Athena Review Image Archive ™
Linear A tablet from Knossos
Linear A on a clay tablet (Herakleion Museum; photo: Athena Review).
Linear A documents took many forms, from multi-word clay tablets to the more common nodules, roundels, and sealings stamped with only a few characters. As Evans (1895) first pointed out, Linear A seems to have evolved from earlier hieroglyphs by about 1850-1700 BC, with original pictograms reduced to cursive strokes or lines (hence the name "linear").
Occurring
at a wide variety of sites (palace and non-palace), ranging from
Knossos in central Crete to the islands of Thera and Samothrace, most
evidence of Linear A's use for administrative purposes dates from
Middle Minoan IIB- Late Minoan IB (1750-1475 BC). The most
abundant Linear A deposits have been found at Agia Triadha, Khania,
Knossos, Phaistos, and Malia. Other sites include Zakros, Gournia,
Petras, Arkhanes, Myrtos-Pyrgos, Tylissos, Kea Milos, Palaikastro,
Thera, and Samothrace (Schoep 1995).
The largest single deposits were found at Agia Triadha in two buildings containing about 150 tablets and 861 nodules. Knossos' Temple of the Repositories, excavated by Evans in 1903, revealed 150 Linear A seal impressions and three disks, dating from Middle Minoan IIIB-Late Minoan IA. Khania has produced Linear A archives with lists and censuses on 97 clay tablet fragments, 122 roundels, and 28 nodules (Vlasaki 2003). Examples at Phaistos include four flat-based nodules, four roundels, and one sealing on a chest which dates to Middle Mioan IIB, the time of a great palatial destruction.
Very few Linear A documents have been discovered in situ. Destruction of upper levels by earthquakes or fire caused the artifacts to fall to lower levels, thus moving them from their original location. Linear A usage seems to have terminated somewhat abruptly towards the end of the LMIB period, with the final palatial destructions on Crete in about 1450 BC.
[Source: "Bronze Age Writing on Crete: Hieroglyphs, Linear A, and Linear B," in Athena Review, Vol.3, no.3, 2003].
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