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 was succeeded by 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 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: 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 symbols with Linear B, and they may notate similar syllabic values, but neither those nor any other proposed readings lead to a language that scholars can read.

Script
Linear A consists of over 300 signs including regional variants and hapax legomena. 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, occurring only once in the surviving corpus. Thus, Linear A signs are divided into four categories:
 * 1) syllabic signs
 * 2) ligatures and composite signs
 * 3) ideograms
 * 4) numerals and metrical signs

Linear A was usually written left-to-right, but a handful of documents were written right-to-left or boustrophedon.

Special signs
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):

Ideograms
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.

Numbers
Numbers 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.

Integers can be read and the operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division are quite straightforward, similarly to Roman numerals.

Fractions
There is a lack of scholarly agreement about signs, generally called klasmatograms, for Linear A fractions. In 2021 Michele Corazza proposed the following values, most of which had been previously suggested:

Other fractions are composed by addition: the common JE and DD are $1/2$ and $1/4$ ($1/5$), BB = $1/6$, EF = $1/8$, etc. (and indeed B $1/10$ looks like it might derive from KK $1/16$). L, Y, and Ω are hapax legomena (only occur once) and it has been proposed that glyph L is spurious.

Several of these values are supported by Linear B. Although Linear B used a different numbering system, several of the Linear A fractions were adopted as fractional units of measurement. For example, Linear B DD and (presumably AA) are $1/20$ and $1/24$ of a lana, while K is $1/30$ of the main unit for dry weight.

Corpus


Linear A has been found chiefly on Crete, but also at other sites in Greece, as well as Turkey and Israel. The extant corpus, comprising some 1,427 specimens totals 7,362 to 7,396 signs. Linear A has been written on various media, such as stone offering tables and vessels, gold and silver hairpins, roundels, and ceramics. The earliest inscriptions of Linear A come from Phaistos, in a layer dated at the end of the Middle Minoan II period: that is, no later than c. 1700 BC. Linear A texts have been found throughout the island of Crete and also on some Aegean islands (Kythera, Kea, Thera, Melos), in mainland Greece (Ayos Stephanos), on the west coast of Asia Minor (Miletus, Troy), and in the Levant (Tel Haror, Tel Lachish).

The first comprehensive compendium of Linear A inscriptions (sometimes referred to as GORILA) was produced by Louis Godart and Jean-Pierre Olivier in multiple columns between 1976 and 1985. In 2011 work began on a supplement to that compendium. In 2020 a project was begun, called SigLA, to put all the known Linear A inscriptions online at a single site.

Tablets
Essentially all Linear A tablets, most in a fragmentary condition, have been found on the island of Crete, dated to the Neopalatial Period. At that time Crete was divided by mountains and other geographic features into a number of polities, each with its own urban center. These tablets have been found at Hagia Triada (147 tablets), Petras, Phaistos (26 tablets), Knossos (6 tablets), Petsophas, Archanes (7 tablets), Myrtos Pyrgos (2 tablets), Zakros (31 tablets), Tylissos (2 tablets), Malia (6 tablets), Gournia (1 tablet), and Khania (99 tablets). One Linear A tablet was found on Kea in the Cyclades. Three tablet fragments were found on the island of Santorini (Thera). The handful of known Cretan Hieroglyphs tablets (with relatively few signs) were also found on Crete at Malia and Kato Symi.

Sealed documents
Seals and clay sealings served the same role of inventory control and ownership as in the ancient Near East and Egypt. Large numbers of sealings have been found, primarily on Crete and in the Late Minoan IB period. The primary sources of sealed documents come from Haghia Triada (1103), Zakros (560), Khania (210), Knossos (125), Phaistos (35), Malia (6), and Tylissos (5). It is not clear what was commonly used to impress the sealing as only a few Linear A inscribed "seal stones" have been found. In other regions cylinder seals and stamp seals fulfilled this role.

Sealed documents are divided by archaeologists into four classes:
 * Roundels - disks of clay with sealing on the edges
 * Hanging nodules - sealed lumps of clay originally attached to string
 * Parcel nodules - lumps of clay with sealing on back
 * Noduli - clay lumps like hanging nodules but not formerly string attached

Libation tables
A group of Minoan finds, usually from sanctuaries, have traditionally been called libation tables. They come in full sized and miniature versions, usually of stone. Because of the findspots, at cultic sites like Mount Juktas, they are usually assumed to be religious in nature though that is not certain. So far about 1000 libation tables have been recovered at 27 different sites on Crete, of which 41 have Linear A inscriptions. These inscriptions follow a standardized "libation formula", a formula also found on a few other objects, primarily vessels.

The "libation formula" has been much studied. A similar construct in Cretan Hieroglyphs, the "Archanes Formula", is the main proposed link to Linear A.

Other sources
While most of the recovered Linear A signs have come from tablets, libation tables and related ritual objects, and sealed documents, a number of very short Linear A inscriptions have been found in the Minoan area of operation, primarily in the form of potmarks and mason's marks. A problem is that is can be difficult to tell if a single-sign (or even doubleton) is Linear A, Linear B, or Cretan Hieroglyphs because of the overlap in sign use. Vessel sherds were found at Traostalos, bearing three signs in total. Four vase sherds were found at Thera with signs, as well as a ostrakon with one sign. A vessel fragement was found at Miletus. Two pithoi with very fragmentary inscriptions were found at Pseira. Graffiti has been found at places like Hagia Triada. A small clay ball with three Linear A signs was found at Mikro Vouni on the island of Samothrace. A small stone tab with two signs was excavated in Hagios Stephanos, Laconia. A silver hair pin and a gold ring, both with fairly long Linear A inscriptions, were found at Mavro Spelio in Knossos.

A Linear A inscription was said to have been found in southeast Bulgaria. Another, somewhat more solid, find was at Tel Lachish. A Minoan graffito found at Tel Haror on a vessel fragment is either Linear A or Cretan hieroglyphs.

Several tablets inscribed in signs similar to Linear A were found at Troy in northwestern Anatolia. While their status is disputed, they may be imports, as there is no evidence of Minoan presence in the Troad. Classification of these signs as a unique Trojan script (proposed by contemporary Russian linguist Nikolai Kazansky) is not accepted by other linguists. Two Linear A inscribed clay spindle whorls were also found at Troy.

Chronology
The earliest attestation of Linear A begins around 1800 BC (Middle Minoan IB) during the Protopalatial period. It became prominent around 1625 BC (Middle Minoan IIIB) and went out of use around 1450 BC (Late Minoan I) during the Neopalatial period. It was contemporary with and possibly derived from Cretan hieroglyphs, and may be an ancestor of Linear B. The Cypro-Minoan syllabary, used between Cyprus and its trading partners around the Mediterranean, was also in use during this period. The sequence and the geographical spread of Cretan hieroglyphs, Linear A, and Linear B, the three overlapping but distinct writing systems on Bronze Age Crete and the Greek mainland, can be summarized as follows:

Decipherment


Linear A has not been fully deciphered. However, researchers are reasonably confident in the approximate sound values of most syllabic signs and are able to make inferences about the meanings of some texts.

Challenges to decipherment
One major barrier to its decipherment is the limited surviving corpus. Only around 1400 Linear A inscriptions survive, in contrast to the 6000 available for Linear B. As a result, researchers are stuck with limited sample sizes, making it difficult to reliably detect patterns. Similarly, Linear A inscriptions are often fragmentary, damaged, or otherwise hard to read. It can be difficult to individuate particular signs and to distinguish separate signs from handwriting variants. Finally, Linear A inscriptions tend to be brief and repetitive. Rather than complete sentences, many are lists where each entry consists of a toponym or personal name followed by a logogram and then a numeral. Thus, the surviving corpus contains few spelled-out words and limited evidence of the grammatical structure.

A second barrier is the scarcity of external evidence. No bilingual inscriptions have been found, preventing the script from being deciphered in the manner that Egyptian hieroglyphs were deciphered using the Rosetta Stone. The underlying language of Linear A has not been determined, and it is not clear that the same language was used for its entire period of use. The grammatical evidence that can be gleaned from the surviving corpus suggests that it was not a close relative of any known language.

Phonetic values
For most of Linear A's syllabic signs, approximate sound values can be inferred based on the values of homomorphic signs in Linear B. These sound values are widely accepted by current researchers, though they are not considered incontrovertible and many details remain up for debate. This does not amount to a complete decipherment since it results in words that are uninterpretable.

These values are based on the homomorphy-homophony principle which states that in related writing systems, signs with similar forms will generally have similar phonetic values. Although this principle is not reliable across the board, there are a number of strong reasons why scholars have concluded that it does generally hold in Linear A. One reason is that is already known to hold in many cases between Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary, another script which descends from Linear A. This fact suggests that these signs were inherited by both scripts along with their Linear A phonetic values. A second reason is that the resulting Linear A sound values provide readings of words which match what contextual analysis would lead us to expect. For instance, words which contextual analysis suggests to be placenames are read as such when assuming Linear B values. Notably, the Linear A word 𐘂𐘚𐘄 would be read as Pa-i-to, corresponding to the placename Phaistos attested in the Linear B corpus as 𐀞𐀂𐀵 Pa-i-to.

However, in particular cases scholars have identified reasons to expect divergence in pronunciation. Some scholars have argued that Minoan did not really have a vowel phoneme /o/, that it may not have had the labialised velars that the q-signs express in Mycenaean, and that the only apparent voiced stop, d, was really a dental fricative in Minoan.

The following table shows signs that are known to be syllabograms and for which provisional and approximate sound values are assumed primarily based on the known pronunciations of identical or similar signs in Linear B.

While many of those assumed to be syllabic signs are similar to ones in Linear B, approximately 80% of Linear A's logograms are unique; the difference in sound values between Linear A and Linear B signs ranges from 9% to 13%.

Underlying language


Linear A does not appear to encode any known language. The placeholder term Minoan language is often used, though it is not certain that the texts are all in the same language. Minoan appears to be agglutinative, making copious use of prefixes and suffixes. It likely had a three vowel system, since it shares Linear B's /i/, /u/, and /a/ series, but not Linear B's /o/ series and not all of its /e/ series. Based on regularities in the Linear A Libation Formulas, it has been argued that its word order was Verb Subject Object.

Scholars have noted a number of potential parallels between Minoan and Anatolian languages such as Luwian and Lycian, as well as with Semitic language such as Phoenician and Ugaritic. However, even if these connections are not coincidental, it is unclear whether Minoan is related to one of these languages or if the parallels arose through language contact.

Unicode
The Linear A alphabet (U+10600–U+1077F) was added to the Unicode Standard in June 2014 with the release of version 7.0. Current as of the latest Unicode version, 15.1.