Linear A and B Essay ⋆ History Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Linear B is the oldest known form of Greek writing extant today. It is a syllabic script that was used to represent Greek sounds. Adapted from Cretan Linear A, it was probably developed for a language other than Greek. The Minoans and Mycenae used Linear B in their palaces at least 400 years before the Greek Dark Ages. It is quite different from the Greek alphabet, which was based on a North Semitic script and developed after the Greek Dark Ages. Archaeologists became aware of the existence of Linear B in 1878, when a clay tablet was found at Knossos.

By 1895 archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans (1851–1941) suspected that it was Greek after examining signs found on seals. Evans published his work in a volume entitled B Cretan Pictographs and Prae-Phoenician Script (1895). In 1900 Evans conducted an archaeological dig at Knossos where he discovered an archive of clay tablets in Linear B, thought to be the archive of the palace of King Minos. Despite years of effort Evans was unable to decipher the Linear B script. However, he was able to conclude that frequently repeated short line markers in Linear B were word markers. The hieroglyphic script of Linear A has yet to be deciphered. Evans noticed that there were parallels between the Cypriot script, which had been deciphered, and Linear B. In 1939 another archive of tablets in Linear B were discovered at Pylos in Greece.

Linear B was believed to be Minoan until 1952, when British amateur archaeologist Michael Ventris (1922–56) deciphered it. At first Ventris did not believe that the language represented by the script was Greek, despite the fact that many of the deciphered words were archaic forms of Greek. In 1951 Ventris approached John Chadwick, an expert in early Greek, for help. Together they were able to show definitively that Linear B was Greek. Most of the material in Linear B records lists of people, goods, and animals. The occasional use of ideograms such as “tripod” and “horse” provided an important clue for deciphering Linear B. Further study has shown that it has features closely related to the Classical Arcadian and Cypriot dialects.

References:

Chadwick, John. The Decipherment of Linear B. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992;
Horrocks, Geoffrey. Greek: A History of the Language and Its Speakers. New York: Addison Wesley Longman, 1997;
Palmer, Leonard Robert. The Greek Language. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1996;
———. The Interpretation of Mycenaean Greek Texts. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963;
Renfrew, Colin. Archaeology and Language: The Puzzle of the Indo-European Origins. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.

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