Linear Scripts

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Linear Scripts

 

(Linear A and Linear B), ancient writing systems of the island of Crete.

One of the dialects of the ancient Greek language is attested to in the Linear B texts (written in the Minoan-Mycenaean syllabic script). The inscriptions, which date from the 15th and 14th centuries B.C. and were discovered on the island of Crete in the late 19th century, were first published by the British scholar A. Evans in 1909. Tablets with similar inscriptions and dating from approximately the 13th century B.C. were found in the southern part of the Peloponnesos in 1939. Linear B was deciphered in 1953 by the British scholars M. Ventris and J. Chadwick.

The Minoan-Mycenaean writing symbols, which correspond to separate vowels or groups consisting of a consonant followed by a vowel, were, in the opinion of some scholars, evidently borrowed and adapted to the needs of the Greek language. Certain symbols are identical to symbols of the Cypriote syllabic script (sixth century to the second century B.C.) and Linear A, which dates from approximately the 18th to the 15th century B.C. Linear A, which has not yet been deciphered, most likely is not Indo-European.

REFERENCES

Georgiev, V. Slovar’ krito-mikenskikh nadpisei. Sofia, 1955.
Lur’e, S. la. Iazyk i kul’tura mikenskoi Gretsii Moscow, 1957.
Furumark, A. Linear A und die altkretische Sprache. Berlin, 1956.
Meriggi, P. Primi elementi di minoico A. Salamanca, 1956.
Sundwall, J. “Minoische Beiträge.” Minos, 1955, no. 3; 1956, no. 4.
Chadwick, J., and M. Ventris. Studies in Mycenaean Inscriptions and Dialect. London, 1956.
Chadwick, J., and M. Ventris. Documents in Mycenaean Greek. Cambridge, 1956.
Minoica. Berlin, 1958.
Peruzzi, E. Le iscrizioni minoiche. Florence, 1960.

M. L. VOSKRESENSKII

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.