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November 14, 2005
New Linear A and B Texts Found
Kathimerini is reporting that Archaeologists have recently uncovered text in both Linear A and Linear B at a site near Hania in western Crete. The Linear B text was written on an amphora.
Also found were two terracotta tablets containing texts in Linear A, an even older alphabet — used around 1,700 years before the common era — which has not yet been deciphered. The ministry said the archaeologists found evidence of a violent fire believed to have destroyed a town on the site around 1450 BC.
Anytime Linear B texts are found, it is exciting because it brings scholars much needed material to aid in their decipherment. I do have one little quibble; the Linear B script is a syllabary rather than an alphabet and considering the number of signs, around 90, there is little doubt that Linear A has the same characteristics. In fact most scholars think the two scripts are somehow related although the languages they represent are likely very different. Linear B is indisputably an early Greek dialect. The Linear A signs are usually thought to have been adopted (with some modifications) for writing Linear B Greek.
Pictures please.
Posted by Duane Smith at November 14, 2005 8:50 PM | Read more on Archaeology |
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