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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.
§12.1.2.1.5 SCRIBES, SCRIBAL HANDS AND PALAEOGRAPHY 65 Fig. 12.17. PY tablet Tn 316 drawing of recto and verso (after PT II, 36) was thought to be a correct interpretation of the internal textual history of the tablet (Fig. 12.17). 61 It is clear why scholars were led to think this way. The tablet on its front side (the tablet face on the left, marked obv, in Fig. 12.17) breaks off and leaves a large section of ruled lines un-inscribed, after the scribe wrote the name of the site where the Palace of Nestor is located, Pylos = PU-RO, in very large signs at the left side of the section as a header or rubric. On the back side of the tablet, too, a last section is left without any further text entered after the PU-RO rubric was written. Moreover, the front side of the tablet at the lower right has abrasions. These abrasions were caused by the blunt end of a stylus being drawn slantwise across the tablet’s surface, as we nowadays use the eraser end of our simple wooden pencils on sheets of paper. And in the very lower right corner there is clear graffiti, written after the text had dried. All in all then, this kind of text, viewed with modern sensibilities, looks like a preliminary rough draft. 61 CHADWICK 1976, 89-92.
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