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

64 T.G. PALAIMA §12.1.2.1.5
had already been dealt with by the scribal workers in Room 7 and had either
been taken and filed in Room 8 or had been discarded.
It seems likely that the Pylos Sh tablets were written in the Northeast Workshop
(Rooms 92-100). The Northeast Workshop and Wine Magazine both
contain records and physical remains that have helped us to identify what kinds
of work and storage facilities these architectural units were. 57
We are also able to link texts which would otherwise be viewed as entirely
unrelated in subject matter. A good case in point is tablet PY Un 718. It records
foodstuffs for a feasting ceremony in honor of Poseidon. It seems to be related to
an inventory of banqueting equipment, including tables, thrones, stools, ceremonial
vessels (including heirloom bronze tripods), cooking equipment and sacrificial
implements (a special ‘stunning axe’ and a cultic knife for slitting the throats of
animals being sacrificed) (Ta series). 58 All this would have been impossible to
deduce without our knowledge of Mycenaean palaeography and find-spots.
§12.1.2.1.5. The internal chronology of the tablets: the example of the tablet
PY Tn 316 and the PY Ta tablets
We can establish, again with a fair degree of certainty, the internal chronology
of some tablets and groups of tablets, i.e. the order in which they were written
and filed, 59 based on our knowledge of ‘hands’, ‘sets’, ‘stylus groups’ and findspots.
This gives us important information about the circumstances in which
the texts were composed. In some instances, with this palaeographical knowledge,
we may be able to weigh the probability as to whether a tablet or set of
tablets recorded normal activities or responded to exceptional events.
A good example is Pylos tablet Tn 316 which has been frequently interpreted
as the record of special and desperate measures, including human sacrifices,
taken in the very last moments preceding the destruction of the palace at
Pylos. 60 This interpretation was based partly on the nature of the offerings (far
more valuable or important than in the texts on other tablets), partly on modern
presuppositions about the appearance of ‘important’ texts (i.e., that they should
look like modern ‘fair copy’ texts), and partly on deductions derived from what
57 For an understanding of the archaeological remains and the Linear B inscriptions from the
Northeast Workshop and Wine Magazine, see BENDALL 2003 and PALMER 1994; and generally
SHELMERDINE 1984 and 1987.
58
PALAIMA 2000c, 2002 and 2004a.
59
PALAIMA 1995a.
60 See a full discussion of the history of interpretation of this tablet, beginning with Michael
Ventris before the decipherment of Linear B, in PALAIMA 1999. Text and comments of PY Tn
316 in Companion 1, 321-335.