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Grégory Osmont

@Ancient_Scripts

Apr 30, 2024

1) Deciphering Mycenaean (Linear B): What method was used ?

For a long time, it was believed that the history of the Greek world began with Homer, or at least that Greek written documentation began with Homer. This refers to the two epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, typically dated to the 8th century BCE. The idea was that there were no written records in the Greek language before this period. While archaeological research has since explored earlier periods, there was no text providing access to the Greek language before that time.

In the nineteenth century, archaeological research was undertaken. Heinrich Schliemann, a wholesale merchant with no formal expertise but a passion for archaeology, conducted excavations in various locations in Greece and Asia Minor. His endeavors were based on the hypothesis that the Trojan War had truly occurred. Building upon this assumption, Schliemann conducted excavations, discovered several sites, collected archaeological material providing access to artifacts, and offered insights into civilizations predating our understanding of ancient Greece.

Subsequently, further excavations took place, notably by Arthur Evans at Knossos in Crete. His excavations, leading to sensational discoveries, revealed documents on clay tablets inscribed in an unknown writing system. Nearly four thousand clay tablets were thus uncovered. The possibility that the inscriptions on these tablets were in Greek was raised quite early, but there was no evidence, and not all scientists agreed. These discoveries dated back to a period preceding what is known as "the Dark Ages," a period between the twelfth and eighth centuries BCE.

On these tablets, two writing systems were quickly identified and named, since Evans, Linear A and Linear B. These clay tablets were preserved because, during the destruction of the Mycenaean palaces, they were burned. Clay solidifies when subjected to high temperatures, ensuring the preservation of the tablets.

2) Deciphering Mycenaean (Linear B): What method was used ?

For a long time, there was uncertainty about what to do with these tablets, and there was hesitation regarding the interpretation of the language: was it Greek or not? In 1913, linguist Antoine Meillet wrote, "It’s not Greek because if it were Greek, we would have deciphered it." He was correct in principle; it is Greek, and we have deciphered it. However, his judgment was premature compared to what happened later. Decipherment attempts, particularly of Linear B, began in the 1930s but faced limited success, notably with the efforts of Alice Kober. It was soon recognized that these were administrative archives, not literary texts or dedications, but rather accounting texts with lists of taxes and objects. Despite the graphical signs, logograms representing objects provided some aid in reading, conveying the idea of vases, livestock, human beings, etc., even without a complete understanding of the graphical system.

One could envision a portion of the content of these inscriptions based on the images associated with the graphic signs. It was also noticeable that on Linear B tablets, the text is organized into well-drawn and distinct lines, and, even more importantly, there were word separators. These word separators were extremely valuable for decipherment as they indicated where words ended, which is crucial for an inflected language like Greek where knowing the word’s end is highly significant.

The initial challenges in deciphering Linear B were the lack of bilingual inscriptions available, and the complete uncertainty about the language of Linear B. It could have been Greek, but it could also have been another language.

The first step was to identify the number of characters. Indeed, an alphabet, a syllabary, or an ideographic system do not have the same number of characters. Since an alphabet represents the phonemes of the language individually, there is a certain average number of characters used. Taking the example of the Ugaritic alphabet, which has twenty-seven signs, it corresponds roughly to the average for an alphabet.

For a syllabary, which generally relies on the combination of a consonant and a vowel, the number of characters is higher than that of an alphabet. In the case of Mycenaean, one looks at the number of characters and concludes that it is not an alphabet because it is unreasonable to think that a language has such a high number of phonemes. Moreover, it can’t be an ideographic system either, considering, for example, that Egyptian has over 1000 signs and Chinese has over 47,000. This already provides a preliminary indication of the type of writing system in question.

Concerning Mycenaean, the decipherment was carried out in 1952-1953 by Michael Ventris. Ventris was not a specialist in Greek but had worked in codebreaking during World War II and was passionate about ancient scripts. He enlisted the assistance of an experienced Hellenist, John Chadwick.

They first considered the type of writing system, and the number of characters was helpful: 87 signs. This meant it was a lot for an alphabet, so they leaned towards a syllabary instead. The second step involved identifying what can be called the "breath of the text": when looking at Mycenaean tablets, there are elements known as word separators. This is extremely valuable for identifying words, especially endings, determining the number of words in a sentence, and understanding the text structure. While there is a limit as some words don’t have word separators, overall, it’s a very good indicator for isolating words in a graphic sequence.

#LinearB #Myceanean #greeknews

3) Deciphering Mycenaean (Linear B): What method was used ?

What also played a significant role is the context, especially the context to the right of the inscriptions. These are accounting archives, meaning there are objects, livestock, or individuals paying taxes, for example, and quantities are typically indicated on the right. This is crucial because in a language that distinguishes between singular, dual, and plural, having information about the number of units sets expectations for morphology.

For decryption, logograms (images), especially those from the "Tablet of the Tripods" at Pylos (PY 641), were also crucial. It includes the logogram for tripod (𐃠) accompanied by the number 2 (| |), as well as a vase logogram (𐃨) also accompanied by the number 2. Based on this, Ventris and Chadwick deduced that the preceding text must explain what is represented by the image (logogram). Therefore, they anticipated finding the names of the tripod and vase in the sections just before these logograms. This was confirmed by the pattern that whenever there is an image of a tripod, a distinct sequence of signs in the text corresponds to the tripod’s name, and similarly for vases, where the recurring image is associated with a sequence of signs identifying the vase’s name.

It obviously didn’t provide a reading yet; it only allowed for a semantic association between an image and preceding graphical content. From there, one needed to identify grammatical variations. For instance, when there’s one singular vase, indicated by the numeral sign ( | ) accompanying the vase logogram (𐃨), there is a sequence of 2 signs 𐀇 𐀞. When there are two ( | | ) vases (𐃨), you find 3 signs 𐀇 𐀞 𐀁. Hence, it can be inferred that the last sign, the 3rd one (𐀁), marks the dual number, the number 2: providing grammatical information about the meaning of the last sign, at least in morphological terms, without yet assigning a phonetic content.

From there, a working hypothesis is established: let’s assume that Mycenaean is Ancient Greek. Therefore, we will look for a sequence of signs that mean "vase," which consists of two syllables, and see if it fits the given context. Based on this proposed reading, we try to determine if it also makes sense in other contexts.

In Homeric Greek, the word for "vase" is δέπας (dépas), and the ending for the dual form is ε (e). The dialectal form would be *δίπας (dipas). *δίπας would be written as di-pa in syllabic (𐀇 𐀞 = 1 vase), and with the dual ending ε, the third sign (𐀁) would be "e": *δίπαε = di-pa-e (𐀇 𐀞 𐀁 = 2 vases).

#LinearB #Myceanean #Greek

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Grégory Osmont

@Ancient_Scripts

Jul 6, 2023

Carian language (1)

The #Carian language is attested between the 7th and 3rd centuries BC. in a region of southern #Anatolia located between #Lydia and #Lycia. Since the written documents unearthed are few in number, this language has still not been completely deciphered.

Carian language (2)

Carian is an Indo-European language belonging to the #Anatolian language family, like #Hittite, #Palaic and #Luwian during the 2nd millennium BC., the #Lycian, the #Lydian, the #Sidetic and the #Pisidian during the 1st millennium BC.

Carian language (3)

Most of the documents, around 150 graffiti and inscriptions, were discovered in Egypt where Carian mercenaries settled between the 7th and 4th centuries. Among these documents, about thirty inscriptions have been found in Caria, four of which are bilingual.

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