A Companion to Linear B - The University of Texas at Austin

48 T.G. PALAIMA §12.1.1.3
The word ‘hand’ here refers to a unique individual identified primarily by
his (or, in the Mycenaean period less likely, her) distinctive writing style. This
most distinctive aspect of Mycenaean palaeography was defined by Bennett in
his 1947 doctoral dissertation. 24
Bennett explains: 25
‘[T]he observant reader comes to know not only the many forms of each
character [of the Linear B script], but also what forms of one [sign] are to be
found with particular forms of other signs. He eventually learns to recognize the
intention of the scribe despite careless drawing of the signs, or bad preservation
of the tablets, and to identify accurately in context characters which if written
separately would be completely illegible. That is to say, he learns to identify the
hands of the several scribes, and, in his interpretation of what is written on the
tablet, is able to make allowances for their peculiarities….
It has proved possible to assign a large number of the tablets from Pylos
to various hands, and to discover the specific forms and habits by which
these hands may be most readily distinguished. The essential criteria for the
separation of hands are of course the particular shapes and proportion of the
characters, but other factors assist in the identification. Principal among these
is the order of making the strokes which compose the sign, for each scribe must
have persisted throughout his life in the habits in which he was trained. There
is generally no difficulty in discovering the order of strokes since the line first
drawn in the clay is broken and distorted by that which crosses it. The methods
of ruling, and of spacing, the arrangement of the text on the tablet, and even
the size and shape of the tablet chosen or molded by the scribe, may frequently
be no less significant.’
Identification of the handwriting styles of the individuals responsible for
Linear B inscriptions constitutes an almost unique forensic tool for Mycenologists.
26 It has enabled Mycenaean specialists to extract from their limited
number of texts information at a level of sophistication that, as we mentioned
at the outset, surpasses the work done on texts from the Near and Middle East.
The scholar who saw the need to investigate the texts at this level was in fact
the ‘father of Mycenaean epigraphy’, Emmett L. Bennett, Jr.
As we have also mentioned, in 1940 Bennett (born on July 12, 1918) was
entrusted by Carl W. Blegen with publishing the new Linear B inscriptions that
had been discovered at Pylos in 1939. Bennett’s work on the material and the
completion of his Ph.D. degree were delayed by World War II. During the war,
Bennett contributed to the American war effort by analyzing Japanese encoded
messages with the team of military cryptologists who were the predecessors of
24 BENNETT 1947, 19-24.
25 BENNETT 1947, 22-23.
26 See PALAIMA 1985a for a comparison with the lesser use of ‘hands’ in classical Greek epigraphy.