Linear B for you and me Trivia Quiz

Answer: Mycenaean civilization

Linear B was used during Mycenaean times. The earlier Minoans used Linear B's sister script, Linear A, as well as another writing system, Cretan Hieroglyphic. During the Dark Ages, knowledge of Linear B was lost, although a similar script survived on Cyprus. During Athens' Golden Age, the Greeks used an alphabet modeled on the Phoenician one.

Answer: Clay tablets

Although Linear B could conceivably have been written on stone or wood tablets, no examples have survived. What we do find are clay tablets. These tablets were usually large and rectangular, with up to 28 lines of text, or long and thin, with only one or two lines of text. We also find sealings-- lumps of clay wrapped around the knot in a piece of string and inscribed with a few Linear B signs.

They were a tamper-proof device. In order to remove the string, you could either cut the string or break the sealing, either of which would be detectable. Linear B has only survived because the palaces that housed the tablets burned to the ground, firing the clay.

Answer: Knossos

Evans originally discovered Linear B tablets at Knossos. Linear B tablets were later found at Pylos, Mycenae, Thebes, and other cities on the Greek mainland.

Answer: Making a list of characters

The other answer choices were certainly necessary for the decipherment. However, they all depend upon the existence of a list of characters that is generally agreed upon. Bennett's sign list was so good that it is used, with very few modifications, even today.

Bennett, now in his mid-eighties, recently received an honorary doctorate from the University of Athens in Greece for all of his fine work.

Answer: Syllabic

Linear B's syllabary represents syllables that are pure vowels, like a or i; consonant + vowel, like ta or si; and a very few of the type consonant + consonant + vowel, like dwo or pte. Linear B does not represent some syllables used in Greek, like tri or spe.

In that case, one consonant is either unwritten (pe-ma for sperma) or both consonants are spelled out and the vowel is ignored (ti-ri-po for tripos).

Answer: Inflection

Conjugation only refers to verbs, while declension only refers to nouns and adjectives. I call Kober "a chain-smoking American scholar" with perhaps too much levity. It caused her death at the age of 44, only a few years before the decipherment of Linear B.

Her untimely death and general attitudes about women at the time have prevented her contributions from being appreciated as much as they should. She pursued the work that needed to be done for Linear B even though it did not advance her career. And she did do a massive amount of work-- she cut more than 186,000 2x3 cards to analyze Linear B. May this question be my small tribute to her.

Answer: Cyprus

This is actually a set of very closely related writing systems known as the Cypriot Syllabaries. Naturally, it was used on Cyprus.

Answer: Michael Ventris, an English architect

Chadwick and Bennett were both correspondents of Ventris. Tom Palaima is the director of the Program in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory at the University of Texas at Austin, but he was in diapers at the time of the decipherment.

Ventris' training as an architect certainly contributed to his belief in "group working." He sent out typed "Work Notes" at every stage of his work to other scholars. Ventris certainly did not decipher Linear B by "flying solo."

Answer: False

Although we know the phonetic values for most of the phonetic signs, we still don't know what sounds some of the less common characters represented. Scholarly ink continues to be shed over these.

Answer: Administrative records

It would sure have been nice if the answer really was "all of the above", because scholars would have more material to work with! We try to construct rituals from artistic representations and lists of offerings. There is, I think, one indication of a legal dispute, but that's it. But we can infer quite a bit about Mycenaean society from the administrative records.

Answer: A list of tripods

The list of tripods was so dramatic because the Greek word for tripod, ti-ri-po, appeared right next to ideograms representing tripods.

Answer: wanax (wa-na-ka)

In Homer, the title "wanax" is only given to gods and to Agamemnon, the "wanax of men." The title "basileus," Mycenaean "gwasileus," is given to the less important kings, like Achilles and Diomedes, but in Mycenaean represents a much less exalted position. The lawegetas seems to have been a war leader or something like that. It and the damokoros don't show up in Homer at all.

Answer: All of these

We also have the names of Zeus, Hera, and Hermes, among others. My favorite deity that doesn't show up in later Greek pantheon is pe-re-*82-- we still don't know what sound sign *82 makes!

Answer: W

In Homer, w was just in the process of dropping out-- you can tell because of the requirements of the poetic meter. Sometimes the same word is used with and without the digamma in the space of a few lines.

Answer: Linear A

Linear A contains many of the same characters as Linear B, but doesn't use word dividers or rule lines like Linear B. There are far fewer Linear A than Linear B tablets. The serious reference book for Linear A is known by the acronym GORILA-- the first letters of the author's last names and the title.