Linear B is the oldest writing system used for the Greek language that has been identified to date. It is distinguished from Linear A, the system used by the Minoans, although it appears to have borrowed many elements from it. It was used during the Mycenaean period, roughly from 1400-1200 BC.
In contrast to the alphabet used today, it is not alphabetic. It is syllabic, meaning each symbol corresponds to a syllable. It consists of:
- 87 syllabograms, which are symbols representing sounds.
- Ideograms, which are symbols representing objects, such as drawing of a chariot, a boat, or grain.
- The numerical symbols that follow a decimal system and are among the few elements where Linear A and B coincide completely. Today, it is believed that the Mycenaean adopted it as they found it after their expansion into Crete and the Aegean islands, likely because it was extremely practical for the accounting system. Regarding the numbers, a vertical line (l) represents one, a horizontal line (-) represents ten, a circle (0) represents one hundred, and a circle with spokes, like the sun, represents one thousand.
Linear B was found primarily on clay tablets in areas such as Knossos, Pylos, Mycenae, and Thebes. It was used for administrative purposes. It was mainly an accounting ledger used to record the production of goods, inventories of livestock or workers, and religious offerings to the gods.
Main Differences with Linear A
Although it originated from Linear A, these two scripts present fundamental differences regarding their language, use, and origin. Linear A records the language we call today Minoan, which, despite numerous efforts, remains undeciphered. We do not know which language family it belongs to. Linear B, however, is the first script of the Greek language. Essentially, it appears that the Mycenaean took the Minoan system and adapted it to write their own language.
While both used for administration, Linear A had a broader scope of application. Besides, accounting tablets, it has been found engraved on religious objects such as libation tables, jewellery, and various vessels. This suggests that it was also used for ritual purposes. Linear B had an almost exclusively bureaucratic character-inventory list. Not a single poem, historical narrative, or letter been found written in Linear B.
Linear B and Homeric Poems
Because Linear B was intended solely for the accounting purposes of the Mycenaean kingdom and not for recording history or historical events, we have no references today that confirms the central element of the Homeric epics: the Trojan war. Another reason is that the tablets we have at our disposal today-as is the case of Linear A-were saved by mere luck. The Mycenaean used raw clay for their writings; once it had served its purpose, they would recycle or simply discard it. the documents we possess today survived because of palace fires, which unintentionally baked these tablets, turning them into ceramic.
Although there is no direct evidence to confirm with precision the Homeric accounts of whether a great war like the Trojan War took place, the tablets available to us today align closely with some of the descriptions provided by Homer.
The names of gods and goddesses appear clearly, just as they presented in the Homeric epics centuries after the Mycenaean era. This is an extraordinary piece of evidence showing that the same deities-perhaps with some differences in their relative importance were worshipped during the Mycenaean Period.
In the tablets at our disposal, the names of heroes such as:
- Achilles (a-ki-re-u)
- Hector (e-ko-to)
- Orestes (o-re-ta)
- Theseus (te-se-u)
- Priam (pi-ri-ja-me)
- Idomeneus (i-do-me-ne-u)
- Alexandra (a-re-ka-sa-da-ra)
and at least 58 other names encountered in the Homeric epics have been identified. Although these do not refer to the actual heroes as Homer portrayed them, it demonstrates that the same names were in use even 500 years before his time.
It is of particular interest that the tablets confirm place names mentioned by Homer. For instance, Homer characterises Lacedaemon as 'koile' (hollow) and 'Ketoessa' (full of ravines); indeed, tablets were discovered in a region described in a similar manner.
In the Pylos tablets, there are references to coastal guards, indicating an era of major conflicts. Furthermore, there are lists of female slaves originating from regions of Asia Minor. This confirms that the Mycenaeans conducted raids along the coasts of Asia Minor, exactly as described in the myth of the Trojan War.
Poseidon as the First of the Gods
The tablets have also assisted researchers in their effort to reconstruct the evolution of ancient Greek religion prior to the Homeric era. A characteristic example is the belief that in more ancient times, Poseidon, rather than Zeus, might have been worshipped as the supreme deity of the pantheon. The image we have of the gods in ancient Greece-derived primarily from the Homeric epics as well as Hesiod's 'Theogony'-appears to have been different during the period when Linear B prevailed.
Characteristically, in the Pylos tablets, the name of Poseidon (po-se-da-0) appears more frequently than that of Zeus. This indicates that he was the primary recipient of offerings, a fact suggesting that he was the patron deity of the kingdom. In certain texts, Poseidon is associated with the title wa-na-ka, which means 'king' or 'lord'. Later, this title was attributed to mortal kings or to Zeus. During the Mycenaean era, it appears that Poseidon held this central, hegemonic position in the pantheon, at least in southern Greece.
Today, we know Poseidon as the god of the sea. However, in Linear B, he appears as 'e-ne-si-da-o-ne' (Ennosigaios), meaning the 'earth-shaker'. The Mycenaean lived in a seismically active region, and the fear of earthquakes was greater than the fear of storms. Furthermore, it appears that he was associated with the underworld as a chthonic deity.
Famous Tablets
Hundreds of Linear B tablets have been written and have survived to this day. Nevertheless, three of them contain particularly remarkable information: The so-called 'Tripod Tablet', the 'Coast Guards Tablet', and the 'Knossos Tablet'.
The Tripod Tablet is perhaps the most famous of all. It was discovered in Pylos by Carl Blegen and was the one that confirmed Michael Ventris's decipherment was correct. It is an inventory of vessels, such as tripods and amphorae. Next to the drawing (ideogram) of a tripod, the tablet bore the word 'ti-ri-po' (tripod). Next to the drawing of a vessel without handles, it reads 'a-no-we' (ear-less). This was irrefutable proof that the Mycenaean spoke Greek, as the words perfectly matched the descriptions of the objects.
The 'Coast Guards Tablet' also originates from Pylos and was written shortly before the destruction of the palace. It begins with the phrase 'Thus the watchers are guarding the coast' (o-u-ru-to o-ko-wo pa-ra-jo), followed by a list of names of men and military units dispatched to guard various points along the Messenian coastline. At the head of each group was a commander.
- Ma-re-u: One of the primary commanders of the guards.
- E-ke-ra-wo (Enkhelyawon): A very high-ranking figure in Pylos, whom scholars believe was the king himself.
- Ka-do-wo (Kadmowon): A name reminiscent of the mythical king Cadmus of Thebes.
Military Units:
- Ke-ki-de: A specific group of soldiers, possibly light infantry.
- Ku-re-we (Kouretes): Reminiscent of the legendary warriors who protected Zeus when he was an infant.
- I-ta-re-we: Another military unit dispatched to a specific sector.
The men are dispatched to locations that archaeologists have identified with actual geographical regions:
- O-wi-to-no: A coastal area that appears frequently in the records.
- Me-ta-pa: An important city.
The Knossos Honey Tablet bears the inscription 'pa-si-te-o-i me-ri'(to all the gods, an amphora of honey). It is significant because the names of various deities are inscribed upon it, specifically the name of Eilethyia, the goddess of childbirth who is also mentioned in the Homeric epics. Today it is believed that she was a deity originating from the Minoan era. Furthermore, the tablet mentions the word ''labyrinth'' (da-pu-ri-to-jo), confirming that the Labyrinth was not merely a myth but an actual religious site-possibly the palace of Knossos itself-where honey was offered.
On this and other similar tablets, the names of the gods also appear:
- Potnia of the Labyrinth (du-pu-ri-to-jo Po-ti-ni-ja): It is believed that she was the female deity primarily worshipped at Knossos.
- Erinys (e-ri-nu): The Erinyes of classical mythology appear as early as the Linear B era. The tablets record the offering of oil to an Erinys, as fact indicating that their worship is ancient. It appears there was originally only one, likely serving as a deity who punishes injustice or protects oaths.
- Dionysus (Di-wo-nu-so): For many years, scholars believed that Dionysus was a foreign god who came to Greece from the East. With this reference, it is clear that he was worshipped as early as 1300 BC.
- Zeus (di-we): He often appears alongside the goddess Dioni (Di-wi-a), who was likely considered his wife instead of Hera.
- Hera (e-ra): She is mentioned as a recipient of offerings, demonstrating her long history as a great goddess.
- Hermes (e-ma-a): Mentioned as messenger and protector.
- Enualios (e-nu-wa-ri-jo): In Homer, this is used as an epithet for Ares, but in Linear B, he appears to have been a distinct god of war.
Decipherment
The decipherment came gradually suring the 20th century. First, Alice Kober noticed something critical: that certain words had the same roots but different endings. She realised, in other words, that the language had inflections, cases, and genders. She proved that Linear B was a syllabic script, where each symbol represented a combination of consonants and a vowel (e.g 'ta', 'te', 'ti').
The English architect Michael Ventris, who was also amateur linguist, used Kober's data to construct a mathematical grid (a 'grid' is a structure tool used in decipherment to organise symbols; it consists of rows and columns where signs that share the same vowel are placed in the same column). He arranged the symbols in a table, attempting to identify which ones shared the same consonant, even before he knew how they were pronounced.
The great breakthrough occurred when Ventris hypothesised that certain words appeared only on tablets from Crete where place names. He tested the phonetic values for Knossos and Amnisos. The symbols clicked into place perfectly. Suddenly, he began to read other words as well. To his astonishment, he realised that the words being formed closely resembled ancient Greeks.
Not being a philologist himself, Ventris sought the assistance of John Chadwick, a specialist in the history of the Greek language. Together, they applied Ventris's rules to hundreds of tablets and discovered that the word for 'shepherd' was po-me (poimen), the word for king was wa-na-ka (wanax), and the word for 'bronze' was ka-ko (khalkos).
The Final confirmation came with the Tripod Tablet. In 1952, the archaeologist Carl Blegen discovered this new tablet in Pylos; by applying the same system, the tablet read the word 'ti-ri-po-de' (tripodes) right next to the ideogram of a tripod. Until that moment, all archaeologists including Arthur Evans, who conducted the excavations at Knossos-believed that the Mycenaeans like Minoans were not Greeks.
References
Wikipedia contributors. (2025, November 13). Linear b. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_B
Minos Kalokairinos, Evans, S. A., Myres, S. J., Kober, A., Ventris, M., & Bennett Jr., E. L. (n.d.). The decipherment process. https://www.classics.cam.ac.uk/system/files/documents/process.pdf
Linear B syllabary - the ancient script of Crete. (n.d.). https://www.omniglot.com/writing/linearb.htm
Wikipedia contributors. (2025b, December 27). List of Mycenaean deities. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mycenaean_deities
Wikipedia contributors. (2025a, October 8). Mycenaean religion. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycenaean_religion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Kober
Wikipedia contributors. (2025c, November 13). Michael Ventris. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Ventris
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Chadwick
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