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

§12.1.2.4 SCRIBES, SCRIBAL HANDS AND PALAEOGRAPHY 83
It also confirmed that a few tablets that had seemed by their handwriting styles
to be palaeographically earlier 93 than the rest of the tablets from the destruction
level at the site of Pylos were most likely stratigraphically earlier, too. 94
§12.1.2.4. Finger- and palm-prints on the tablets
In the 1980’s and 90’s, a peculiar side development of palaeographical
research on the Linear B tablets took place. It had long been apparent that
scribes in handling the moist clay tablets had occasionally left their finger
impressions in the clay. Swedish forensic specialist Karl-Erik Sjöquist (a professional
finger-print expert) and scholar Paul Åström (an archaeologist) (in
collaboration with Mycenaean palaeographers Jean-Pierre Olivier and Tom
Palaima) undertook to examine the tablets for such traces. In the end, it was
determined that the main diagnostic marks came from papillary line traces, i.e.,
impressions of palm-prints that occurred when the tablets were being manufactured.
At Pylos from among the then 1,112 tablets and fragments, 47 tablets
with impressions were assigned to 10 different ‘palms’. 95 At Knossos 113 tablets
with impressions that could be analyzed were assigned to 46 different
palms. 96 We see here palm-prints on the surface of inscribed clay label PY Wa 730
that was pressed onto the surface of a ‘wicker’ basket used to transport clay
tablets (Fig. 12.29).
Based on the fact that certain palm-prints are found on tablets by different
scribal hands and on the ability of Sjöquist to determine the approximate age
Fig. 12.29. Papillary line traces on Pylos clay tablet-basket label
(after SJÖQUIST – ÅSTRÖM 1985, 38, fig. 12a)
93 PALAIMA 1983.
94 Scribes Pylos, 111-133, 133-134, 137-139, 169.
95 PALAIMA 1985b; SJÖQUIST – ÅSTRÖM 1985.
96 OLIVIER 1991, 122-123, 127-128 on their archivistic implications.