Linear A tablet HT 38 (Haghia Triada) with 2 supersyllabograms, dealing with wine

Linear A tablet HT 38 (Haghia Triada) with 2 supersyllabograms, dealing with wine:

This intriguing tablet apparently deals with containers for wine, ranging from a type of vase (daropa) to a wine-skin (aka) to cloth, which appears to have been treated to be water-proof. Since the ideogram for “pig” appears immediately to the left of aka, we can surmise that the wine-skin is made of pig’s hide. The notion that cloth containers could have been water-proofed is somewhat in doubt, but the overall decipherment of HT 38 appears sound enough.

 

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2 new Minoan Linear A words for “wine”, aka = “wine skin” & kukani = “red” nos. 31 & 32

2 new Minoan Linear A words for “wine”, aka = “wine skin”  & kukani = “red” nos. 31 & 32:





On these 2 Linear A tablets, the first of unknown provenance to me, and the second Linear A tablet Haghia Triada HT 38, there appear two words of interest, the first being the logogram, aka = “wine skin” and the second, kukani “red”. The latter corresponds roughly to the Mycenaean Greek Linear A words erutara =“red” or mitowesa = “deep red”. It could also mean “honey”, for “honey wine”, but I am less inclined to that interpretation. Red wine was much more common than honey wine in Minoan and Mycenaean Greece, just as it is today.

P.S. As long as we stick to Linear A tablets dealing either with vessels or with wine, we can usually decipher at least part of them. It is when we try to pass beyond the bounds of these two commodities that we run into real trouble. It is of course intriguing that vessels and wine are intimately related, and in fact they often appear on the same tablet in Minoan Linear A, just as they do in Mycenaean Linear B.