Linear A and B

Linear A and B, two scripts used in Crete in the second millennium BC. Linear A, which developed from a pictographic form of writing, seems to have been used throughout Crete from c.1750 to c.1450 BC but comparatively few specimens are known and no suggested decipherment has yet won general acceptance. Linear B, which was used on the mainland during the high period of Mycenaean civilization (c.1400–c.1200 BC) as well as in Crete, is an adaptation of Linear A, many of the signs being identical or nearly so. It was deciphered in 1952 by the British scholar Michael Ventris, who showed it to be an early form of Greek. The script consists of about ninety signs, each of which represents a syllable; this syllabary is not well adapted to show Greek noun inflexions, so that there are ambiguous cases; there are also many words which cannot be matched with words known in later Greek. Nevertheless, the script was adequate for the day-to-day accounts and inventories which are all that the thousands of clay tablets so far discovered seem to record. The tablets are valuable for the light they throw on economic conditions and the nature of the administration; those concerned with temple property have been particularly interesting for the gods they name (see GODS). See also ALPHABET.