Tom Palaima | The University of Texas at Austin (original) (raw)

Papers by Tom Palaima

Journal of the American Oriental Society, 1998

Wooden object. 15 x 8.5 cm. (maximum length and height); 5.0 cm. wide in middle; maximum thicknes... more Wooden object. 15 x 8.5 cm. (maximum length and height); 5.0 cm. wide in middle; maximum thickness 3.0 cm. Polished and tapering. Inscription made with a thin blade-like stylus not at all dissimilar to the 'exacto-blade' stylus used for actual Linear B clay tablets. Reverse completely devoid of writing. ' This object was found in the epichoric shrubbery on the grounds outside the J.H. Mitchell Theatre of Melbourne University at 3 AM March 29, 2008. At this time the discoverer, as is his wont at Aegaeum conferences, was in a slightly intoxicated state producing, as ably described by Helene Whitaker, "dislocation of the mind," from having imbibed just a drop, or two, of products from the Shelmerdine Winery following one of the many ample southern hemispheric feasts that were distributed amply throughout the DAIS conference. He was actually, at the time of chancing upon the inscribed object, trying to relocate his mind, a task that many view as comparable to the underworld labors of Sisyphus or the Nile River flowing upstream. Immediate use of his handy on-the-spot Carbon-14 testing kit proved inconclusive. Dendrochronological examination was frustrated by the absence of a saw and the hardness of the native wood. By employing smell, taste, touch, sight and sound, in the sensuous and sensitive manner proposed by Rachel Fox, it was determined that the object was made of wood cut from the Tamarind, Diploglottis Cunninghamii, a species of tree which once grew to heights of 60-80 feet in Queensland and New South Wales. It appeared to have been cut from a specimen slightly less than 16 years ago. The discoverer, plagued already in a Midas-like way with a preternatural knack-some would call it a curse-for chancing upon inscribed linear documents in out of the way places like Calvi,

Humorous paper delivered at the 13th International Aegean Conference at the University of Copenha... more Humorous paper delivered at the 13th International Aegean Conference at the University of Copenhagen.Classic

The importance of feasts and other forms of social rituals surrounding meals is well known to par... more The importance of feasts and other forms of social rituals surrounding meals is well known to participants in the DAIS con[ erence. Given the attention that the Linear B tablets give to the production, management, distribution, offering and consumption of foodstuffs, and the documentation of agents for the procurement and preparation of food, it may seem surprising that the vocabulary for meals per se is so meager in comparison with later Greek vocabulary: ariston, deipnon, dorpon, eranos (apwrnv, 8e1nvov, Mpnov, epavoc;). Even dais (8aic; a 'repas, banquet ou chacun a sa part') is missing from the banqueting and other food distribution texts, despite the importance and prevalence of the root from which it derives 1 in other Mycenaean Greek vocabulary connected with the social distribution of resources, e.g., da-mo (damos) and verbal forms e-pi-de-da-to, e-pi-da-to, o-da-sa-to. In the context of our discussion of feasting, we should note that the root cpay-(which forms part of the historical suppletive verbal system for the action 'to eat') in Inda-European has the meaning 'partager, recevoir une part', (i.e., it is in the same semantic field as 8aioµm). cpay-eventually is semantically specialized in historical Greek in its use in the aorist system as 'eat'. Here we discuss the Linear B anq. historical Greek terminology for 'meals' in order to arrive at a clearer view of what the data far banqueting actually are and what factors, historical, cultural and social, might explain why the Linear B tablets offer their peculiar documentation. Feasting, after all, has economic, social, ritual, political and pragmatic functions and different kinds of meals/feasts, as events, organize and mobilize communities, social groups and individuals in fundamental ways. The activities and rituals connected with social eating help societies to form their world views and even, as with us, to organize their days and mark their monthly and seasonal annual calendars. The Mycenaeans certainly had a collective body of traditional agricultural knowledge, of the kind eventually textually fixed in Hesiod's Works and Days, that preserved and spread know-how about growing the crops they depended on for food and managing the livestock that provided meat and dairy products. First, however, a few comments on the importance of food and the customs and rttuals surrounding food. Susan Sherratt 2 gives a fine account of how feasting appears in the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer. She notes, correctly, that "[£]easting appears as arguably the single most frequent activity in the Odyssey and, apart from fighting, also in the Iliad" (p.181); and that "[£]easting is ubiquitous and constant-it is what Homeric heroes do in company at every opportunity" (p. 182). The question, however, becomes whether this is poetic exaggeration, or a reasonable reflection of how a specific class of people lived. Sherratt believes that the frequency with which feasting is represented in certain passages (e.g., Odysseus' feasting with Agamemnon and then with Achilles in Iliad 9.89-92 and 9.199-222; and later still with Diomedes after their night mission in 10.576-579; and Telemachus' feasting with his companions upon their arrival in Ithaca in Odyssey 15.500-502 and then later when he visits Eumaeus in 16.46-55; and lastly the suitors holding two feasts, one in Odysseus' *

INSTAP Academic Press (Institute for Aegean Prehistory) eBooks, Dec 19, 2020

LCCN 2019055097 (ebook) ISBN 9781931534253 (hardback) A new interpretation is proposed here of a ... more LCCN 2019055097 (ebook) ISBN 9781931534253 (hardback) A new interpretation is proposed here of a Linear B term ka-zo, which occurs in a general context that relates to cloth manufacture. In this interpretation, it most likely identifies a location specifically for the production of the dye proper from the murex and is to be contrasted with the term long identified as having to do with the application of the purple murex dye: po-pu-re-jo = porphureio-. The word ka-zo-de is certainly parallel in its morphology to the form with rapid pronunciation ka-za on Knossos tablet Sp 4452, interpreted correctly there as *khalk-yā (“of bronze”; Melena [2014, 45] cites ka-zo-de as a parallel, and Del Freo [2001, 85] also links ka-zo-de with the site of Khalkis). Given the predominance in the Thebes texts of references to: (1) cloth manufacture, cloth specialists, and cloth groups connected with collectors; and (2) coastal sites in Boeotia and on Euboea, and the absence of references to bronze, however, we think it is more likely here that the ka-zo-de should be interpreted as *kalkh-yonde, from the loan word kalkhā (historical Greek κάλχη) used both for the murex, the marine mollusk, and for the purple dye which is extracted from it (Chantraine 2009, 469, s.v.; cf. Beekes 2010, 629, s.v.). The late adjectival formation kalkhion is used for the purple dye. A metathesized form of this word, identical then in its stem to khalk-os, is attested. If this proposal is accepted—and it is even more probable that the later famous coastal site of Khalkis derived its name originally from the root meaning the marine mollusk kalkh- (Kiepert 1878, 255 n. 1; pace Bürchner 1899, 2079), an etymology that was forgotten and replaced by association with the much more common and widely used word and material khalk-os (“bronze”)—we would have within the Mycenaean lexicon exactly the dichotomy of production locations called for by the archaeological remains at Alatzomouri Pefka.

Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca eBooks, 1988

Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca eBooks, 1998

Perhaps a parallel study of the material at Pylos possibly earlier than its final destruction wou... more Perhaps a parallel study of the material at Pylos possibly earlier than its final destruction would be revealing in that respect There is, however, another possibility: that scribe H207 was also isolated. This is more difficult to prove, however, as (s)he left tablets in very common scribal areas and any attempt to show that his/her tablets are exceptional would be a very delicate and difficult operation. The study of the roughness of hands has located a very small proportion of rough hands (manual workers?) preparing tablets. The fact that the number is very small could lend further support to our argument that the scribes were those who normally prepared the tablets. The hands that are not rough, moreover, may be scribes belonging to an administrative elite following the, argument recently put forward by J. Bennet28. Another interesting aspect of the study of Astrom and Sjoquist is the recognition of children's hands. It seems that a great number of children prepared tablets for the "124" workshop. This, combined with the peculiar elements of that scribal workshop, could lead to many interesting hypotheses, which would depend on the dating of the workshop. Since these are mere speculations, I would rather not embark on an unfounded, though interesting discussion. From the above, one can draw some conclusions. There seem to exist scribes who exchange tablets. They work together, have similar tablets and their specialisations are similar (which explains why they work together). With the help of palm and finger prints we have been able to deduce some working alliances which were not at first self-evident. There remain a few exceptions, however, of people who seem to work together, as they share tablets, but that has nothing to do with their specialisation or with their bureau (notably H141 and H110). In other words, their affiliation, no matter how weak it is, has to be explained in other terms. Moreover, although it is quite conceivable that several minor scribes gave their tablets to more important and busy ones, that will have to remain in the sphere of speculation.

Cahiers de l'Institut de Linguistique de Louvain, 1989

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Peeters Publishers eBooks, Aug 4, 2021

Minos: Revista de Filología Egea, 1990

Hocker notes that after staring at these words for quite some time, he has no strong intuitive pr... more Hocker notes that after staring at these words for quite some time, he has no strong intuitive preference for the texts referring to ship architecture rather than house architecture. It should be worthwhile for experts in Mycenaean palatial architecture to examine these texts anew.

Hesperia, 2004

Linear B tablets and sealings from Thebes, Pylos, and Knossos monitor preparations for communal s... more Linear B tablets and sealings from Thebes, Pylos, and Knossos monitor preparations for communal sacrifice and feasting held at palatial centers and in outlying districts. In this article I discuss the nature of the Linear B documents and focus on the fullest archaeological and textual evidence, which comes from Pylos. Translations of the key texts are presented in an appendix. Individuals and groups of varying status were involved in provisioning commensal ceremonies; prominent among the participants were regionally interlinked nobility, the wanaks ("king") and the lawagetas ("leader of the laos"). Commensal ceremonies helped establish a collective identity for inhabitants of palatial territories. Two land-related organizations, the da-mo (damos) and the worgioneion ka-ma, represented different social groups in such unifying ceremonies.