Community hub
Recent from talks
Contribute something to knowledge base
Content stats: 0 posts, 0 articles, 1 media, 0 notes
Members stats: 0 subscribers, 0 contributors, 0 moderators, 0 supporters
Subscribers
Supporters
Contributors
Moderators
Hub AI
Linear A AI simulator
(@Linear A_simulator)
Hub AI
Linear A AI simulator
(@Linear A_simulator)
Linear A
Linear A is a writing system that was used by the Minoans of Crete from 1800 BC to 1450 BC. Linear A was the primary script used in palace and religious writings of the Minoan civilization. It evolved into Linear B, which was used by the Mycenaeans to write an early form of Greek. It was discovered by the archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans in 1900. No texts in Linear A have yet been deciphered. Evans named the script "Linear" because its characters consisted simply of lines inscribed in clay, in contrast to the more pictographic characters in Cretan hieroglyphs – likewise undeciphered – that were used during the same period.
Linear A belongs to a group of scripts that evolved independently of the Egyptian and Mesopotamian systems. During the second millennium BC, there were four major branches of this group: Linear A, Linear B, Cypro-Minoan, and Cretan hieroglyphic. In the 1950s, Linear B was deciphered and found to have an underlying language of Mycenaean Greek. Linear A shares many glyphs and alloglyphs with Linear B, and the syllabic glyphs are thought to notate similar syllabic values, but none of the proposed readings lead to a language that scholars can understand.
Linear A consists of over 300 signs including regional variants and ones which occur only once. Among these, a core group of 90 occur with some frequency throughout the script's geographic and chronological extent.
As a logosyllabic writing system, Linear A includes signs which stand for syllables as well as others standing for words or concepts. Linear A's signs could be combined via ligature to form complex signs. Complex signs usually behave as ideograms and most are hapax legomena, meaning that they occur only once in the surviving corpus. Linear A signs are divided into four categories:
Linear A was usually written left-to-right, but a handful of documents were written right-to-left or boustrophedon.
Furthermore, the following ‘supplementary’ syllabograms for more complex syllables can be identified (where in some cases the exact pronunciation is or used to be unknown even for Linear B, hence the use of subscript numbers):
The following list contains some frequent ideograms/logograms whose meaning is known and uncontroversial and almost all of which are preserved in Linear B. The meaning of many others is debated. Note that some of the ideograms are also used as syllabograms; in such cases, the sound value is indicated in the table before the Bennett number.
These numerals follow a decimal system: units are represented by vertical dashes, tens by horizontal dashes, hundreds by circles, and thousands by circles with rays. There are special symbols to indicate fractions and weights. Specific signs that coincide with numerals are regarded as fractions; these sign combinations are known as klasmatograms.
Linear A
Linear A is a writing system that was used by the Minoans of Crete from 1800 BC to 1450 BC. Linear A was the primary script used in palace and religious writings of the Minoan civilization. It evolved into Linear B, which was used by the Mycenaeans to write an early form of Greek. It was discovered by the archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans in 1900. No texts in Linear A have yet been deciphered. Evans named the script "Linear" because its characters consisted simply of lines inscribed in clay, in contrast to the more pictographic characters in Cretan hieroglyphs – likewise undeciphered – that were used during the same period.
Linear A belongs to a group of scripts that evolved independently of the Egyptian and Mesopotamian systems. During the second millennium BC, there were four major branches of this group: Linear A, Linear B, Cypro-Minoan, and Cretan hieroglyphic. In the 1950s, Linear B was deciphered and found to have an underlying language of Mycenaean Greek. Linear A shares many glyphs and alloglyphs with Linear B, and the syllabic glyphs are thought to notate similar syllabic values, but none of the proposed readings lead to a language that scholars can understand.
Linear A consists of over 300 signs including regional variants and ones which occur only once. Among these, a core group of 90 occur with some frequency throughout the script's geographic and chronological extent.
As a logosyllabic writing system, Linear A includes signs which stand for syllables as well as others standing for words or concepts. Linear A's signs could be combined via ligature to form complex signs. Complex signs usually behave as ideograms and most are hapax legomena, meaning that they occur only once in the surviving corpus. Linear A signs are divided into four categories:
Linear A was usually written left-to-right, but a handful of documents were written right-to-left or boustrophedon.
Furthermore, the following ‘supplementary’ syllabograms for more complex syllables can be identified (where in some cases the exact pronunciation is or used to be unknown even for Linear B, hence the use of subscript numbers):
The following list contains some frequent ideograms/logograms whose meaning is known and uncontroversial and almost all of which are preserved in Linear B. The meaning of many others is debated. Note that some of the ideograms are also used as syllabograms; in such cases, the sound value is indicated in the table before the Bennett number.
These numerals follow a decimal system: units are represented by vertical dashes, tens by horizontal dashes, hundreds by circles, and thousands by circles with rays. There are special symbols to indicate fractions and weights. Specific signs that coincide with numerals are regarded as fractions; these sign combinations are known as klasmatograms.
Recent media
Recent media