Minoan Linear A puko = “tripod” versus tiripode in Mycenaean Linear B: the first step towards decipherment of Minoan Linear A

Minoan Linear A puko = “tripod” versus tiripode in Mycenaean Linear B: the first step towards decipherment of Minoan Linear A:


Even first glance at Minoan Linear A tablet HT 31 makes it clear that the Minoan Linear A word for “tripod” is puko, as the first line on the recto side (left) illustrates. The word puko immediately precedes the ideogram for tripod. This is highly significant, because on Linear B tablet Pylos TA 641-1952 (Ventris) the very same configuration occurs,





with the Mycenaean Linear B word tiripode appearing at the head of line 1, followed by 3 more words, Aikeu keresiyo weke = “Aigeus is working on 2 tripods of Cretan origin”, again followed in turn by the ideogram for “tripod” and the number 2, accounting for the translation here. The only difference between Linear A tablet HT 31 (Haghia Triada) and Linear B Pylos TA 641-1952 (Ventris) is that there is intervening text on the latter, and no text on the former. But this does not make any real difference between the disposition of the word for “tripod” on each of these tablets, puko in Minoan Linear A and tiripode in Mycenaean Linear B, since the word for “tripod” on both tablets is followed by its ideogram, which is practically identical on both tablets.





I believe it is important to take note of the fact that almost all Minoan Linear A tablets are rectangular in shape, with the vertical almost always longer than the horizontal is wide, as is illustrated in these 2 composites of Linear A tablets from Haghia Triada and Zakros. How this will affect the decipherment of Minoan Linear A I cannot say, but it may (or may not) play an important role. 

It is highly advisable that visitors to this blog refer back to my previous post on this same question here:

https://linearbknossosmycenae.wordpress.com/2015/08/21/part-d-cross-correlation-of-the-surcharged-syllabograms-on-linear-b-tablet-pylos-ta-641-1952-ventris-with-those-on-linear-a-tablets-ht-31-and-another-in-the-ay-nikolaus-museum-greece/

In the next post, I shall put forward my tentative decipherments for the next five types of vessels mentioned on Linear A tablet HT 31 (Haghia Triada) with possible correlations between at least some of them with the vessel types mentioned on Linear B tablet Pylos TA 641-1952 (Ventris). But that is merely the beginning. Other Minoan Linear A tablets lend further credence to our translations, as we shall see in the next few posts. These translations make for the first inroads into at least the eventual partial decipherment of Minoan Linear B, a task which I intend to undertake with all due diligence in the next few years. 

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Our 100th. POST! Linear B Tablet 641-1952

Yes, this is our 100th. POST! Linear B Tablet 641-1952, and a very significant post this is, considering that this tablet was the very first Linear B tablet ever translated into English by none other than Michael Ventris himself, after the archeologist, Carl Blegen, working at the site of ancient Pylos, informed Ventris that when he applied Ventris’ final grid to this tablet, he discovered to his amazement that the first word spelled, “tiripode”, as we can see here (CLICK to enlarge):

which he instantly realized was in all probability Greek, the one language no one as yet believed  Linear B represented… with the exception of Michael Ventris himself, who having given up on Etruscan and other possibilities, was beginning to suspect that indeed Linear B had to represent Greek, in spite of all his instincts crying out that it was not.  All of this happened in early June 1952. Of course, Blegen’s translation of the first word on Pylos Tablet 641-1952, burst open the floodgates, so that by July 2, 1952, Ventris had completely deciphered the tablet.  And the rest is history…. but to say the least, earth-shattering history, which was to push back Greek civilization a further 700 years! …. from ca. 800 BCE (which had previously been considered  the terminus post quem of the earliest Greek civilization utilizing writing (the primitive Greek alphabet as such) to 1,500 BCE, at the height of the Mycenaean-Minoan thalassocracy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalassocracy