Correcting some errors of mine...

Hello again, dear readers! While my tedious lab work has left me very little for pastime activities in 2012, I still managed to make some interesting discoveries in the past months. What is more, I even managed to make a minor breakthrough with the Cretan Hieroglyphs. Thus several Middle Minoan inscriptions have now become not just readable, but also meaningful. To achieve this, I had to correct the reading of several signs: even some signs whose case I previously considered "already solved". During my years of research, I observed that most scientists tend to "fall in love" with their own theories: and that is where trouble starts. After all, you should be critical with your own results, even more so than with the results of others. Only so can you ensure the quality of research you provide.

As I mentioned earlier, it is very easy to make unintended errors when attempting to decipher a fully-unknown writing system. And - without enough attention - these early assignment errors will become a true pain in the later stages of decipherment. They would definitely cause the entire attempt to derail at a certain point. My earlier work on the identification of potential 'KA' and 'QE' signs in the Cretan Hieroglyphic system is no exception to the rule. It was too late I realized that the sign I attempted to assign to Linear A 'QE' is in fact non-existent! Although endowed with an identifier by Godart and Younger (as if it were a syllabary sign), Hiero *73 seems to be nothing more than the numeral '100' on the hieroglyphic clay tablets. On the stamps, the few dubious instances of  Hiero *73 are probably identical to sign *47 (the "sieve" sign) or they are just decorative separators. This leaves my earlier theory nothing short of a fancy speculation. But let us start everything from the beginning!

Recently I have put quite some work into adding more signs to the list of "known" Hieroglyphic Minoan characters. With some luck, I was able to identify the probable counterpart of Linear A 'DI' (*07) syllabogram. Now I can state that 'DI' very likely corresponds to the Hiero *11 (the "boucranium") sign. Where do I pull this conclusion from? As we have seen before many times, a mere similarity between the shapes of Hieroglyphic and Linear A signs can be misleading - due to the very significant time gap between the Knossos Hieroglyphic and Haghia Triada Linear A archives. It is as if we attempted to assign our letter 'P' to the classical Greek 'Ρ', not paying attention to the lengthy and non-linear development (Greek letter 'Ρ' is actually rho and corresponds to our letter 'R').

What I apply now is a combined approach based on not just the graphical design of signs, but also on their tendencies to form certain lexeme units. One can note that occurrances of a given open syllable are not random in any language, but they obey certain statistics governing their appearence in a given position relative to other syllables in words. Mathematicians would call my approach "entropy minimalisation". I observed that sign Hiero *11 is very common in not just word-initial positions, but also directly before signs Hiero *56 (= 'NA') and Hiero *29 (possibly 'NI'). All these features are true to the Linear A 'DI' sign as well, probably stemming from the high frequency of the (closed) syllable written as 'DI-N'- in the Minoan language.

The reading of Hiero *11  sign as 'DI' gives words that can directly be paralleled with Linear A forms. As it is trivial for clay bars and medals, most if not all the terms mentioned are names (sometimes with titles). These are mostly hapaxes, even in Linear B. Thus the best one can prove is that the words share their stem, but not their complete form. Such examples include the term A-WA-DI in Hieroglyphics, paralleling the name WA-DI-NI in Linear A (it is unclear whether the latter is a personal or a place-name). It is also notable, that there are plenty of hieroglyphic documents containing the phrase DI-NA. This recalls an interesting word - probably a place-name - in Linear A: DI-NA-U [HT9, HT16, HT25], often abbreviated as just 'DI' on the Haghia Triada tablets [e.g. HT85]. Although the occurrance of the name DI-NA-U on a vessel at Knossos [KN Zb27] suggests potential northern Cretan affinities for this place, so far I was unable to suggest any further identification. One may also read another familiar term in Cretan Hieroglyphics: WI-DI-NI, closely resembling a personal name mentioned on the Haghia Triada tablets: WI-DI-NA [a hapax on HT 28]. Despite all my earlier fancy theries, Hiero *37 could reasonably be identified with Linear A 'WI', yielding the reading above. On one bar, we can find the same signs in a permuted order, giving the reading DI-NI-WI instead of WI-DI-NI. Could this be an early form of Linear A DI-NA-U? There are still so many open questions lingering around hieroglyphic documents!

Still, despite all the above identifications and speculations, an uncomfortable feeling remains. There were no identical phrases in both Hieroglyphics and Linear A, reading with 'DI'. So we still need a better example to ascertain this value. When browsing through the CHIC volume, I came upon a little piece of clay from Knossos (CHIC #45) with an interesting text. There are no logograms on this medallion, as common in Linear A. Nor there are any word-dividers, thus we should read both of its sides as a single phrase. The word definitely spells ?-?-TA-RE (the two last syllabary signs are certain), and now we are in the position to read its initial syllable as 'DI'. But what could the last unidentified syllable be? A value with 'K' would fit very aptly there, with the most appropriate value being 'KA'. This way, the inscription shall read as DI-KA-TA-RE !

Mentions of the sacred mountain Dikte are common in Linear A sources: we have already seen versions like JA-DI-KI-TE-TE- and A-DI-KI-TE-TE- as well as JA-DI-KI-TU on the libation tablets. Linear B sources refer to the place as DI-KA-TA. What we see here is a form similar to the Linear B nominative case, but endowed with a typical Minoan suffix (*-ale) denoting origin, as commonly seen on Linear A tablets (e.g. compare A-MI-DA-U [ZA10] with JA-MI-DA-RE [HT122]). Although the reading is dubious due to the low quality characters, another medallion from Knossos (CHIC #47) may also contain a word DI-DI-KA on one of its sides. If correct, this would exactly be the same as the stem of a Linear A word written on a Zakros vessel (ZA Zb3): DI-DI-KA-SE, dealing with wine, similarly to CHIC #47.

Now we are in the situation, that we need to prove the reading of Hiero *77 as 'KA' in order to validate all these hypotheses. Fortunately, the hieroglyphic archives contain plenty of names: place names and personal names alike. Sometimes these words are written in an alternative form: the same phenomenon has been an important tool for the clarification of phonetic values in Linear B. Although at a limited extent, this approach is also useful for Hieroglyphics. I was able to come across such an intriguing pair of names in Cretan Hieroglyphic. One of the documents, a clay medallion from Knossos contains a separate word (name) on one of its sides that might read as SA?-*77-NI. On the other hand, a seal impression from Mesara (near Phaistos) features a very similar name: SA?-KI-NI.  The only difference is the middle sign: and this is actually explainable if the original name was something like *Sakni. Resolving the *-kn- cluster one way around would give SA-KA-NI (progressive spelling), the other way the result would be SA-KI-NI (regressive spelling).

Time has come to mention another notable inscription. I discovered a spectacular specimen when checking the DBAS database for Hieroglyphic sealstones containing this very character. The seal in question is CHIC #200 (found at Malia) and it is no boasting to call this fine piece of jewellery the "Royal Seal of Malia", you shall immediately see why. The stone seal is unusual in a certain sense that - although it is drilled in the middle and made to be rotated, it has only one flat side that is actually inscribed. Unexpectedly, the "start sign" (that designates the first word to be read) is also in the middle of the line. However, the crowded placement of signs (the two last signs are on top of each other) suggests an alternative arrangement: the inscription might run in a circle!

Using our corrected phonetic values, the first word of this masterwork seal would read WA-NA-KA. This is the same word that Linear B used for the title of a king (wanax in Mycenaean Greek)! Although wanax (stem: wanakt-, behaving as a heteroclite in Classical Greek with a -t- extension) is sometimes believed to be a Pre-Greek loanword, this is the first time we see it in pure Minoan context. Finally, the last sign of the line can be read together with the first one if the inscription is circular; this could be another term specifying the kingdom. This last sign has a somewhat dubious interpretation. Most scholars would read it with the value "JA" without question, but this is not the only possible reading, and might not be the correct one, either. For this instance of Hiero *38 (that could also be Hiero *39) also resembles Linear A "PA3". Plugging that into the Hieroglyphic script yields a very familiar place-name: PA3-NI, mentioned about half a dozen times at Haghia Triada [HT6, HT85, HT93, HT102], and also at other places, like the peak sanctuary at Syme [SY Za4].

Based on the co-occurrances of PA3-NI with other names, it could already be mapped to mid-central Crete (it seldom groups with western Cretan places, and never with more eastern towns like SE-TO-I-JA or KI-TA-NA). Very tentatively, I placed it to Gournia, but Malia would have been an equally good candiate. Now we see the first hint that PA3-NI could have been the ancient name for Malia, and that Malia was a separate kingdom into itself (it had a WA-NA-KA of its own). This is very well in-line with the results of archaeologic research, suggesting that Crete was politically fragmented during the Minoan era into at least four small souvereign city-states or kingdoms, with no central "Minoan" authority whatsoever.

How much do these minor discoveries add to our understanding of Cretan Hieroglyphics? I hope that these bits of information shall be crucial in the future to fully decipher the first known Aegean script. Unfortunately, we still do not have a "critical mass" of known signs. If we had them, they could hopefully start a true chain reaction, suddenly turning all the remaining signs readable  - as happened to Michael Ventris, after he plugged in a critical number of correctly-identified Linear B signs into the grids of Alice Kober. But before we reach that point: well, research must continue!

Exploring the Cretan numeral system

After a lenghty pause, I returned to present some brand-new results of my research. This time, I shall be slightly off-topic, and instead of linguistics, we shall examine the ancient Cretan measurement and numeral systems. Roughly half a year ago, I turned my attention to the still-unresolved questions around the Minoan numeral system. It took quite a lot of comparative research, between Linear A tablets, and even the more extensive Linear B archives, to come to some firm conclusions. Instead of wild guesses like I made before, it is now time to present some coherent theory. I hope you enjoy it!

Like in the lands of Sumer and ancient Egypt, accounting and writing evolved hand-in-hand and thus numeric characters were intergral part of ancient writing systems. Similar in concept to the Egyptian numbers, but not in shape, the Minoan-Mycenaean system was also decimal. The sign of '1' was a simple vertical stroke. Higher numbers consisted of multiple strokes: two for '2', three for '3', etc. In case of discretely countable entities (e.g. people or animals), these signs denote plain numbers, while in the case of goods like grain, figs or oil, the situation is less trivial (more about this later). Different magnitudes have different characters. The sign for '10' is a simple horizontal stroke. Typtically, this precedes the lesser digits, as Minoan and Mycenaean scribes also made some limited use of positional notation. Number '100' is written as an empty circle.  A 'radiant circle' denotes '1000'. There is even a sign for '10,000', a radiant circle filled with a horizontal stroke inside. There are too few examples in Linear A to ascertain the latter values, but since '1' and '10' look exactly the same as in Linear B, it is rather trivial to identify the rest of the integer signs as well. Unlike the rather complex measurement systems of ancient Mesopotamia, Minoans did not have separate counting systems for different goods. The same integer numbers could be applied to items measured by wet volume (e.g. wine, olive-oil), dry volume (grain, figs) or weight (metals). I spent quite some time in the past months, eyeing the Cretan tablets eagerly for any small difference between the ways separate types of goods were catalogued. Yet I failed to find any.

To understand how Cretans were able to use essentially the same measure system for fluids and solids we should examine how later Hellenes did define their measurement units. It seems that everything revolved around a base unit, the quantity of water a single amphore could hold. The volume of an "average" Greek amphore differed from place-to-place, but was roughly about 19 to 36 litres. This is suspiciously close to the Minoan volume unit restored based on a vessel from Zakros (ZA Zb 3). An inscription mentioning 32 units runs below its rim; the actual volume of the pithos is slightly above 1000 litres. If it was meant to be full, the Minoan volume unit is around 32 litres; if not, it is somewhat smaller (29-31 L). Equally, this integer unit could also denote a weight of 29-32 kilograms, since the density of water (or wine) is 1.0 g/cm³. Ancient Greeks also defined their mass units based on this hypothetical standard amphore: the weight of its water content equalled one talent. The talent was further sub-divided into 60 minas, following the ancient Mesopotamian tradition of 60-based systems. For a Minoan scribe, it must have been trivial to switch between specimen numbers, volumes and weights using this simple and easy-to-learn system of counting by amphores.

While the system of integers is simple, nice and succint, the fractional units are unexpectedly complex. Both the earlier Minoans and later Mycenaeans used a high number of fractional signs to express quantities less than their (rather large) base units. Yet here the two systems are rather divergent: Mycenaean fractional units are usually specialized to measure different goods by either volume or weight, while this is not the case for Minoan fractions. But the two systems are not as radically different as one might think - we shall see this soon enough. Since ancient peoples had no knowledge of irrational numbers, all non-integer quantities typically denote simple, rational fractions (e.g. 1/2, 3/4, 2/5, etc.). Any quantity that was smaller than the unit, was to be approximated by a sum of these fractions. Egyptians preferred the use of fractions of the form 1/n (n = any natural number). One does not need to be a mathematician to prove that if we defined 1/n-type signs for all n<N, using a sufficiently high N, all quantities can be approximated arbitrarily well with this system. So we only need a finite number of fractional signs, if it is our objective to measure with a fixed error margin.

The most common fraction seen in Linear A is named 'J', graphically looking like a "lesser than" sign. This is - obviously - the one for 1/2. There are plenty of tablets with totals (e.g. HT9, HT104, etc.) to demonstrate that. The second most common fraction is labelled 'E', it looks like an almost exact mirror of 'J'. This has (you could have guessed it) the value 1/4. The next symbol in this series is a bit more tricky. Sign 'F' looks like 'E' with a horizontal line crossing it in the middle, thus symbolically cutting it in half. To show that this one is 1/8, we also have direct proof: on tablet HT8, there are two fraction 'F's following two well-established names (QA-*310-I and PA-JA-RE) thus they need to add up to 'E' in order to make that calculation work.

With a little luck, we can even identify the sign 'H' as 1/6. Tablet HT123+124 features *122 and *308 quantities for each name, being nicely proportional (3:1) to each other for practically all lines. You can see this on my reconstruction above. Based upon the considerably high quantities, *122 (= RA3, "LAI")  is probably OLIV (olives), and not CROC (saffron), the only other Linear B logogram similar to it; but there is no hint on the identity of *308. Due to the fragmentary nature of this tablet, it is not the easiest thing to reconstruct the exact numbers that once stood in each entry; yet the end totals give enough constraints (in the form of an equation system) to fix most illegible fields. To make this work, one has to propose, however, that the scribe sometimes disregarded the positional notations when making calculations (there is ample evidence that the same happened on side B of the very same document). If we also assume that the scribe made no errors upon totalling, there is only one correct solution, that you can see on my facsimile.  Interestingly enough, the tablet - if read properly - yields evidence on the existence of a sign with 1/12 value. As the sign 'X' (Godart & Olivier) on the end of the second line is more plausibly read 1+'A', this strongly suggests that sign 'A' had the value 1/12.

Finding out the exact value of other fractions is more tricky. For example, there are the 'B' and 'D' series of fractions - both reasonably common. Obviously, one would expect fractions with a higher value (lower denominator) to be more prominetly featured than quantities below 1/10. This would mean that the fractions 1/3 and 1/5 be the most common. As there are not many ancient numeral systems putting a stress on 1/7 and 1/9 fractions, these ones were probably rare in Mycenaean and Minoan contexts - if existent at all. This leaves us on a quest to find out how to match the 'D' and 'B' series to derivatives of 1/3 and 1/5.

We have very little information on the true value of the 'D' sign (looks like the Latin letter 'S') and the related doubling 'DD'. John Younger tried to pursue the idea that these are exclusively dry weight measures - based on their close similarity to the Mycenaean  'M' sign used for metals or wool; but none of the tablets support Younger's conclusions. 'D' and 'DD' are seen with every imaginable type of goods, even with olive-oil. This indicates that it was a generic fraction, not exclusive to - say - cereals. Others (Dieter Rumple) suggested the value 1/5 - again, without any convincing proof. That idea solely relies on a single tablet (HT115), where a quadrupling of the base fraction unit (DDDD) can be read. As for me, after a thorough research, I came to the conclusion that the value of 'D' is probably 1/3. 'DD' would therefore be 2/3. As for 'DDDD' (4/3), one must see that similar overshoots are rare, but definitely do exist on several tablets (JJ=2/2 [PH9, PH22], EE=2/4 [PH12, PH13]). Now, if 'D' is indeed simply 1/3, it can also nicely explain the graphical image of fraction 'H' = 1/6. Numeral 'H' looks as if it were carrying the upper half of 'D', divided by a line below. Similar to the way 'F' = 1/8 was built, its graphical image actually shows (1/3) / 2 = 1/6 ! Linear B documents have a similar sign to represent a  (wet volume) unit ('S'), that might indicate a quantity 1/6 instead of the previously proposed 1/3 (by Chadwick). It probably evolved from a mirrored version of Linear A  fraction 'H'; similarly to the way the Mycenaean fraction 'V' seems to correspond to the Minoan 'L' family of fractions.

The 'B'-series of fractional numerals is definitely more complicated than the 'D'-series. 'B' looks like a plain cross. 'BB' is a simple doubling of 'B', but there are also a couple of signs ('K', 'A', 'X', 'W') that resemble the shape of 'B'. How many of these are related to the base sign 'B' is still an open question. Fortunately, this time we do have some solid evidence on our hands for the value of  'B', albeit meager in quantity. Tablet KH7 appear to contain food rations shared among a fixed number of people. The rather strict proportinality straightforwardly implies that 'B' is in fact 1/5. While different tablets seem to employ slightly different food shares per person, we can probably accept that on the same table, rations are more likely to be fixed. Interestingly enough, two closely related Haghia Triada tablets (HT16 and HT20) - both mentioning a list of animal products - appear to list goods proportionally to one another (WA:*188+KU = 1:2), if but only if 'B' = 0.19 ~ 0.2 = 1/5! 'B' definitely follows both 'J' [KH5, KH6, KH17] and 'E' [KH9] on the tablets, thus (from the positional notation) suggesting that it is indeed < 1/4.

Sign 'K' is one probably related to 'B'. Its appearance is indistinguishable from the Linear B fraction 'T', of a value 1/10. Graphically, it is just the lower half of sign 'B' (1/5). Earlier, this sign was assumed to have a value as small as 1/16, based on a flawed piece of 'evidence': the graffito on the wall of a house at the Haghia Triada site (HT Zd 155). It was interpreted by some authors (Pope, Olivier, Stieglitz) as a geometric series. I examined that piece eagerly, but much to my dismay, it is just another piece of 'wishful thinking'. The "inscription" is nothing but a maze of purely vertical and horizontal lines. There is probably no fraction 'K' there at all, and the two last signs (that were even transliterated by J. Younger as TA-JA) are nothing but speculations (note that these signs consist exclusively of vertical and horizontal lines). So I must reject any identification of fraction 'K' as the half of sign 'F', and rather insist on inferring its value from the Mycenaean counterpart (very likely 1/10).

Quantities 'A', 'X', and 'W' are pretty mysterious. All these appear to be rather small. (Note that the reading 'ABB' on KH 86 is apperently faulty, the entire number is likely just a single 'X'.) Although I previously pursued the idea that sign 'A' might be related to the 'B' series (1/5 based), now I uncovered pieces of evidence (see the restoration of tablet HT123-124) that it could plausibly be just 1/12. While fraction 'A' has no Mycenaean counterpart, fraction 'X' corresponds to a Linear B weight unit 'N', used for metals or wool. Since it would not make much sense to propose sign 'X' to be another 1/6 quantity, this leaves it unidentified for now. No matter how well this would fit the proportion M:N = (2/3) / (1/6) = 4, as in Linear B. Fraction 'W' is only seen on a small number of Khania tablets (KH12, KH60, KH61, KH77), offering no clue for its value.

The smallest units ever used on Linear A are - no doubt - the so-called 'L'-series of signs. This is the only instance where signs are supplemented with counting-strokes on their right side in Linear A (this was customary in Linear B for all fractions, though). The very base unit (that has no counting stroke) is called 'L', but it was seldom employed. It is much more commonly used with 2 strokes (L2), 4 strokes (L4) or even 6 strokes (L6). L5 is never found, and L3 is rare as well (the only unambiguous example stems from a single Middle Minoan Knossos tablet). Again, we have no direct proof for their values. This opens up the place for wild speculations. Formally, the fact that L3 and L5 are disfavoured, would suggest that the denominator of L-fractions (if common) was divisible by both 3 and 5. The smallest such number is 15. The problem here is that L2 very commonly follows fraction 'K' on the Khania tablets, that would make little sense in terms of magnitudes (as 2/15 > 1/10, obviously). On the other hand, the L-series of fractions are apparently related to the Linear B quantity 'V', sometimes termed 'choinix', based on the similarity of 'Z' and 'V' fractions to the classical Greek κοτύλη and χοῖνιξ volume units. The problem there is that their proportion to the base unit ('1') is not fixed, but different for fluids and solids, giving no candidate number for the denominator of  Linear A fraction 'L'. (You can see a sketch of the Mycenaean systems above.) John Younger attempted to use Khania tablet KH7 (that you could also see a few paragraphs before), to fix the value of L2 at 3/20. But this complex value would make little sense. Also, the numbers in the penultimate entry reconstructed by Godart are probably slightly faulty (it likely mentions 37 people, not 38). Yet the next line may feature the text KI-RO (badly damaged). If so, then L2 and L6 must ad up to 1/10. If they have the same base denominator (that is probable), then L = 1/80. This would also offer an alternative explanation why examples with an odd number of strokes were rare: because it was used primarily to express 1/40 units (L2 = 1/40, L4 = 2/40, L6 = 3/40, according to this theory). Note that L2 is reasonably common with grain portions (especially at Khania). In Linear B, the daily meal of an average worker was three 'kotylai' (Z3), that might be corresponding to exactly unit 'L' in the Minoan system.

Other fractions still exist in Linear A contexts: they are still unresolved, and will probably remain so. Such ones are fraction 'Y' (seen only at Phaistos [PH26]) and fraction 'Ω' (seen as a vessel-qualifier at Malia [MA10]). There might have been graphically distinct fractional signs for all numbers of a form 1/n for  sufficiently high integers - say n < 20, but numbers that were rarely used (as they were of a prime n or they did not match the procession of any quantity) were unlikely to appear in regular accounting. While fraction Y might have been something like 1/7, with the lack of evidence, it will essentially remain undeciphered in the end.

Thus we have seen that - while there are still many unsolved problems in ancient Aegean metrology, some questions may be answered with pure logic and deduction. This also applies to the Mycenaean units. Encouraged by the Minoan discoveries, I made slight changes to the metric procession of Linear B dry and wet units. You can see this on the table above. With the different densities of water and (ground) grain taken into consideration, this system now perfectly meets all expectations of precise metrics. The only thing that needed changing was unit 'S' (now proposed to be 1/6 instead of 1/3). While Kim Raymoure's Linear B database offered no example of S3, S4 or S5, this only means that 'S' ≤ 1/3. And this is what we have to contend for the time being. Unless we are willing to bravely attempt to fill in the gaps in our current knowledge.

Riddles in Linear A - Part II

Happy New Year to everyone! I hope you enjoyed my last post about hard-to decipher Linear A tablets. Now we shall examine some even more mysterious ancient documents: those ones that can only be understood if we analyse not just the names - but the numbers standing beside them. It is now time for some mathematics!

The most obvious problem one can encounter when reading Minoan clay tablets is the lack of knowledge about the transaction terms themselves. After all, how can we understand anything about Cretan accounting, if we do not even know if the goods mentioned were actually collected or - on the contrary - distributed? Our path is clear: to understand more of the meaning of the tablets, we have to analyse the quantities of wares.

Let our first specimen to study be the clay tablet HT8 (see figure). This tablet is fortunately complete, and written with easily readable characters. But it still somehow lacks in clarity. Judged from the absence of any totalling term (KU-RO), it likely lists outgoing goods: the headers seem to list the total stockpile of oil (OLE+KI) to be distributed. The modifier 'KI' might point to a type of "scented oil" (e.g. rose-scented or sage-scented) that was sent to sanctuaries of gods all across the land on certain annual festivals - if we can believe the Linear B tablets already deciphered by Ventris and Chadwick. The distribution patterns on HT8 are quite intriguing on their own, and may admit more than one possible solution. At least some of the entries must be transaction terms, otherwise the numbers would not work. The most trivial solution to the problem was found by Brent Davis & John Younger. But this is not the only possible one. You shall also see my rival hypothesis on the same figure.

The main strength of the original solution is the ability to interpret both sides of the tablet as complete and integrated entity. However, Davis & Younger needed to assume two transaction terms to achieve this goal - both the sole 'PA' syllabogram and the hapax word SU-PU2-*188. Although a single 'PA' returns on other documents, no other tablet supports their reading as transaction terms. On the other hand, most names clearly recur on other tablets, such as PA-JA-RE [HT29, HT88, ZA10], TE-WE [HT98] or QA-*310-I [HT85, HT122]. HT85 even features a similar single-syllable 'PA' term. However, on the toponym list HT85, 'PA' probably abbreviates PA-I-TO, the name of Phaistos. It is tempting to believe that the same applies to the place-name list on HT10, where a toponym tied to KU-NI-SU (Knossos?) is contrasted to a list headed by 'PA' (tributaries to Phaistos?). To remedy the situation, I played around the numbers to find an even better solution to this tablet. As you can see on the figure, if we split the document into two almost-separate lists (with 15 units of oil to distribute, instead of 10), we only have to assume the existence of a single transaction term on side B. KA-PA is a more-or less obvious candidate: it also returns on the headers of tablets HT6, HT94, HT102 and HT105. On HT11 and HT140 we also find a counting term 'KA' (abbreviation, KA-PA?) that frequently stands beside large quantities without any names mentioned. KA-PA is likely related to another word: KA-PE [HT9], that is undoubtedly a transaction term, and stands as contrasted to SA-RO2 on the same tablet. Note that KA-PA itself can form a single expression with SA-RA2 (as on HT102), but it never-ever joins up with A-DU (another common term alongside SA-RA2).

To understand the complementarity and mutual exclusivity of these transaction terms, we must make some assumptions on their meanings first. SA-RA2, one of the most common transaction terms on the Haghia Triada tablets could be cautiously translated as "supplies" (note that it almost always stands before a list of consumables, most typically GRA [wheat]). I chose the word "supplies" to avoid any explicit implications to incoming or outgoing transactions - that are often difficult or impossible to guess. As for A-DU, after a thorough study, I find the reading of John Younger (A-DU = "assessed") really enticing. Now, if KA-PA would mean something like "leftover", "remaining", we could now explain entire phrases: A-DU • SA-RA2 [HT99] = "assessed supplies", TE • A-DU [HT92, HT133] = "give (as) expected" KA-PA • SA-RA2 [HT102] = "remaining supplies", SA-RO2 = "supplied", in contrast to KA-PE = "of what remains". KA-PA can be used with a wide variety of goods, even people [HT94, HT105], in which case, they are counted by type (profession) and not by provenience. On HT102, KA-PA stands before a very substantial number of GRA: 976 units - that would be about 32,000 litres of wheat if measured by volume - likely the whole stockpile of an entire settlement. There is even a Classic Greek word: κάπηλος of prehellenic origins, meaning "local wholesale merchant" (i.e. who dealt in the surplus goods a community produced), that could possibly be connected with KA-PA / KA-PE.

It is also important to examine the dual 'PA3' syllables that start each sub-list. Since the tablet completely lacks word-dividers, these particles might form separate words. Unlike 'PA', the abbreviation 'PA3' (whose reading as a member of the P-series is only weakly supported in Linear B) is a well-attested transaction term (HT9, HT34, HT103, HT132). Its occurrance on HT103 in particular, suggests a reading like 'delivery'.

Tablet HT8 is also interesting because of a completely different reason: it features the rare sign Lin A *188 twice. While *188 also stands as a separate word (abbreviation of a name?) on several documents (HT15, HT56, HT103, HT123, HTWc3014, HTWb229), not just on HT8, here it also recurs as part of a longer word: SU-PU2-*188. This is particularly intruguing because of the phonological character of 'PU2'. That is quite a special syllabogram, as its use in words DA-PU2-RI-TO-JO (Lin B *daburinthoyo) and DU-PU2-RE (Lin A *duphre?) shows: unlike the ordinary 'PU', its consonant might have been at least partially voiced, possibly due to external triggers [clustering with thrills or nasals]. This realization may imply sign *188 being of the the N-series. Interestingly, the N-series has a very obvious hole in it in Linear A: the ancestor and Minoan counterpart of Linear B *42 ('NO') has not yet been identified. Now we have a plausible candidate - but this topic clearly deserves its own post, so I shall leave it to later. Nevertheless, a reading SU-PU2-NO (*suphnú) speaks for itself, and even resembles to the modern name of the island Siphnos - known to be an important economic center (thanks to its precious metal mines) of the Cyclades in the Bronze Age and later. Though it is also true that the naval distance between southern Crete and Siphnos is substantial, so a direct identification is questionable at best.

Now, let us turn to our attention to another piece of numeric riddles. Tablet HT103 offers an equally difficult puzzle as our previous one was. Although HT103 is slightly damaged at its right edge (rendering some signs only partially legible), it is preserved well enough to enable a clear reading without major reconstructions. The first sign on the header is abraded, but - if we can believe the reconstruction of J. Younger (that I also find plausible) - the first word was probably U-TA2. Note that a tablet written by the same scribal hand (HT26) features a very similarly shaped 'U' sign that we reconstructed here. U-TA2 would be a hapax term, albeit it resembles to both an alternative reading of KN10 (inital word: TA-NU-TA2-TI) and to the supposed Eteocretan term 'utat'. Potential tyrrhenian parallels (Etruscan *ut-/*uth- = "to deliver") would indicate a transaction term, having to do something with distribution of goods. Indeed, the header continues with the logogram 'NI' (figs) and a number of 40. Since there is no totalling term anywhere below (although we have KI-RA for missing units), and all the numerals on the tablet are considerably smaller than 40, it appears to be recording the act of distribution.

The key to understanding is provided by the obervation that practically all quantities recorded are multiples of 6.5: Number 13 (third line) is the double of this base portion, and the single unit mentioned in the last line also gives 1+5.5 = 6.5, if we add the missing 5.5. The tablet apparently records an attempt to distribute the initial 40 units of figs into 6 smaller, equal units. This gave a standard unit (with the qualifier DA-KU-SE-NE) of 6.5, and the double unit (qualifier: *188) of 13. Since 40 = 6 x 6.5 + 1, the remaining 1 unit of fruits is distributed as a portion , with the premise that 5.5 would be paid later. The initial segment of line two has broken off, but - judged from the inclination of signs - a syllabogram must have been there before the number, probably 'TI' (c.f. DA-KU-SE-NE-TI [HT104]). DA-KU-NA appears to be just another grammatic case of DA-KU-SE-NE, with a defective writing (*DA-KU-SA-NA) - this points to DA-KU-SE-NE being something like *takusne.

Now we have seen that - with ample effort - many of the tablets can be given a fairly meaningful reading. Unfortunately, I lack the time and resources to continue on this path and examine each tablet separately, but I promise to come up with other Cretan topics soon. Including the revision of some of my earlier theories.