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

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34 T.G. PALAIMA §12.1 §12.1.2.5. Tablets of Knossos and Khania: the same scribe? ........ 85 §12.1.2.6. Jan Driessen and the ‘Room of the Chariot Tablets’ at Knossos ........................................................................... 87 §12.1.2.7. Further work .................................................................... 92 §12.2. The world of the Mycenaean scribes ......................................................... 95 §12.2.1. How can we individualize the Mycenaean scribal hands? ......... 96 §12.2.2. How were the Linear B tablets made, shaped, written and organized? ............................................................................................. 100 §12.2.2.1. Tablets ............................................................................. 100 §12.2.2.2. Sealings and labels .......................................................... 106 §12.2.2.3. Styluses ............................................................................ 110 §12.2.3. What did the Mycenaean scribes deal with? .............................. 112 §12.2.4. How were the Mycenaean scribes taught? ................................. 113 §12.2.5. The social status of the Mycenaean scribes ................................ 121 §12.2.6. Some pending questions .............................................................. 124 §12.3. References for Chapter 12 .......................................................................... 127 This chapter concentrates on scribes, i.e. on those who actually wrote the Linear B texts that we have. The first section (§12.1) discusses the many ways modern scholars have used to identify and then study the work of scribes (or, as we shall also call them, ‘tablet-writers’) and how an accurate palaeographic study of Mycenaean texts has led us to a much improved understanding of the meaning of the texts and their purpose within the administrative systems organized around and by Mycenaean palatial centres. The second section (§12.2) turns to the world of the scribes and to the important conclusions and theories that the technical palaeographic study of Linear B inscriptions has yielded, and current questions such study has posed, about who the scribes were, how they were trained, how they worked, what their professional ‘personalities’ were, and how they compare, as technical specialists, with other skilled workers in the Mycenaean regional economic systems. §12.1. MYCENAEAN SCRIBES AND THEIR WORK: HOW AND WHY THE STUDY OF HANDWRITING BECAME A KEY TOOL OF RESEARCH IN MYCENAEAN STUDIES An important aspect of the study of Linear B inscriptions, 1 particularly if compared with the study of cuneiform archives of the Ancient Near East, 2 is 1 For the history of scholarship in this field, see PALAIMA 2003a, 45-64; RUIPÉREZ – MELENA 1990, 23-49. 2 BROSIUS 2003 and PALAIMA 2003b. For a global assessment of Aegean literacy in light of comparative evidence from the ancient Near and Middle East and modern theories of literacy and the uses of writing in societies through time, see PLUTA forthcoming.
§12.1.1 SCRIBES, SCRIBAL HANDS AND PALAEOGRAPHY 35 the attention paid to palaeography (viz. the study of handwriting styles) and to the distinctive features of writing on clay documents that can be attributed to individual scribes or tablet-writers. The Mycenaean texts are difficult for us to read and understand, but, as we shall see, their correct interpretation has been facilitated (or even made possible) by the discovery that we can attribute them to specific scribes and consequently group them in ways which otherwise would not have been justifiable or even imaginable. At the same time these detailed studies have a direct impact on our understanding of the workings of Mycenaean administration and of the nature and extent of Mycenaean literacy. Why Mycenaean scholars have adopted this line of approach will become clear if we first look at some of their early work both before and after the decipherment of Linear B. §12.1.1. Palaeographical studies before the decipherment There are several reasons why palaeography has come to play such a key role in Linear B studies. First, when inscriptions first began to be noticed, purchased and finally discovered in excavation by Sir Arthur Evans 3 — and then by other excavators —, 4 it was soon observed that they fell into three main categories of writing. These Evans called Cretan Pictographic or Hieroglyphic, Linear A and Linear B. 5 Right from the beginning, it was noticed that these three scripts used a good many signs or characters in common. However, it was not easy to figure out with certainty what the similarities and differences among these writing systems meant. The inscriptions came from different sites and periods. 6 They were written on different materials; we find writing on clay tablets, labels, sealings and roundels; stone dedicatory vessels and stone seals; gold and silver artifacts; walls; and ceramic vases, mainly large storage vessels called pithoi and the vessels used for transporting oil known as stirrup jars. 7 And they were inscribed using different techniques: (1) carving or incising into hard material; (2) literally drawing signs into wet and thus soft clay; (3) painting with a brush. The shapes of the signs were affected by these different ways of writing and the different media used. 3 MCDONALD – THOMAS 1990, 113-169. 4 Beginning in 1894 and continuing through Evans’ excavations at the major Cretan site of Knossos. 5 BENNETT 1996; CHADWICK 1987; DUHOUX 1985, 8-23; MCDONALD – THOMAS 1990, 160-161; OLIVIER 1989, 237-252 and figs. 20-24; SM I. 6 See PALAIMA 1990b for an overview. 7 BENNETT 1986; CHIC; GORILA; HALLAGER 1996; RAISON 1968; SACCONI 1974.
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