B in 1952, that writing in ancient Greek fell by the wayside for something like four centuries after the demise of Linear B ca. 1200 BCE, nothing could be further from the truth. The gap is not four centuries, as is commonly supposed, but only about one. This is readily demonstrated by this chart:

Revised Timeline for Written Greek (Linear B - Linear C - Greek Alphabet) — Written Greek, Linear B, Cyprriot Syllabary, Linear C, Homeric Greek, Classical Greek

As can be instantly seen, Linear C came to the forefront ca. 1100 BCE, a mere 100 years, give or take, after the disappearance of Linear B from the scene. If we must insist on categorizing Mycenaean Greek as prehistoric, we are bound to fall into a trap from which we cannot extricate ourselves. Allow me to explain. Let us assume for the moment that Mycenaean Greek and its syllabary are prehistoric. But what about the Linear C syllabary? Can it be considered as prehistoric? The answer to this question is a flat no. The Linear C syllabary was in continuous use from ca. 1100 BCE to ca. 400 BCE, when the Arcado-Cypriots finally caved into the preeminence Attic Greek was then assuming all over the Greek-speaking world, and finally abandoned Linear C.

However, and this is the key to the entire mess, if Linear C was a historic script (as it mostly certainly was), then at the very least Linear B should more properly designated proto-historic, and along with it, Mycenaean Greek itself. Several historians nowadays have already adopted the position that indeed the entire Minoan/Mycenaean civilization, when Linear B was their sole script, was proto-historic, and not prehistoric. The label prehistoric can only be applied to civilizations for which we have no deciphered written record. This applies to pre-Mycenaean Crete and Knossos, since Linear A, the script the Minoans used for their as yet undeciphered language was in use. Until Linear A is deciphered (if it ever is), we really have no choice but to regard the Minoan civilization prior to the advent of Linear B as prehistoric.

However, to put a fine point on it, it is questionable at best to regard the Minoan/Mycenaean civilization as actually historic, while it is probably sound to call it proto-historic. Here is why. While Linear B was almost exclusively used for statistical inventory keeping, which might best be categorized as proto-literate, Linear C, on the other hand, was a literate script, since the Arcado-Cypriots used it, not for statistical inventories (far from it) but for legal documents and decrees. In other words, with the advent of Linear C, we enter into the age of Greek literacy, in which words begin to acquire significant connotative, abstract value, as opposed to merely denotative or concrete. If we accept this hypothesis, and I for one no longer question it, then the historical gap between proto-literate Linear B used for Mycenaean Greek and literate Greek, of which the earliest exemplar was Linear C for Arcado-Cypriot, is indeed only one century and not four.

Linear C was a huge step forward from Linear B. One of the principal underlying characteristics of these two scripts is that one (Linear B) is almost totally denotative and concrete, whereas the other (Linear C) is both denotative and concrete, and connotative and abstract. In a nutshell, this means that Linear C is without a doubt a historic script, whereas Linear B is not (quite). This is why some historians and linguists specializing in ancient history choose to call Mycenaean Greek and its script, Linear B, proto-historic. You can definitely count me among them.

[3] Now comes the clincher, the one factor that decisively favours Linear C as a historic script for writing ancient Greek. I have already addressed it. When Linear C was finally abandoned by the Arcado-Cypriots ca. 400 BCE, they did not simply cast aside all their documents in Linear C from the previous 8 centuries (!), which would have been completely insane, but did something quite remarkable instead. Since to them the famous Idalion tablet, which was actually composed in the fifth century BCE at Cyprus (yes, the script spread that far!), they knew they simply had to preserve the original in Linear C. The Idalion tablet is not a product of early Linear C, centuries earlier, when it first came to the fore.

Since this tablet was an extremely important legal decree, they not only left it intact in Linear C, but they also translated the entire thing into alphabetic Greek. Given that the text on the Idalion tablet is completely intact and much, much longer than any text on any extant Linear B tablet, the implications of its translation into Greek on the Arcado-Cypriot vocabulary are enormous, in fact, potentially revolutionary, as we shall momentarily see. Here is the Idalion tablet:

Now we arrive at the very last step in our analysis of Linear C as a historic Greek script, and of the Idalion tablet itself as the primary source emblematic of the script itself. The very fact that the Cypriots who wrote the thing in Linear C in the first place considered it absolutely essential to translate it in its entirety into alphabetical Greek speaks to their over-riding concern that the extremely significant content of this precious tablet be preserved both in Linear C and in the Greek alphabet. In other words, the Linear C (original) version of the Idalion tablet was as essential to defining the literary heritage of their advanced culture as was its Greek translation. It was a treasured document to them in every sense of the word. But why translate it into alphabetical Greek when they could easily read it in Linear C? — the answer sticks out like a sore thumb — for their descendents, who within a couple of generations would no longer be able to read Linear C at all. But that fact does not in the least detract from the fundamentally extreme historical significance of the actual tablet.

I am not finished. Since Michael Ventris successfully deciphered Linear B in July 1952, no translator of ancient scripts, in this case, syllabaries, has ever bothered cross-correlate the vocabulary of Mycenaean Greek composed in Linear B with the vocabulary of Arcado-Cypriot in Linear C and — I hasten to underscore — as well as in alphabetical Greek in the 4th. century BCE, a mere century after its composition. It simply flabbergasts me that no-one has.

Since the Proto-Ionic East Greek dialects, Mycenaean Greek and Arcado-Cypriot are as closely related as Ionic is to Attic Greek, the necessity of cross-correlating the vocabulary of the slightly younger dialect with that of its forebear, Mycenaean Greek, becomes imperative. Another highly significant point: while Linear C started out as a proto-Ionic dialect, most probably largely denotative and concrete like its immediate predecessor, Linear B, not only did it change but little over the span of eight centuries, but it actually ended up being a quasi-Ionic historical dialect by the time the Idalion tablet was composed in Linear C in the sixth century BCE (and probably well before that). So then, if the same script is both proto-historic and historic, this begs the question, which is it? I leave it up to you to decide, but as for myself, it is both at the same time, even though it was proto-historic for the first few centuries (how many I cannot determine) and subsequently historic from the sixth century onwards. But where do you draw the line? Well, that is up to you, I suppose, but I don’t see any point in the exercise, because it ended up as historic. Simple as that.

This is precisely the reason why I intend to master Linear C, and to read the entire Idalion tablet — I stress gain — in both Linear C and in Greek. In fact, I have already read it in alphabetic Greek, so I am very familiar with its legal contents. Now here comes the cruncher. Since we know exactly what every single word means in the alphabetical translation of the Idalion tablet, we also know precisely what every single word, word-by-word, means in the original Linear C. The implications of the bilingual text are nothing less than immense, and I would dare say, revolutionary where Mycenaean Greek and especially its syllabary, Linear B, are concerned.

The reason is obvious. For the time being, we are unable to zoom in on the precise meaning of a great many Mycenaean words, let alone decide between one interpretation of their meaning and another or still yet others, because of the (so-called inherent) ambiguity of the phonetic values of so many of the Linear B syllabograms. I cannot delve into this quagmire in this post. There is simply no way to do so without doubling or tripling the length of our discussion.

However, in our blog, I have several times addressed the issue of the ambiguity of every syllabogram in Linear B which can be interpreted in more than one way. You can refer to those posts for a thorough analysis of the ambiguous nature of the Linear B syllabary. I have even published complete charts of every possible variation of all the vowels and every syllabogram affected in each and every one of the aforementioned posts.

But that is not our primary concern here. It is rather this: given that the alternate pronunciations for each vowel and for all of the apparently ambiguous syllabograms in Linear C have been largely resolved thanks to that timely translation of the Idalion tablet into alphabetical Greek, cross-correlation of alternate values, where applicable, between Arcado-Cypriot and Mycenaean Greek, which are after all cousins, is bound to resolve, once and for all, the actual alternative values of all the vowels and a great many, if not the majority of syllabograms in the latter, at least for shared vocabulary. That this constitutes a huge step forward in the generic clarification of a large chunk of Mycenaean vocabulary almost goes without saying.

For the past 62 years, too many — I would even venture to say — far too many Mycenaean words have been open to multiple interpretations, some of which are very likely to be plain wrong. But cross-correlation of every single word on the Idalion tablet, the meaning of which we definitely know beyond a shadow of a doubt, with any and all Mycenaean words that are found to be (almost) the same as their counterparts on the Idalion tablet is bound to resolve a great many ambiguities in Mycenaean Greek once and for all. This is why I have unequivocally decided to do what no translator-researcher in Linear B has ever bothered to do to this day, and that is to master Linear C to the same extent as I have Linear B, and to set out on the road to resolving as many of the ambiguities of the Linear B script as I possibly can. And I know I eventually shall.

I have not the faintest idea why practically all researchers and translators specialized in ancient history have never bothered to learn Linear C, but if anyone who visits our blog has done so, I beg you get in touch with me and let me know, because I shall need all the help I possibly can muster even to lay the basic groundwork for such an enormous undertaking. My aim is nothing less than to take the astonishingly comprehensive accomplishment of Michael Ventris and his mentor, Dr. John Chadwick, one major step further, and to resolve as many of the ambiguous remnants of Linear B as I possibly can — or should I say, we possibly can, if there is anyone out there in outer space who is willing to come to my rescue. What I fear more than anything else is that there are unquestionably so very few individuals who can read Linear C. If that is so, then may God help us, as I have the implicit faith He or She will.

This post took me 8 hours to compose. Please tag it LIKE if you like it.

Richard

Bid a Warm Welcome to Ourselves & Our Friends on Twitter & their Linear B Sites

Here are a few links to our collegial sites, first for Rita Roberts and myself on Twitter. For each site you wish to visit, simply click on its banner:

Rita Roberts:

Richard Vallance Janke:

You may very well want to sign up with Rita and me on Twitter, because between us we are following at least 1,500 Twitter accounts, a great many them archaeological or on ancient linguistics, often relating specifically to Minoan Linear A, Mycenaean Linear B & Arcado-Cypriot Linear C, the ancient Cycladic, Cypriot, Cretan and Mycenaean civilizations, among others directly related to them, as well as other contemporaneous civilizations such as ancient Egypt, Syria etc. Although we follow well over 2,000 Twitter accounts between us, the overlap is certain to be considerable, which is why I have given an estimate of 1,500. If you are not already a member of Twitter, I really do advise you to do so, if not for these reasons: (a) you will automatically be able to pick up your own followers from the approximately 1,500 Rita and I already follow. (b) by so doing, you will help widen the Twitter community already focused on our very own concerns, as noted above (c) you will hopefully become an active member of the international Twitter community focused on the same issues as ourselves. And even though Linear A, B & C and related archaeological disciplines are esoteric, to say the least, Richard already has over 600 followers, and Rita over 300. Even with considerable overlap, our followers may very well exceed 700 in all. Note that, unlike Facebook, which I loathe, Twitter is not greedily invasive on personal privacy.

Also of great interest to our community are our shared Pinterest boards. which I strongly urge you to join. All the images posted on our blog, Linear B, Knossos & Mycenae are posted here:

where you will be able to view and download at your leisure any images, illustrations, charts etc. etc. directly related to early Cretan & Minoan hieroglyphics, Minoan Linear A, Mycenaean Linear B & Arcado-Cypriot Linear C, and any and all ancient scripts of possible interest to you as a researcher or translator. I, Richard, am by far the primary contributor to this board, which already has over 750 pins to date, but if you join, I will be delighted to invite you to post your own images directly related only to the ancient scripts mentioned here:

where you will find any and all images, photos and artwork of Knossos, Mycenae, the Minoan/Mycenaean civilizations, and plenty of other illustrations of related interest. Rita Roberts is the moderator by default of this amazing board, since she has posted the vast majority of images there (almost 900 pins to date). I leave it to her to take care of this board, as I simply do not have the time to do so.

and Ancient Sea People, which Violet Shimmer Love just recently invited me to join. The overlap between Violet’s board and Knossos & Mycenae, Civilizations and with Mycenaean Linear B, Progressive Grammar & Vocabulary is not considerable, so I really do encourage you to subscribe to Ancient Sea Peoples as well.

We also have just invited aboard our newest member, Gretchen E. Leonhardt, here at Linear B, Knossos & Mycenae. Here is her site:

Gretchen is a linguistic specialist of the highest order who has been studying, deciphering and translating Linear B for well over a decade. I for one know that I will often need to rely on her to clarify matters related to Linear B with which I am unfamiliar. Although her approach to the decipherment and translation of Linear B is very much add odds with my own, this is of little consequence, as we all know that I encourage truly scholarly debate and differences in points of view and theoretical constructs, in the sure knowledge that everyone who is adept with Linear B has his or her own unique contribution to make, and that no one is in competition with anyone else. Anyone who visits our blog can decide for him- or herself which translations of Linear B tablets and fragments he or she prefers, whether they be those of myself, Rita Roberts, Gretchen Leonhardt or of absolutely anyone else who becomes a new member in the future. Or if you are like me, you may prefer to entertain the merits of any and all translations of the same original tablet or fragment, or to cull from them those elements which you find most to your taste, should you yourself wish to post translations of the same originals. No translator of Linear B, no matter how competent or advanced, has a monopoly on the “best” translations of Linear B originals, since as we all know, Linear B texts can – and more often than not – are very ambiguous.

And of course, we must not forget about Minoan Linear A & Mycenaean Linear B, Dead Languages of the Mediterranean, one of the Internet’s most prestigious primary resources, here:

As new key sites related to Linear A B & C come to light, I shall of course add them to our list, so that you may decide for yourselves which ones you really wish to take an interest in.

On a final note, ours is an extremely busy Blog, having seen tens of thousands of visitors in only a year and a half, so I would greatly appreciate it if member contributors and authors would take this into account, as I can sometimes easily feel overwhelmed. I believe it is called burnout when it goes over the top. That is just the way I am.

Richard

Our Translations of Key Linear B Translations now on Minoan Linear A & Mycenaean Linear B, Dead Languages of the Mediterranean

Our Translations of Key Linear B Translations now on Minoan Linear A  & Mycenaean Linear B, Dead Languages of the Mediterranean (Click the logo to reach them):



This is a significant, indeed pivotal step forward for us as a primary resource and international site into exhaustive research, decipherment and translation of Mycenaean Linear B tablets, regardless of provenance (Knossos, Pylos, Mycenae, Phaistos etc.) We are immensely proud to have been invited to play an active rôle in such a leading international resource as this.  Any and all researchers truly committed as proponents of the true linguistic import of Linear B should seriously consider playing a contributory rôle to this key resource into Mycenaean Greek.

Illustrative of our ongoing contributions in translation to Minoan Linear A  & Mycenaean Linear B is this comment, posted on our almost complete decipherment of Linear B tablet Mycenae MY Oe 106: 


 
Scroll to the bottom of the page for my comment.

Richard

The First Ever Almost Complete Translation of the Famous Linear B Tablet MY Oe 106 (Mycenae)

The First Ever Almost Complete Translation of the Famous Linear B Tablet MY Oe 106 (Mycenae) Click to ENLARGE:

My translation of this famous Linear B was a hard slog, to say the very least. I had to rummage through Chris Tselentis’ fine Linear B Lexicon and through scores of entries in Liddell & Scott, 1986, to be able to come within sight of a translation which would make complete sense in context, and after hours of meticulous searching, I finally came up with the translation you see here. I think it not only rings true, but that it flies.

There are several critical comments I must make on my translation. In case anyone is wondering why I translated KOROTO as “young boy”, you needn’t look very far. This is why that picture of a boy appears to the right of the tablet. The scribe must have deliberately put it there to make damn certain that his fellow scribes and literate Mycenaeans knew perfectly well what the main thrust of this tablet is, namely, that we should put the emphasis squarely on the “young boy” as subject. He is the driving force behind all this wool business going on here. This is precisely why I am quite convinced that KOROTO is in fact an archaic Mycenaean neuter word for young boy. Of course, the daughter mentioned here cannot be his daughter! She is someone’s daughter, and I would bet my bottom dollars that she is their mother.

Moving on, we run smack dab up against the single syllabogram RE. We must not be deceived. It is not untranslatable. In fact, the direct opposite is true. Why on earth Linear B translators have not seen this phenomenon in the past 60 years is quite beyond me. I know perfectly well that single syllabograms are all over the place on Linear B tablets, because in the 3,000 odd Linear B tablets I have meticulously examined in Scripta Minoa, there are hundreds of tablets and fragments sporting single syllabograms. Two questions immediately leap to mind. First of all, why on earth would the Linear B scribes at Knossos, Mycenae, Pylos and elsewhere resort to inscribing single syllabograms on so many tablets (100s is a heck of lot of tablets!) unless they meant to. I think it goes quite without saying that that is precisely what they meant to do. Secondly, what on earth are these single syllabograms? Believe it or not, we have practically beaten this subject to death on our blog, and if you are really itching to know what they are (and if you are a Linear B translator, scholar or researcher, may I suggest you should be), then you ought to visit our blog and read the scores of posts which not only define what they are, viz. supersyllabograms, but provide scores of examples of Linear B tablets from Knossos which sport them, especially tablets referring to sheep, rams and ewes. Tablets on sheep constitute fully 20% and then some of all 3,000 Linear B tablets I closely examined from Knossos, far surpassing Linear B tablets on any other area of Minoan civilization (economic, agricultural, industrial, military, you name it). This of course raises another inescapable question. Why, why such an overwhelming number of Linear B tablets on sheep alone – even far surpassing all other livestock, crops etc. etc. - ? This is one critical question, and it demands answers. I have provided some myself, but it is up to the research community at large to fully investigate this phenomenon and in depth, so that within a few years we can really account for supersyllabograms... because they will not simply go away.

Now, as for that very long name, Toteweyasewe (and I truly believe it is a name, the name of the young boy), I would be willing to bet it is a Minoan, and not Mycenaean name. Have you ever noticed how many Linear A words are very long, many of them in excess of 5 syllables? I have. There is something going on there too, a factor which we must clearly take strictly into account if we are ever to even approach even a partial decipherment of Linear A. Another peculiarity I have noticed about Linear A tablets versus Linear B ones is that the majority of the former are vertical rectangular in shape, while the majority of the latter are horizontal and usually only 1-4 lines long. The longer Linear B tablets, of course, have to be rectangular as well, as if...

What does the sypersyllabogram RE mean? It was almost ridiculously easy for me to find that out. Consulting Tselentis once again, I discovered that the one and only Mycenaean Greek word beginning with the syllabogram RE that could possibly fit this context, i.e. that of wool, is REPOTO, which means “fine or thin”, and it fits the context beautifully. Given that the repertoire of Mycenaean vocabulary on extant tablets and fragments in Linear B is quite thin, amounting to no more than 3,000 words at the very most, I think we can pretty much rely on this translation of the supersyllabogram RE, because nothing else fits the context, period.

And, in case you are wondering how I discovered supersyllabograms in the first place, you need only to refer to the very first post in which I discuss the two Linear B tablets from Knossos, one of which gave the whole show away. The scribe actually spelled out the entire word on one of the tablets, and then used only the supersyllabogram on the other, thank you very much. To keep you all on tenterhooks, I am not going to tell you here which tablets these were, but point you to the ground-breaking post which goes right to the core of the matter. That post is titled, A Major Milestone in the Further Decipherment of Linear B – the Supersyllabogram Defined, here:



One thing I will tell you is this. The supersyllabogram O means ONATO, a leased field & KI means KITIMENA, a plot of land. These two are plastered all over tablets on sheep. There are plenty more. We have deciphered at least 8 of them, but the rest elude us... for the time being.

Richard

Knossos Tablet KN 952 G a 01 & the Ideogram for “Wool”

Knossos Tablet KN 952 G a 01 & the Ideogram for “Wool” (Click to ENLARGE):



This Tablet is pretty much self-explanatory. Just remember that, since this tablet consists of ideograms only, reconstructing the syntax of such a tablet is quite another matter. In the case of this tablet in particular, the precise meaning of the two (2) sentences on this tablet (if indeed there are two, one on each line) somewhat eludes us. On the other hand, whatever translation we assign to a tablet such as this one, that translation is more than likely to reflect the original sense of the tablet (as its scribe understood it) fairly accurately.

Richard

Knossos Tablet KN 935 G d 02 & the Ideogram for “Wool”

Knossos Tablet KN 935 G d 02 & the Ideogram for “Wool” (Click to ENLARGE):



As we come to master Linear B, we soon discover, to our great relief, that it is actually quite easy to translate the substance at least of a great many Linear B tablets, for the simple reason that these tablets use ideograms only, and no syllabograms. Of course, it should come as no surprise to anyone relatively adept at translating Linear B tablets, regardless of provenance (Knossos, Pylos, Phaistos etc.) that the Linear B scribes were so keen on using ideograms to replace syllabograms as often as they possibly could, to save valuable space on the small tablets they had to inscribe their texts, inventories, statistics and varia on. So if anything, this tablet in particular is nothing short of a breeze to translate. 

However, whenever we are confronted with any Linear B tablet using ideograms alone, reconstructing the syntax of such a tablet is quite another matter. In the case of this tablet in particular, the precise meaning of the two (2) sentences on this tablet (if indeed there are two, one on each line) somewhat eludes us. On the other hand, whatever translation we assign to a tablet such as this one, that translation is more than likely to reflect the original sense of the tablet (as its scribe understood it) fairly accurately.

On a final note, observe that the Linear B words for “ram” KIRIO or KIRIYO and “ewe” POROQETO do not appear on any extant Linear B tablet, but are in fact derivative constructs I have derived from their alphabetical ancient Greek descendants. As such, they may not be technically “correct”, but as far as I am concerned, that is neither here nor there. As I always say, better to take a stab at it than do nothing.

In this light, we shall eventually be compiling a topical English to Mycenaean Linear B Lexicon, which is to include not only the vast majority of Linear B vocabulary on extant tablets, but a significant number of derived [D] words, such as the two I have provided here. Our ground-breaking lexicon is due to be published in PDF format sometime in 2015 or early 2016. Rita Roberts, my Linear B co-researcher and I shall be working as a team to produce this magnificent Lexicon, which we sincerely hope will leave the shoddily edited Mycenaean (Linear B) – English Glossary in the dust, where it belongs, and will equal or even surpass Chris Tselentis’ well conceived, highly comprehensive Linear B Lexicon.  

Richard

Hey, Honey, the Linear B Ideogram MA+RE for MALI = wool

Hey, Honey, the Linear B Ideogram MA+RE for MALI = wool (Click to ENLARGE):



While the ideogram for the Mycenaean Greek word for “wool” in Linear B is quite straightforward, being as you can see the syllabogram RE superimposed on the syllabogram MA, there is one thing about it which stumped me for quite a long time. Why on earth would the Linear B scribes at Knossos and elsewhere substitute the syllabogram RE for RI to superimpose on MA, when obviously the word is spelled MARI in Linear B? On the surface, there does not seem to be any good reason for them to have done this, except that if we recall that the Linear B scribes were real sticklers for practicality, amongst other things, it really does not come as much of a suprise to me now that they substituted RE for RI, given that it is, to put it plainly, a simpler syllabogram to superimpose on MA than RI is. I have no idea whether or not that was their reasoning when they assigned this logogram, or ideogram, if you like, to symbolize the Linear B word for wool (MARI) other than the explanation I have just given here, which is consistent with the scriptural economy the Linear B scribes were so fond of.

I of course welcome any and all conjectures as to why they would have done this. One thing is clear: it was not a decision based on boring old reason, but rather on practical application, a factor which was always uppermost in the minds of the Linear B scribes, a clever gang if I ever saw one.

There is another quite cogent reason why the Linear B scribes went for MARE instead of MARI for wool, and that was, quite simply, to clearly contradistinguish it from the extremely similar logogram for honey, MERI, as illustrated here so that you can immediately see the difference for yourself (Click to ENLARGE):


This second explanation makes even more sense than the first.

The text of these two tablets, consisting as it does of logograms and ideograms alone, is quite clear, and warrants no comment.   


Richard

SITO = “wheat” again, this time on a contextually considerably clearer fragment

SITO = “wheat” again, this time on a contextually considerably clearer fragment (Click to ENLARGE):

Unlike the previous Linear B tablet sporting the ideogram for wheat = SITO in Linear B (transliterated into Latin script), which was a pure headache for me from beginning to end, I dare say I found this particular Linear BC fragment from Knossos much easier to decipher, or more to the point, to unravel. As it turns out, even the missing portions of the text were practically handed to me on a silver platter, well, at least almost.

Even in the first line of this fragment, the presence of the feminine singular adjective for “planted or cultivated” pretty much gave the show away. The one noun which fits this adjective like a glove is the Linear B word, KOTONA = “a plot of land”, the very word Chris Tselentis pairs with this adjective in his Linear B Lexicon, where he has this to say of PU2TERIYA, “planted, cultivated (of ‘ ktoina’ = plots”). And who am I to argue with him? Sometimes, translations of even missing words, in this case, the noun KOTONA, also feminine singular, seem just to leap up and bite you. I have almost no doubt whatsoever that this is indeed the word missing to the left of the alternate spelling PUTARIYA for PU2TERIYA.

The truncated word beginning with PERI was a considerably tougher challenge, but as I have so often said on this blog, who am I to refuse a good challenge? So I never do. Basing myself on the various possible spellings of Linear B PERI in alphabetical ancient Greek, meticulous consultation of Liddell & Scott, 1986, yielded no less than nine (9) distinct possibilities for Greek words beginning with the alternatives you see in the illustration above. I have included them all, even though some of them seem more far-fetched than others. What really struck me was that five (5) of these words were all in the same range of meanings, and so I naturally opted for any one of these variants... take your pick, while eliminating the others. Of course, there is no real justification for tossing all of the others out, especially “by the sea”, except that Chris Tselentis himself has an entry in his excellent and comprehensive Linear B Lexicon, which is almost perfectly matched with all five of the alternative meanings I have opted for. Given that this entry, “the further provinces” is the one and only entry beginning with PERA in any available online Linear B glossary or lexicon, there is absolutely no reason to doubt that this may indeed be the very word that originally appeared intact at this position on the tablet. But there is no way to know.

The rest of the notes on the illustration of this fragment from Knossos are self-explanatory. The translation of the second line is completely unambiguous.

Now, on to the alternative translations... take your choice. These are:

A: a cultivated (plot of land) close by, with wheat amounting to a total of 130+ units (bales)... where “amounting to a total of” is a free translation of “so much wheat 130+”
B: a cultivated (plot of land) just beyond, with wheat amounting to a total of 130+ units (bales)...
C: a cultivated (plot of land) on the other side of (... the island or peninsula or whatever...), with wheat amounting to a total of 130+ units (bales)...
D: a cultivated (plot of land) on the opposite side of (... the island or peninsula or whatever...), with wheat amounting to a total of 130+ units (bales)...
E: a cultivated (plot of land) in a distant province, with wheat amounting to a total of 130+ units (bales)...

and even possibly:

F: a cultivated (plot of land) by the sea, with wheat amounting to a total of 130+ units (bales)...

Again, I say, take your pick. All of these translations are perfectly sound, and since the context of this fragment is no longer fully intact, any one of them could very well have been the original integral text. I would much rather entertain all the probabilities for this context, partial as it is. If it is possible to cross-correlate the context of this fragment with that of a more complete tablet using almost exactly the same text as this one, then we may be able to confirm the best translation(s) from the seven (7) alternatives above, possibly even rounding them down to two. I am a real stickler for context. Where a very similar or almost identical context does exist on another Linear B tablet, regardless of its provenance, we simply must not fail to take its entire text into strict account, in order to flesh out the missing text on the tablet we have in front of ourselves. Of course, where no cross-correlated context is to be found on any extant Linear B tablets or fragments, we have to make do without it.

At this moment in time, I can think of no other Linear B tablet or fragment from among the 3,000+ I have closely examined, the content of which cross-correlates with that of this tablet. Given the fact, however, that even the missing text of this tablet appears not to be so mysterious after all, we can, I think, rest assured that we are on the right track.

On a final note, even where context is sufficient to establish meaning with a fair degree of certainty, as in this instance, it is not everything. We must prepare ourselves for all possible contingencies, which is precisely what I have done here, and what I attempt to do to the best of my ability with any Linear B tablet or fragment I must struggle with to decipher it... in the exact same scenario which faces any and all Linear B translators.

Richard

Trying to make sense of a seriously damaged Linear B tablet, KN 842 K j 01 SITO = wheat

Trying to make sense of a seriously damaged Linear B tablet, KN 842 K j 01 SITO = wheat (Click to ENLARGE):

I have come across quite a few Linear B tablets which are so badly damaged that it is almost impossible to make any sense of them. This is the second such tablet I have valiantly attempted to decipher, at least in part, with some measure of “success”, however dubious... and it is dubious. However, as I have so often stressed in our blog, I am not one to shy away from a challenge, especially one as daunting as this.

I wish to make clear from the outset that my decipherment, as far it goes (which is not very far) is entirely tautological, amounting to no more than wish fulfilment, but in this respect, it does not stray very far, if at all, from so many Linear B decipherments, which are partial reconstructions of text actually present, in whole or in part, on seriously compromised Linear B tablets, regardless of provenance. And since I am such a stickler for context, the chopped up context of this damaged tablet makes my decipherment all the more tentative, or if you will, fishy.

But as I said before, it is far better to have tried than never to have tried at all.

So, here goes nothing. As far as I can make out, with all the gaps indicated by... passim..., this tablet seems to be saying something like this:

Line 1: Messenger, sacrifice (imperative) to the god Zeus!
Line 2: Unintelligible, except for “2 units (bales?) of wheat”
This line also appears to contain two of my “pet” sypersyllabograms, ME and NA (if the second even is NA), but I haven’t the faintest idea what they mean, because I have never seen them before on any of the 3,000 or so Linear B tablets from Knossos I have closely examined. Anyway, the whole theory of supersyllabograms is wide open to debate and possible rejection by the Linear B research & translation community at large.
Line 3: The first word, PERIYOPU or PERIYOAI, possibly truncated on the left, and almost certainly on the right, is undecipherable. The word KIDARO may mean a “flute or harp player”, but that is highly conjectural and really disputable. MOPOMEYA appears to contain the Linear B word for “shepherd”, but even for me, that is quite a stretch. Nevertheless, you never know.

Whatever you do, please do not quote me on this highly tentative and probably even fanciful translation of the apparently legible portions of this otherwise badly damaged tablet.

Richard

Rita Roberts’ Translation of Knossos Tablet KN 634 Bn 03, People, More Girls & Boys

Rita Roberts’ Translation of Knossos Tablet KN 634 Bn 03, People, More Girls & Boys (Click to ENLARGE):



And here is Rita’s translation of Knossos Tablet KN 634 Bn 03, which is trickier than the previous one, since it is right truncated, and it introduces the ideogram, people. Since this is only a fragment, it is impossible to determine what the giver is giving the boys and girls, as Rita so rightly asserts.

Richard

Tag: Decipherment

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