British Museum Linear B Tablet 1910,0423.2: Ideograms for rams & ewes at Phaistos

British Museum Linear B Tablet 1910,0423.2: Ideograms for rams & ewes at Phaistos (Click to ENLARGE):

  

This tablet, which amply illustrates the use of Liner B ideograms for livestock (rams & ewes) is in the British Museum collection of Linear B Tablets (Museum number 1910,0423.2).  The Museum record reads: “Clay tablet inscribed with Linear B script, recording a number of ewes and rams at Phaistos under the control of a particular shepherd. Minoan, about 1450-1400 BC From the Palace of Knossos, Crete”.

Click the British Museum Logo to see the record:

 

Richard

Is the Minoan Disc Discovered at Paleokastro in 1898 the World’s First Analog Computer?

 
Is the Minoan Disc Discovered  at Paleokastro in 1898 the World's First Analog Computer?

Researcher and university professor, Minas Tsikritsis from Crete, where Minoan civilization flourished from approximately 2700 BC to 1450 century BC, claims that a Minoan disc  discovered at Paleokastro, Western Crete, in 1898, is the world's earliest analog computer, predating the amazingly intricate “Antikythera Mechanism” by some 1,400 years. Analysis of a relief image on the right side of the matrix of the 25 gear spoked disc reveals that it served as a cast to build a mechanism serving as an analog computer used as a sundial and also to calculate solar and lunar eclipses.  This is what the 25 gear mechanism looks like (CLICK to ENLARGE):



I myself immediately noticed that it also bears a striking resemblance to the astrolabe, and appears to have been used to calculate geographical latitude.  If so, and if it served all of these functions, it was indeed an extremely complex mechanism and precise measuring apparatus, not to be rivalled until the discovery of the even more “Antikythera Mechanism” of the Hellenic Era (ca. 400-300 BCE). 
To the right of the Minoan Disc discovered in 1898, we see an analytical geometric diagram of the Labrys, one of the hallmark concrete symbols of both the Minoan & Mycenaean Civilizations.  Here again, we can clearly see that the Minoans & Mycenaeans had encoded into the Labrys precise calculations of not only the lunar year (13 cycles) but of the solar year as well... an atypical and astonishing achievement for any ancient civilization.  There appears to be a remarkable correlation of the functions of these two Minoan/Mycenaean instruments of calculation and measurement.   

To read the source article, click on this logo:

         

However, a word of warning about the so-called Minoan computer!

In rogueclassicism – quidquid bene dictum est ab ullo, meum est.  “Whatever anyone else has said well, I also have put into words.” (Translation mine)  

Minoan Antikythera Mechanism?

we find the following observation, “... Tsikritsis ... passim ... sees this — apparently — as a 25 tooth gear of some sort. One of the gears in the Antikythera Mechanism’s ‘sun-moon assembly’ has 24 teeth, so potentially this is a somewhat less ‘sophisticated’ ... method of calculation ...  it would be interesting to know the diameter of this ‘gear’ ... in order to try and figure out how large the ‘minoan mechanism’ [is] ... perhaps we should suspicious because Tsikritsis apparently also claims to have translated/decoded Linear A ... I think we’ll defer judgement on this one … 

Perhaps we should.   This still leaves us with the question, What is “Antikythera Mechanism”?  For without knowing that, it is well-nigh impossible to conjure any meaningful conception of this enigmatic Minoan Disc. We will discuss the  Antikythera Mechanism in the next post, which you will be reading first at any rate.

Richard

 

Pylos Tablet TA 641-1952 (Ventris) with Linear B FONT

Pylos Tablet TA 641-1952 (Ventris) with Linear B FONT (CLICK to enlarge):

This is the very first Linear B tablet deciphered by Michael Ventris in 1952. So in honour of his name as a superb linguist and genius of the first order, I now present you with a totally new version of this historic tablet, which I have reformatted for the greatest possible clarity, with the intention to make this tablet all the more accessible to students of Linear B who wish to translate a tablet into English.  It should come as no surprise that of all the extant Linear B tablets, this is the one most often translated.

I will be providing a complete translation of Pylos tablet TA 641-1952 later this month.

Thank you. Richard

A Linear B Tablet listing 50 swords

A Linear B Tablet listing 50 swords (CLICK to enlarge):

This small Linear B tablet clearly illustrates the accounting system adopted for Linear B. Once again, we see an Ideogram, which is tagged with an asterisk (*).  It may seem rather odd that on this particular tablet the scribe actually supplemented the word for sword, “pakana” with its ideogram, which sounds counter-intuitive, given what I just said in the last post, that the whole idea of the Linear B accounting system was to save space on the tablets, not waste it. But in fact, such is not the case. The explanation is simple: in this particular case, the scribe is making certain that no one mistakes what he is counting, by not only writing out the word but also inscribing its ideogram right beside it.  It’s almost as if he were self-auditing. This makes the Linear B accounting system even more coherent and consistent than it might otherwise have been. We will see that this practice of writing the word for the total number of items accounted for + its ideogram recurs frequently in Linear B tablets. However, the downside of this is that some Linear B scribes were apparently either lazy or in a rush or simply felt that the ideogram alone more than sufficed in tabulating accounting lists. Thus, on some (but far from all) Linear B tablets, accounting lists give only the ideograms for the items in the list(s), which means that unfortunately for us, we have to learn all the major ideograms if we are to be in a position to decipher all the accounting records.  We cannot count on finding both the words and the ideograms for each item being listed in all Linear B tablets.

Richard

Pylos Tablet 641-1952: excerpts from 2 famous letters from Michael Ventris

Pylos Tablet 641-1952: excerpts from 2 famous letters from Michael Ventris to Emmett L. Bennett in 1952:

In this second letter, Michael  Ventris makes first mention of the famous TIRIPODE Tablet, Pylos 641-1952, and here he discloses how he came to translate it.

The famous Pylos Tablet No. 641-1952 (Ventris)!

The famous Pylos Tablet No. 641-1952 (Ventris)!  This is the famous Pylos Tablet No. 641-1952, one the the very first Linear B tablets successfully translated by non other than Michael Ventris himself.  You will notice right away that I have encircled the top left side of the tablet, since in the next post, I will be giving my carefully considered translation of this text. Please click to enlarge:

LESSONS: ANEMOIYEREA, “Priestess of the Winds”, one of the loveliest words in Linear B

ANEMOIYEREA, “Priestess of the Winds”, one of the loveliest words in Linear B (Click to enlarge):