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New Light on Linear A

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Extract

With the decipherment of the Linear B tablets found at Knossos in Crete (dated to c. 1400 B.c.) and on the Greek mainland at Mykenai and Pylos (dated to c. 1275 B.c. and c. 1200 B.c. respectively) which have been shown to be written in Mycenaean Greek, the attention of scholars has been drawn to the problem of the language of the earlier Linear A tablets which have been found in Crete alone.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1959

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References

page 20 note 1 Ventris, M. and Chadwick, J., Documents in Mycenaean Greek (Cambridge, 1956), 29.Google Scholar

page 20 note 2 SirEvans, Arthur, Palace of Minos, (London, 1921), i. 612.Google Scholar

page 20 note 3 M. Ventris and J. Chadwick, op. cit. 30.

page 20 note 4 Ibid. 31.

page 21 note 1 Ibid. 36.

page 21 note 2 Ibid. 109.

page 21 note 3 At least 1,800 at Knossos, over 1,300 at Pylos, about 50 at Mykenai; and others are still turning up.

page 22 note 1 M. Ventris and J. Chadwick, op. cit. 53.

page 22 note 2 Ibid. 38 f.

page 22 note 3 Goold, G. P. and Pope, M., The Cretan Linear A Script, (Cape Town, 1955), v.Google Scholar

page 23 note 1 G. P. Goold and M. Pope, l.c.

page 23 note 2 Ibid. x ff.

page 23 note 3 Myres, J. L., ‘The Purpose and the Formulae of the Minoan Tablets from Hagia Triada’, Minos, i (1951), 26.Google Scholar

page 23 note 4 ‘Notes on Minoan Linear A’, Antiquity, xxxi (1957), 124–5.

page 23 note 5 HT 31 (Carratelli, Pugliese, ‘Le iscrizioni preelleniche di Haghia Triada in Creta e della Grecia peninsulare’, Monumenti Antichi, xl (1945), Fig. 64).Google Scholar

page 24 note 1 G. P. Goold, ‘The Problem of the Linear A Tablets’, paper read to the American Philological Association, 26–30 Dec 1957, p. 4.

page 24 note 2 HT 86a.

page 24 note 3 G. P. Goold, l.c. This word also occurs on HT 10a, 51b, 95a, 95b.

page 25 note 1 HT 10.

page 25 note 2 Cf. Egyptian it, ‘barley’, ‘corn’, and its varieties, in Gardiner, A. H., Egyptian Grammar (Oxford, 1927), 472.Google Scholar

page 25 note 3 HT 1a, 95a, 95b.

page 25 note 4 HT 23a.

page 25 note 5 HT 15, 103, 123b. Cf. also o in the inscription on a votive ladle or pan from Trullos (Evans, Palace of Minos, i, Fig. 463). For the probable pronunciation of o as u see G. P. Goold and M. Pope, op. cit. x–xi.

page 25 note 6 Gordon, Cyrus H., ‘Akkadian Tablets in Minoan Dress’, Antiquity, xxxi (1957), 239.Google Scholar

page 25 note 7 For w as a glide sound see M. Ventris and J. Chadwick, op. cit. 44.

page 25 note 8 Cf. Exod. xxiv. 6; Song of Sol. vii. 2.

page 26 note 1 Pope, M., ‘The Linear A Question’, Antiquity, xxxii (1958), 99.Google Scholar

page 26 note 2 Sir Arthur Evans, op. cit. i. 617; for an illustration of the vase, see ibid., p. 572, and for a description, p. 556.

page 27 note 1 Cf. Sir Arthur Evans, op. cit. i, Fig. 403, for an illustration of a similar vase.

page 27 note 2 Ibid., Figs. 463–4.

page 27 note 3 88 is the number of a syllabic symbol the phonetic equivalent of which has not yet been found.

page 27 note 4 G. P. Goold and M. Pope, op. cit. v.

page 27 note 5 HT 31.

page 27 note 6 Sir Arthur Evans, op. cit. ii, Fig. 256.

page 27 note 7 M. Ventris and J. Chadwick, op. cit. 47.

page 27 note 8 Sir Arthur Evans, op. cit. i, Figs. 465–7.

page 28 note 1 Op. cit. 113.

page 28 note 2 Op. cit. 28–29.

page 29 note 1 Akkadian, like Classical Greek, omits the writing of the w sound; and probably anaku was originally wanaku.

page 29 note 2 Op. cit. 411.

page 29 note 3 For the Ficus sycomorus, which is different from the common fig, Ficus carica, see Moldenke, H. N. and Moldenke, A. N., Plants of the Bible (Waltham, Mass., 1952), 107 ff.Google Scholar

page 29 note 4 See the Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (1956), vi. 251, s.v. ḫuri'u. Cf. κορίαννον, of which κόριον is a shortened form, and also the Hebrew ḫori (Genesis xl. 16), wrongly rendered as ‘white baskets’ in translations of the Bible.

page 29 note 5 Cf. G. P. Goold, op. cit. 2; H.T. 233.

page 29 note 6 M. Ventris and J. Chadwick, op. cit. 52.

page 30 note 1 A. H. Gardiner, op. cit. 468. Cf. Minos, v (1955), 212 for Neumann's quotation from Athenaeus (iii. 76 e), indicating that ni stands for an old Minoan word for a kind of fig, νικύλεον.

page 30 note 2 M. Ventris and J. Chadwick, op. cit. 295–6.

page 30 note 3 Cf. Akkadian sadinnu, meaning ‘clothing’, probably of linen.