Exploring Bronze Age Aegean Culture via Linear B Tablet Inscriptions

This assignment analyzes the Bronze Age Aegean culture, primarily based on the decipherment of Linear B tablets discovered in Knossos, Crete. The study reveals key aspects of their civilization, including livestock farming, religious practices, and trade activities. Evidence from translated tablets demonstrates the importance of livestock, with ideograms representing bulls, pigs, cows, and rams. Religious practices are highlighted through references to goddesses, gods, and sacrificial rituals. Trade is also evident, with inscriptions indicating marketplaces and the exchange of goods like olive oil. The assignment concludes by emphasizing the cultural significance of the Bronze Age Aegean people, portraying them as a well-rooted society with a rich lifestyle, and leaving cultural footprints in modern-day Greece and beyond. The assignment includes citations from various sources, including works by Baumbach, Levin, and Raison, to support the findings.

Surname 1
Name
Professor
Subject
Date
The Bronze Age Aegean culture
Linear B tablets were first discovered in 1878 in Knossos, Crete. Inscriptions on the
Linear B tablets were deciphered in the 1940s through to the 1950s by different scholars
throughout the world. From these findings, it is easy to determine their way of life as some
inscriptions were mainly pictorial (KN SC 225).
Livestock farming was a major part of their culture. Evidence of ideograms showing
bulls (Kn 898 D oo4), pigs, cows, and rams was recorded. To support this claim, Rita Roberts
translated one of the tablets (KN 897 D an 11) that bore the ideogram of oxen as a herdsman or
the owner of a herd. Ideograms of ewes and goats were also visible in Linear tablet KN 911 e 01
(Knossos). In one of the tablets, inscriptions that translated to fine units of wool suggests that
they kept sheep and also performed sheering (Linear Tablet B Mycenae MY Oe 106)
Religion, like most cultures, was a part of the Bronze Age Aegean's. From a translation by Rita
Roberts on Linear B tablet KN 702 M b 11, an ideogram for "amphora" showed the existence of
goddesses and gods to whom the honey sacrifice was being offered to. Similarly, in Knossos'
tablet KN 913 D k 01, a goat ideogram was visible, a she-goat, which meant it was not just a
goat. This led scholars to the conclusion that these goats were used for religious purposes like a
sacrifice.

Surname 2
Trade is also an evident cultural activity for this community as seen in Linear
Tablet KN 903 D a 01. Inscriptions on these tablets had numbers and ideograms of different
livestock including ewes and rams in a market place, suspected to be called ‘Wato'. Evidence of
exchange of olive oil is also visible in Linear B tablet KN 349 J b 12. Measurements of barley
and olive fruit are also stated in this tablet. In one of Rita Roberts translations (KN 911 D e 01),
there was evidence of slavery which was inscribed next to ideograms of ewes and her goats. This
can be concluded that ewes and she-goats were used as a medium of exchange for slaves.
In conclusion, the ways of life that included livestock keeping, trade, pottery and even religious
practices that lasted up to 1200BCE describes the Bronze Age people as a well culturally rooted
society who left cultural footprints with their very interesting lifestyle in modern day Greece and
the whole world at large.

Surname 3
Works Cited
Baumbach, Lydia. The impact of the decipherment of the Linear B script on linguistic and
historical studies: inaugural lecture, 13th April, 1977. No. 43. University of Cape Town,
2014.
Levin, Saul. The Linear B decipherment controversy re-examined. SUNY Press, 2014.
Raison, Jacques. "The Knossos Tablets . A Transliteration of all the Texts in Linear B Script
found at Knossos, Crete, based upon a new collation of photographs and originals
(University of London, Institute of Classical Studies. Bulletin Supplement No. 15)."
(2011): 354-357.