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

76 T.G. PALAIMA §12.1.2.2
§12.1.2.2. Jean-Pierre Olivier
The next major step forward in the use of palaeography for understanding
the Linear B tablets was made by the scholar who has been the supreme editor
of Aegean inscriptions for the last forty years, Jean-Pierre Olivier. In the mid-
1960’s Olivier went to Cambridge to study with John Chadwick. He then
undertook to study all the tablets from the site of Knossos according to their
hands. The title of his completed work clearly emphasizes his ultimate aim of
beginning to reveal how the main Cretan palatial site functioned administratively
and bureaucratically during the period of Mycenaean occupation and
control: Les scribes de Cnossos. Essai de classement des archives d’un palais
mycénien (Scribes Cnossos). Thus, it is fair to say that Olivier laid down the
model for the study of what we conventionally call scribal administration at major
palatial centres.
Olivier’s task was complicated by several factors. During the early days of
excavation, even Evans’ ‘scientific’ (for the period) kind of excavation left many
important facts unrecorded. Consequently the specific find-spots of texts were
most often unknown, and it was difficult to reconstruct the stratigraphy and
archaeological contexts of the tablets. In fact, Olivier’s work was undertaken in
the atmosphere of a heated controversy about the dates of destruction of the Palace
of Minos at Knossos and the levels to which to assign the Linear B tablets. 82
Secondly, some tablets were lost and were available only in Evans’ drawings.
This was not so great a loss given, we may recall (§12.1.1.2), Alice Kober’s
fortunately positive appraisal of the accuracy of Evans’ readings and drawings.
But it meant that other features of those particular records as three-dimensional
archaeological artefacts, e.g., shape, texture and color of the tablet itself, ductus
of the stylus incisions into the clay surface, peculiarities regarding the edges
and back sides of the tablets, were lost to Olivier and to us. Finally, the Knossos
material was much more fragmentary than the Pylos material. Olivier calculated
that the number of tablets then known added up to ca 6169 fragments, among
which about 3433 different tablets could be distinguished. 83
Scribes Cnossos was a pioneering work, the first complete analysis of
scribal activity at a major Mycenaean palatial centre. It might be asked why
Bennett had not undertaken such a complete study of the Pylos tablets. The
answer is that the Pylos excavations were continuing into the mid-1960’s 84 and
82
DRIESSEN 1990, 5-6; MCDONALD – THOMAS 1990, 320-322, 438-442; PALMER – BOARDMAN
1963.
83 Scribes Cnossos, 19.
84
MCDONALD – THOMAS 1990, 328-337.