For the first time ever in history, a conjectural full restoration of an entire Linear A tablet, ZA 20 (Zakros)


For the first time ever in history, a conjectural full restoration of an entire Linear A tablet, ZA 20 (Zakros):

Linear A tablet ZA 20 Zakros restored

In the previous post, I conjectured how the text of the missing top of Linear A tablet ZA 20 (Zakros) might have read. While we shall never know for certain, one thing is sure: we do know that the entire tablet dealt with grain crops. It therefore stands to reason that the missing text on the top must have inventoried grains. With this firmly in mind, I have endeavoured to reconstruct what I believe how the missing text may have read. It could very well have run something along these lines:

kireta2 (kiretai) 11 dideru 42 dideru 30 qerie 22 qerie 6

NOTE that kireta2 (kiretai) is the Minoan orthography for Greek krithai (Latinized), which of course is barley.

Translation: 11 bushel-like units of barley, 42 units of emmer wheat, 30 units of emmer wheat mixed with 22 units of roasted einkorn, and 6 units of pure roasted einkorn

for a total of 111

which when taken into account with total of 19 on the bottom half of the tablet yields a grand total of 130.

Hence the decipherment of the entire tablet with the top half restored as conjectured, reads as follows:

11 bushel-like units of barley, 42 units of emmer wheat, 30 units of emmer wheat mixed with 22 units of roasted einkorn, and 6 units of pure roasted einkorn + ro? with dry units of measurement (i.e. bushel-like units) + 4 units of mi? + ? + ? + along with 1 bushel-like unit of wheat 7 12 bushel-like units of te*123 (flax?) + 2 bushels of rumatase (spelt?) for a grand total of 130.

As you can readily see, this decipherment makes perfect sense, and in any case, even if the text of original tablet did not read quite this way, it must have read very much like this.

You will forgive my awful scribal hand. I cannot hope to be able to replicate the finer hand of the original scribe.

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vallance22

Historical linguist, Linear B, Mycenaean Greek, Minoan Linear A, Arcado-Cypriot Linear C, ancient Greek, Homer, Iliad, only Blog ENTIRELY devoted to Linear B on Internet; bilingual English- French, read Latin fluently, read Italian & ancient Greek including Linear B well, Antikythera Mechanism

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