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

100 T.G. PALAIMA §12.2.2.1
Fig. 12.38. Pylos tablets Ta 713 and Sh 742 drawings (after PT II, 66, 82)
finely levigated clay with carefully smoothed edges. Contrast its shape and
appearance with the drawn-out, uneven, and tapering shape of tablet Sh 742.
It is perhaps no accident that the tablet with the better appearance (Ta 713) is
part of the series that lists important communal banqueting paraphernalia, including
here tables made with stone, ivory and special woods, and inlays and figural
decorations. This inventory was very difficult to compile and lay out in recorded
form. It was entrusted, therefore, to Hand 2, who writes other major sets.
Sh 742 by Stylus 733-Cii, on the other hand, is one tablet from a series of
twelve tablets with repetitive texts that document sets of refurbished armour
that were checked one by one to make sure they had reached a state of readiness.
There are six tablets with identical texts pertaining each to an individual
set of defensive armour of one style, and four tablets with identical texts pertaining
to defensive armour of a slightly different kind of construction. 132
Although we should not underestimate the importance that armour had for the
elite Mycenaean military class, it seems legitimate to conclude that these
inspection texts are a less difficult and less prestigious scribal assignment.
§12.2.2. How were the Linear B tablets made, shaped, written and organized?
§12.2.2.1. Tablets
Linear B tablets can be cut or reshaped to special sizes to fit specific recordkeeping
tasks. In Fig. 12.39, the scribe uses a rectangular tablet (Cn 608),
132 On the Sh series, see PALAIMA 1996a. On the Ta series and tablet Ta 713, see Documents 2 ,
332-348, 496-502.