The Linear A Question

Extract

Dr gordon has, in my opinion, not begun to prove his case and it is difficult to know where to begin its refutation. In at least one major respect the two articles he has written in ANTIQUITY disagree with each other. In the first article (ANTIQUITY XXXI, 124) the frequent sign L 98 was taken (on the basis of the similarity of the Linear B sign) to represent ku or gu. With the help of this value three words have been recognized as Semitic. But in the second article (ANTIQUITY XXXI, 237) the value of the sign is stated as an unknown ‘X’, and then, in order to make it possible to identify a word for ‘cumulative total’ as the Akkadian kitmuru, it is allotted the sound mu. We are not told what we must now think of two other words previously identified on the assumption that the sign stood for ku. Nor is it made clear on what grounds one may pick and choose among the phonetic values of the Linear B signs. L 98 is certainly the same sign as the Linear B 81 ku; L 22 is the same sign as the Linear B 2 ro. Why are we justified in assuming that the one phonetic value is transferable and not the other? This point is quite fundamental in any attempt to decipher Linear A by using the Linear B phonetic values, but Gordon ignores it completely. And not only here. By identifying the supposed word for ‘cumulative total℉ as kitmuru, he commits himself to the value ki for the first sign L 21. As this sign hardly, if ever, occurs elsewhere he cannot check his assumption, though it compels him to alter the value of L 103 (= Linear B 67 ki) to ku (para. 6, p. 239). Allotting the value tu to L 39 in the same word leads to a similar difficulty, since the value tu is already occupied by L 6 (accepted by Gordon in the first article, para. 10).