Reading Linear A

 There has been a lot of new information about the Trojan war and about the Mycenean and Minoan civilizations since I studied this in college.

These civilizations did have writings, but without a rosetta stone, there were problems in trying to figure out what they said. 

Linear A was the writing of the ancient Minoans on Crete, who were conquered by the Myceneans, and the Myceneans then started writing a similar script. The Minoan writings were called Linear A, the Mycenean script was called Linear B.

Eventually the Linear B script was deciphered by a non archeologist named Michael Ventris 

The clue was that Linear B was a form of Greek but Linear A has never been deciphered: Partly because no one is sure of what was the language.

But now, thanks to computer analysis, Linear A is being deciphered. LINK

“What we see with Linear A, Linear B, and the two different languages notated (Minoan and Greek) is that the graphic system (script) was continued without considerable change (but of course there are differences), but the languages differ. Upon the transmission process of Linear A to Linear B there was therefore ‘linguistic shift’. However, the graphic system was not deeply affected,” she says.

Asked by Greek Reporter if there are exact translations of any Linear A writing at present, Salgarella demurred, but explained why finding many corollary symbols leads to hope that it will indeed be completely understood one day. “I am afraid there is currently no exact translation of the sign-sequences (= words) attested on Linear A tablets (as well as other document types). This is primarily because we have not yet identified the linguistic family the Minoan language belongs to (unless it has to be taken as an ‘isolated’ language),” she replies. ”

Probably the decipherment will contain information on taxes, inventory, etc rather than stories, but even this would be helpful in filling in the blanks of the Minoan civilization and ancient trade.

 The story of the decipherment of Linear B  by Ventris is a classic story but the background is that many others tried to decipher it, including Alice Kober, whose analysis suggested it might be a form of Greek, which went against the prevailing ideas that denied this.

Kober was not just held back by sexism, but because back then those who discovered stuff kept it secret until they could publish it, and get the glory of having done so. So her access to Linear B script was limited.

Nowadays, open access is a tool that is helping to open the secrets of the past.

headsup from Instapundit