For the Linear A and B grids, click here.

The phonetic transcriptions use Linear B values for Linear A signs assumed to be the same (Louis Godart, "Du Lineaire A au Lineaire B," Aux origines de l'hellénisme: La Crète et la Grèce. Hommage à Henri van Effenterre [Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, Histoire Ancienne et Médiévale 15, 1984], 121-128). Also see below, "Phonetic values of the signs."

List of words appearing in both Linear A and Linear B
DA-I-PI-TA (ZA 8.5, 10a.4-5; KN B 799.1)
I-JA-TE (PH Zb 4; PY Eq 146.9)
I-TA-JA (HT 28a.6; KN Ap 769.2, Xe 537.2)
KI-DA-RO (HT 47a.4, 117a.9, 122a.2-3?; KN E 842.3), A-KI-DA-RO (KH Wa 1001a+g)
PA-I-TO (HT 97a.3, 120.6; KN 59 occurrences)
SE-TO-I-JA (PR Za 1b; KN 22 occurrences)
SU-KI-RI-TA (PH Wa 32; KN 9 occurrences), SU-KI-RI-TE-I-JA (HT Zb 158b)
possibly A-RA-KO (KO? Zf 2; KN 5 occurrences)

The transcribed texts are based on a transnumeration and phonetic normalization finished 22 March 1994 by John G. Younger; Jean-Pierre Olivier checked this document against GORILA (see below) vols. I-V and a ms. of VI, and put in tabular form in January and February 1997. Since then, there have been continual updates.

GORILA = Louis Godart and Jean-Pierre Olivier, Recueil des inscriptions en Linéaire A. Études Crétoises 21, vols. 1-5. (Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1976-1985, now out of print; but de Boccard [below] has copies).

Volume 1: Tablettes éditées avant 1970 (EtCret 21:1; Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner 1976) ISBN X16534

Volume 2: Nodules, scellés et rondelles édités avant 1970 (EtCret 21:2; Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner 1976) ISBN X16435

Volume 3: Tablettes, nodules et rondelles édités en 1975 et 1976 (EtCret 21:3; Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner 1976) ISBN X16436

Volume 4: Autres documents (EtCret 21:4; Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner 1982) ISBN X16437

Volume 5: Addenda, corigenda, concordances, index et planches des signes (EtCret 21:4; Paris: Libraire Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, Paris 1985) ISBN X16433

GORILA, NOW (Nov. 2002) available from Diffusion de Boccard for Euros 76 per volume:

11 rue de Médicis

75006 Paris FRANCE

T: (33) 1-432-60037

F: (33) 1-435-48583

http://www.deboccard.com/anglais/Rub/cata.htm

Bibliographical Abbreviation

• CMS = Corpus der minoischen und mykenischen Siegel (Berlin: Gebr. Mann Verlag).

Epigraphical Conventions

My Goals for Establishing This Website

I have three major goals for this website.

The first is to make available the results of GORILA to the wider public. This website is not a substitute for GORILA since it "normalizes" and phonetically transcribes GORILA's edited versions of the Linear A documents.

My second goal is to work publicly on the Minoan administrative process, how commodities were assessed, collected, and distributed.

My third goal is to tease, from an understanding of the administrative process, the administrative vocabulary (e.g., the terms for "total" and for "deficit") and its grammar and syntax.

I am NOT interested in producing a decipherment of Linear A -- please see "Decipherments," below.

What Is Known about Linear A

Chronology
Hieroglyphic is probably the first script to appear; seals dating from primarily MM I contexts (MM IA or IB) include CMS II.1 nos. 391, 393, and 394 from Archanes Phournoi. Hieroglyphic documents come from four main deposits in Crete: Malia, Quartier Mu (MM II late); Petras (MM IIB); Malia Palace (MM [IIB-]III); and the Knossos Hieroglyphic Deposit (an assemblage of material from the end of the Long Corridor in the West Wing and surrounding area. Since the sealstones that impressed the KN sealings were all hard stone seals, the impressed sealings at least should date to MM IIB-III. No Hieroglyphic document can be dated later than MM III.

Linear A documents appear soon after the first appearance of Hieroglyphic writing, the earliest may be KN 49 from Knossos, South House, MM IIA context (its inscription is a badly legible fraction; it could be Hieroglyphic). From MM II contexts come ARKH Zf 9; and PH 6-19, 22, 24-28, 30 [Haghia Photini], Wb 33-36, Wc 37-41, 43, 44, 46, 52, 55, Wg 45, and Wy 42. Another tablet from somewhere in the palace at Phaistos is assigned to Hieroglyphic (CHIC #122).

The bulk of datable Linear A documents come from contexts dated MM III (Kea, Knossos, Malia, Phaistos), to LM IA (Gournia?, Thera), and to LM IB (Arkhanes, Haghia Triada, Kea, Khania, Petras, Pseira, Pyrgos, Zakros).

Note: Hieroglyphic and Linear A were therefore being written more or less contemporaneously from MM II to MM III at Knossos (MM II and III) and Malia (Palace, MM III), and possibly at Phaistos (MM II).

A few Linear A inscriptions come from Final Palatial contexts. Three occur on objects that probably were made earlier but were found in later contexts: ARM sealstone, KH 94 and Wc 2117 & 2118 (all from fills), and MM III pithos KN Zb 35 (LM II context). Three others, however, were probably all written after the LM Ib destructions: the LM II pithoid jar KN Zb 40, the inscribed block KN Ze 16 on the Kephala tholos (LM II?), and the painted inscription on PO Zg 1, a terracotta statuette from Poros (LM III A:1-2 by style and context). It is therefore possible that Linear A survived the LM Ib destructions, though barely .

In the Neopalatial period, and probably as early as LM IA, Linear A was developing in such a way as to produce Cypro-Minoan and, eventually, Linear B. The earliest Cypro-Minoan document, the "Grand" tablet from Enkomi comes from a 16th century context. The earliest Linear B documents seem to be those from the Room of the Chariot Tablets at Knossos (LM II or possibly LM III A1). This would be the time Palaima 1988 would assign for the creation of Linear B, when, on the Mainland, major Mycenaean centers had major administrative buildings on their heights, the larger tholoi were being constructed, and trade was expanding. According to Palaima, Linear B was created probably at a single moment, either "from above" (a directive) or "within the close confines of palatially oreinted bureaucracies whch then sanctioned the invetnion and continued to apply it to narrow record-keeping tasks." (1988: 341)

Some Hieroglyphic signs, not Linear A signs, are the prototypes for Linear B signs (e.g., CHIC sign 40 for Linear B ro2 and 78 for Linear B du); it is possible that Linear B was developing earlier than LM/LH II and incorporating more than one source.

Other linear scripts may have similarly developed from Linear A farther east: see the inscription from Lachish (Finkelberg 1996).

Decipherment
My own aim in producing these webfiles has NOT been to decipher Linear A.

There are, however, two approaches that I don't believe work: the "acrophonic" principle, and using vocabulary to identify a language.

The acrophonic process
Decipherments based on reading the signs as pictograms, then identifying what the object is termed in some language, and then identifying the phonetic value of the sign as the initial sound or first phoneme (the acrophonic principle) -- this process does not seem to work for Linear A for two major reasons.

1, the identifying term for the "pictogram" cannot be proved in advance of deciphering the script.

2, it can be demonstrated that, for several signs, the acrophonic princple did not operate. Hieroglyphic *012 , a bull-head, becomes Linear AB 23 MU and Hiero *060 , a cat face, Linear AB 80 MA. My guess is that the phonetic value of these signs reflect the sound the animal makes, "moo" and "miaow" (in English). And there are other examples where the sound of the object seemingly relates to its phonetic value (e.g., Hiero *057 , a key sistrum, becomes AB 67 KI [the clinking sound of a metal rattle]).

Using vocabulary to identify a language
See my critique of the "decipherment" by Hubert La Marle.

For me, vocabulary does not necessarily identify a language (English, for instance, has a large German, French and Classical Greek and Latin vocabulary); grammar seems to identify a specific language more securely. Thus, I am not immediately swayed by the process of identifying words in another language as Linear A words (e.g., KU-NI-SU in Linear A as the Semitic term for emmer wheat) -- this is not to say that I don't find such correspondences impressive and interesting. Compare Nakassis and Pluta 2003: 335: "A number of scholars have attempted to decipher Linear A, identifying it with known languages such as Semitic, Luwian, and even Greek. These studies begin by attempting to etymologize a small number of individual words, largely ignoring overall context."

My own method has been strictly internal, to examine the texts as accounting documents, and to identify transaction terms and patterns in vocabulary, paying special attention to vocabulary variations especially in prefixes and suffixes, in order to tease out a grammar.

Whatever language Linear A turns out to be (Semitic, Indo-Hittite, Greek, or Martian), will be fine with me; I have no set predisposition.

Language
Linear A has not yet been demonstrably linked to any known language family.

"The languages which have been used for comparison are of two families: Indo-European, especially an Anatolian language such as Luwian (Palmer, Meriggi [and Ed Brown of UNC-CH]); Semitic (Gordon, Best, and others)... First no inflexional forms such as characterize Indo-European or Semitic languages can be clearly demonstrated, hence the identifications depend largely on vocabulary, which is notoriously easily borrowed. Secondly, the Semitic comparisons are mainly with triconsonantal roots -- yet if the vowels are ignored we are leaving out half the information presented by the script, and thus much decreasing the chances of success. Thirdly, if the languge of Linear A does not belong to a well-known family, then the chances of identifiying it are virtually nil. This is not to say that Linear A remains undecipherable; as more documents are found and published, we shall understand more of it. But I doubt very much if speculation at this stage can help; I feel strongly that is likely to belong to an unfamiliar type." (Chadwick 1975: 147)

Since Crete appears to have been deliberately colonized in developed Neolithic, probably from SW Anatolia, it would seem logical to assume that the Minoan language was related to one of the Indo-Hittite dialects, most probably Luvian.

It is possible to direct our search for the Minoan language more concretely: the few recognizable verbs (see below) seem to use -SI and -TI (vel sim.) as alternating forms, perhaps as singular and plural respectively.

Phonetic values of the signs (Godart 1984, amplifying Olivier's previous list)
certain: DA, I, JA, KI, PA, PI, RO, RI, SE, SU, TA, O

possible: TE, A, KO, RA

possible recent identifications: