Alphabet Key To History Of Mankind

Author(s): David Diringer
Publisher: Hutchinsons Scientific and Technical Publications

Page 77

76
Class B only appears at Knossos and at Pylos, and is found on numerous clay tablets belonging to the archives of the Palaces. The script must, therefore, have been a kind of aulic or official script. The tablets seem to be mostly inventories and accounts. According to Evans, the script in question was a parallel evolution to Linear Class A, but Sundwall is probably right in considering Linear Class B as a development of Linear Class A. The number of the main signs in Class B is reduced
to 73, out of which 48 can be connected with Class A. The numeration is also partly
Tal
V
THE ALPHABET
POL WH. TUP O AGE
她爸
You
6707. MY SID MEYENLEY THE TE
+ F
XE2TTEA SSOYEX
#SYWY 16T 2 W IC + TE ¥ em xe FBAY XX
F4 155 TATDA1
BY27A
ATYL TY
TEOFT
PETO
HEUREK FX STE YOU TY NEW VRH
NA FA A PA T 9481 FOEN YHOU ZEN ANY FOT? VOLTEOFIT MA Wat Vort: ARAB FLAD KASPAR 1 FOR YO 36 1987 **** ATHTHO
#O TOLERA FLO
Fig. 39
1-3, Inscriptions in "Linear Class B"
4. Symbols of "Linear Class B"
changed; the units are represented by upright lines, the tens by horizontals, the hundreds by circles, the thousands by circles with four spurs, and the ten thousands by similar signs with a dash in the middle.
Both the scripts, Linear Class A and Class B, are cursive and do not appear on the beautifully cut seals of the same period, which are purely pictorial. Neither of the two scripts seems to have continued during L.M. III, that is to say, from the end of the fourteenth century B.C. to about 1200 B.C.: but at Pylos, in S.W. Peloponnesus, about 600 tablets in Class B, found in the archives of the Palace, are dated about 1200 B.C.