Decisive proof that the word Minoan Linear A supaira is a small(er) vessel type

Decisive proof that the word Minoan Linear A supaira is a small(er) vessel type:



Decisive proof that the word Minoan Linear A supaira is a small(er) vessel type, approximately equivalent to the Mycenaean Linear B word dipa = “cup with handles” arises from another highly significant Minoan Linear A tablet, and that one is the tablet from the Ay. Nickolaus Museum, Greece. There are 300 of these cups on Linear A tablet Haghia Triada 31, so we know they are small. What is so amazing about the Ay. Nickolaus Museum Linear A tablet is that it confirms beyond a shadow of a doubt that Mycenaean Linear B inherited its supersyllabograms from Minoan Linear A! There are no fewer than 6 supersyllabograms for vessel types on this highly significant tablet. The very first one is that for supaira = “cup”. What is even more astonishing is the fact that this supersyllabogram, SU, is incharged inside the ideogram for this vessel type, once again confirming that Mycenaean Linear B inherited not only its supersyllabograms, but even its ideograms, from Minoan Linear A. Now we now for certain that the word supaira on HT 31 (Haghia Triada) is a vessel type, because it appears as an incharged SSYL on the Ay. Nickolaus Museum Linear A tablet. But that is not all. We also know that it is a cup with a handle, because the Ay. Nickolaus tablet shows it as such. So supaira definitely means “a small cup with a handle”, very much like the famous Mycenaean Nestor’s cup at the National Museum of Athens, even though the latter has two handles.



This makes for the second extremely precise definition of a Minoan Linear A word for a vessel type, the other being puko = Mycenaean Linear B tiripode = “tripod”.

The practice of incharging attributive supersyllabograms inside their ideograms is a Minoan Linear A invention as well. So the Mycenaeans did not invent supersyllabograms, nor did they innovate the creation of incharged attributive supersyllabograms inside their own ideograms. The Minoans did all that! To confirm beyond a doubt that the Mycenaean Linear B practice of incharging attributive supersyllabograms is derived from the Minoan Linear A practice, cf. the Linear B table of incharged supersyllabograms below.

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5 Newly “Deciphered” Ideograms in Linear B: B190, B221, B180, B213 & B218 in that order… This is fun!

5 Newly "Deciphered” Ideograms in Linear B: B190, B221, B180, B213 & B218 in that order: Click to ENLARGE:



Upon minute and scrupulous examination of 5 previously undeciphered Linear B Ideograms, I have been able to conclude (or as some folks might very well say, jump to the conclusions) that the 5 Ideograms I have illustrated with actual pictorial examples here may very well mean what I believe they do, or if not that, closely approximate my guesstimates. Now, here as elsewhere in our blog, whenever I have proposed new decipherments of Linear B ideograms previously considered opaque, I have taken risks.  And again, I say, why not? — because if no one else is willing to take such risks, I might as well, especially when and where contextual evidence (either from text on extant tablets or pictorial evidence – as in this case – gives me some room to manoeuvre with.

As for my estimates of the % accuracy of each of the 5 Ideograms, these are all of course, entirely subjective, and any of you reading this blog may very well disagree with some or even all of my estimates. No one is ever "right” when on the threshold of new discoveries or insights into ancient scripts which have been mostly, but not not entirely, "cracked”, as the saying goes.

On a last note, I should like to say that while I do not feel quite as confident about my "decipherments” of B190 (Boars Tusk Helmet) & B221 (Oil Lamp), I feel much more confident of my dual "decipherment” of B180 (Throne) & B213 (Lustral Basin) because, at least to my impressionable mind, these 2 Ideograms look so uncannily like the throne and the lustral basin in the Queen's Megaron as almost to boggle the imagination.

And as for B218, “the one handled-cup similar to Nestor's cup” I am pretty much 100% convinced that I have nailed it.

However, if anyone disagrees with me, however little or however much, please let me know ASAP, because no one gains from a one-sided learning experience.

Comments on this critical post are most welcome! 

What with these 5 new attempts at deciphering previously opaque ideograms, this brings the total number of ideograms I have tackled so far in my attempts to decipher them to at least 18. By the autumn of this year, I shall review them all plus any discoveries I chance upon this summer.  Keep posted.

Richard