Overview

Overall there is a great unity of evidence visible in all Minoan palatial centres, villas and farm-houses. The administrative clay tablets with Linear A inscriptions offer mainly lists of personal names, consisting of Hurrian 'sentence names' and so-called 'one-word' names comparable with those from Near-Eastern and Anatolian centres. It is significant that we find both 'Old Hurrian' names and 'Mitanni-Hurrian' names in the Minoan centres as in the Near East and Anatolia. The 'Old Hurrian' names contain 'Old Hurrian' verbal forms and the 'Mitanni-Hurrian' show verbal forms that we know from the Tusratta letter. It is clear that Linear B inherited many features from Linear A, especially the majority of syllabic and ideographic signs, signs for weights and measures and numeral signs (that show a decimal system). Linear A used, however, also many ligatures, of which some turn out to represent theonyms, notably NUBES+pi 100 (HT 33.4) = 'Cloud'+pi, which appears to be a rebus-like notation of the 'God of clouds' = Tesub+pi > Tesuppi (genitive) 'of Tesub' followed by qe+pa3 = ḫe+pa3 100 (HT 33.4) = (Tesub's wife) Ḫebat, both followed by the high number of 100. Linear A has also signs for fractions, which Linear B seems to miss. In the Old Linear A grids Linear A sign 91 (showing graphic identity with Linear B sign *78) was still conventionally rendered as qe (labio-velar + e), but the actual phonetic value of Linear A 91 is ḫe (voiced velar fricative + e), which is the value of this sign in the new Linear A grid. The same applies to Linear A sign 62, that was formerly transliterated as qa (like the graphically identical Linear B sign *16 = *qa), but that is in the new Linear A grid ḫa. The author has proved with many confirmatory matches that Linear A sign 96 (and its variant sign 68) can be identified as ḫi. Among the many new identifications are some interesting ethnics: Linear A ku-re-96 (HT 39.2; HT 117b.1), transliterated as ku-re-ḫi = Ḫurr=e=ḫi 'Hurrian', twice attested at Hagia Triada, and conventionally transliterated qa-ti-96 2 (ZA 14.2), interpreted as Ḫattiḫi, Ḫatt=i=ḫi, 'man/woman of the land Ḫatti' = the Hurrian name for 'Hittite' occurring at Kato Zakro. There are many resemblances between Linear A and B, but also some differences. Most remarkable is the apparent lack of syllabic sequences describing products as we sometimes encounter in Linear B. The most likely reason is the very small size of the Linear A tablets, on which the Minoan scribes used ideograms that clearly and simply indicated vessels, commodities, animals, people, etc., whereas the Linear B scribes had enough space to add more detailed information to the ideograms. An exception is tablet HT 31 from Hagia Triada, where syllabic sequences are written on top of ideograms of vessels providing specific information on provenance and contents of the vessels.

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Reviews

Jacques Raison (Paris) wrote a review in the REVUE DES ETUDES GRECQUES, Tome XCVII, Nos 460-461, 1984, p. 87: Du meme auteur (Peter G. van Soesbergen, BICS 28, 1981, p. 163, resume une conference du 28-5-80 sur le meme sujet 'The historical significance of onomastic data from Linear A and B texts' (texte complet fourni sur demande par la revue). .... Sans pousser jusqu'a l'hieroglyphique, trop mal connu, Van Soesbergen, entre autres preuves, remonte aux origines du lineaire A, dont les traits 'agglutinants' et les caracteristiques orthographiques du syllabaire (inferees de celles du syllabaire B, son heritier), lui paraissent avoir ete concues pour une langue comme celle du Mitanni. Rapprochement de mots du lineaire A et hourrites (assez interessant, quand ils sont suffisamment longs); essai, finalement, point tellement loin d'une esquisse de dechiffrement partiel. Sous la meme signature, bref retour, mais ferme, sur les traits 'hourrites' du lineaire A dans 'Progress in Linear A research', communication au congres EIRENE de septembre-octobre 1982, a Prague (a paraitre dans les actes de cette reunion). En preambule, resume des acquis anterieurs concernant l'ecriture evoquee: il est retenu, comme assure, un peu de chacun et annonce un livre sur The onomastics of the 'Minoan Linear A' and 'Linear B' documents and their historical significance , ainsi qu'un Corpus of transliterated Linear A texts .

Jacques Raison (Paris) wrote a review in the REVUE DES ÉTUDES GRECQUES, Tome XCVII, Nos 460-461, 1984, p. 87: ""Du même auteur (Peter G. van Soesbergen, BICS 28, 1981, p. 163, résume une conférence du 28-5-80 sur le même sujet 'The historical significance of onomastic data from Linear A and B texts' (texte complet fourni sur demande par la revue). .... Sans pousser jusqu'à l'hiéroglyphique, trop mal connu, Van Soesbergen, entre autres preuves, remonte aux origines du linéaire A, dont les traits 'agglutinants' et les caractéristiques orthographiques du syllabaire (inférées de celles du syllabaire B, son héritier), lui paraissent avoir été concues pour une langue comme celle du Mitanni. Rapprochement de mots du linéaire A et hourrites (assez intéressant, quand ils sont suffisamment longs); essai, finalement, point tellement loin d'une esquisse de déchiffrement partiel. Sous la même signature, bref retour, mais ferme, sur les traits 'hourrites' du linéaire A dans 'Progress in Linear A research', communication au congrès EIRENE de septembre-octobre 1982, à Prague (à paraître dans les actes de cette réunion). En préambule, résumé des acquis antérieurs concernant l'écriture évoquée: il est retenu, comme assuré, un peu de chacun et annoncé un livre sur ""The onomastics of the 'Minoan Linear A' and 'Linear B' documents and their historical significance"", ainsi qu'un ""Corpus of transliterated Linear A texts"".

Author Information

Peter G. van Soesbergen (born in Amsterdam, 7th February 1945) studied Classics at the University of Amsterdam (Doctoral Examination cum laude). He pursued research on The archaeological context of Minoan Linear A for ""The Netherlands Organization for Pure Research"" (report of 400 pp.), published several articles and gave papers at international colloquia and congresses (Heraklion, Bucharest, Sheffield, Nottingham, Prague, Rome, Naples), a Mycenaean Seminar on ""The historical significance of onomastic data from Linear A and B texts"" (Institute of Classical Studies, University of London) and special papers on Linear A at Cambridge and Groningen. He pursued research as a Leverhulme European Visiting Fellow and Independent Research Worker at the University of Sheffield, where he received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) on the thesis ""The onomastics of the 'Minoan Linear A' and 'Linear B' documents and their historical significance"". He taught Greek, Latin, Ancient History, Archaeology, Mycenology and Andrological examination. After his retirement he is still pursuing research.

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