Exactly “what” did the Linear B Tablets end up saying?

lanfranco

Nothing too exciting. The tablets are largely inventory records, notations of goods and trade and some officials' names. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_B Jun 15 06, 7:29 PM

zbeckabee

Correct again! Jun 15 06, 7:36 PM

pu2-ke-qi-ri

The Linear B tablets are short accounting documents dealing with economic matters in the operation of the Mycenaean palatial centers. So amounts of livestock, agricultural products, oil and livestock, household items, chariots, personnel, cloth, and so on, that passed through the hands of the palace. Most Linear B documents consist of a brief one-line "header" talking about the circumstances under which the information was collected, followed by entries of word written out in phonetic characters + ideogram representing commodoty + number. The longest sentence in Linear B comes from Pylos tablet Ta 711: o-wi-de , pu2-ke-qi-ri , o-te , wa-na-ka , te-ke , au-ke-wa , da-mo-ko-ro Translation: Thus saw Phugebris (a name) when the king appointed Augewas (a name) the da-mo-ko-ro (some important position.) One of the most "exciting" tablets is PY Tn 316, which records gold vessels and people being offered (whatever that means) to various divinities: familiar guys like Zeus, Hera, Ares, and Hermes, and unfamiliar guys like Potnia, Despota, the Thrice-Hero, pe-re-*82 (whatever sign *82 sounds like, we still don't know) and Female Zeus and Female Poseidon. So there is some excitement! A certain scholar has also made some interesting discoveries of Linear B-inscribed Belgian waffles and herring. Amazingly, they tend to appear right around Aegean conferences, feature the names of the participants, and then meet some dreadful fate before they can be properly photographed! http://www.ulg.ac.be/archgrec/jokes.html Jun 15 06, 9:56 PM

zbeckabee

pu2-ke-qi-ri Thanks for the great link! Jun 17 06, 7:25 AM