Tom Palaima - Profile on Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Tom Palaima
Still Searching for Homer
Peeters Publishers eBooks, May 1, 2024
In his recently completed dissertation, Dimitri Nakassis analyzes theoretical approaches to under... more In his recently completed dissertation, Dimitri Nakassis analyzes theoretical approaches to understanding how states form and how th ey operate. He points out that most archaeological definitions of 'state' rely on Weber's classic definition of a 'state' as "a human community that (successfully) claims the monopol y of the legitimate us e of force within a given territory ," while Bourdieu (1999) emphasizes the state's claim on both physical and symbolic violen ce. Power , which is ju st another way of talking about the abi lity to us e compelling and coercive force, is the first element of John Cherry's classic definition of 'sta te' in an Aegean context: "a powerful, complex, perman ently instituted system of centralized political administration" (italics mine). I take the opportunity of the Epos conference to consider three important recent (in the last decade) negative appraisals of Mycenaean ruler s and the Mycenaean palatial system as a whole (Deger:Jalkotzy, 5 Sherratt, 6 and, the most extreme and phi losophical, Kopcke 7 ) . These are chosen for four reasons. First, they have had a cumulative weight in th at the most recent appraisal by Kopcke reli es on Deg er :Jalkotz y's and Sherratt's appraisals. Second, these thre e studies are methodologicall y diverse and use differ ent persp ect ives, methods and critical assumptions to arrive at their negative conclusions about the Mycenaean palatial system and how its kings and elites exerted th eir pow er . Third, they all have some bearing upon the evidence offered by the epic tradition. Fourth, oral song tradition (epos) and pub lic performanc e literature derived from it served key cultural functions in ancient Greek society from the Bronze Age down through the classical period. Through epic, drama, and other forms of socialized song the Greeks themselves made judgments about the Mycenaean period and used man y different visions of the Bronze Age past to reflect upon important contemporary issues. Discussing how three important modern scholars view the same period gives us the opportun ity to understand how human beings in the remot e past felt abo ut the world around them. It also will help us to think about how we should evaluate the 'success ' or 'fai lure' of syste ms of hum an social organization. Kopcke's article begins with a reference to a Platonic dialogu e (see below). I take this as an invitation to engage in constructive dialogue with th e arguments emp loyed by Kopcke, Sherratt and Deger:Jalkotzy in the positive sense in which this form of inquiry was employed by Socrates and Plato, in search of things that should not esca p e our notice, i.e., things that were a-lethes, what the Greeks called 'true.' In what follows I italicize key elements of Dege r:Jalkotzy 's, Sherratt's and Kopcke's reconstructions that are vital to our understanding of Mycenaean rulers and the palatial system over which they presided. I.e., all italics are mine, unless otherwise noted.
Kosmos in the Mycenaean Tablets: The Response of the Mycenaean 'Scribes' to the Mycenaean Culture of Kosmos
Paper delivered at the 13th Annual International Aegean Conference at the University of Copenhage... more Paper delivered at the 13th Annual International Aegean Conference at the University of Copenhagen. Palaima considers the idiosyncrasies of individual Mycenaean scribal hands in light of palace architecture and the material surroundings of their day-to-day world.Classic
The Man Who Deciphered Linear B: The Story of Michael Ventris. By Andrew Robinson
American Journal of Archaeology, Apr 1, 2003
This paper presents a critical hi storical survey of problems in research on Cyprio1e Bronze Age ... more This paper presents a critical hi storical survey of problems in research on Cyprio1e Bronze Age writing (Cypro-Minoan = CM) and draws the foll owing conclusions: (I) the current class ification of the epigraphical data into 4 general subdivi sions of writing (archaic CM, CM I, CM 2 and CM 3) is invalid. being based on faulty palaeographical assumptions , unwarranted geographical clustering , and contaminatio of inscriptions of distinct typological classes; (2) the palaeographical connection between archaic CM and Minoan Linear A is far closer than has heretofore been acknowledged; (3) the creation of Cypro-Minoan under the strong inOuence of Cretan linear writing is understandable in terms of the historical development of Cypriote contacts with the Aegean and in terms of the relative simplicity and adaptability of Linear A in comparison with contemporary Near Eastern cuneifom1 scripts; (4) Cypro-Minoan retains a remarkable independence and integrity throughout its 500 year history,...
Kosmos in the Mycenaean Tablets: The Response of the Mycenaean 'Scribes' to the Mycenaean Culture of Kosmos
Paper delivered at the 13th Annual International Aegean Conference at the University of Copenhage... more Paper delivered at the 13th Annual International Aegean Conference at the University of Copenhagen. Palaima considers the idiosyncrasies of individual Mycenaean scribal hands in light of palace architecture and the material surroundings of their day-to-day world.Classic
Plutarch, Sayings of Spartan Women, 241.16 vi Acknowledgements I joined PASP (the Program in Aege... more Plutarch, Sayings of Spartan Women, 241.16 vi Acknowledgements I joined PASP (the Program in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory) at UT-Austin in order to complement my background in Bronze Age Aegean Archaeology with a study of the Linear B script. I thank Tom Palaima and Cynthia Shelmerdine for their expertise and assistance in this endeavour. The precision with which they analyze the texts is truly inspiring. I thank Pierre Carlier for all his efforts, encouragement and helpful suggestions during this particular project, Paula Perlman for her comments and interest, and Adam Rabinowitz for his questions which have motivated me to continue researching this topic from different angles in the future. One of my committee members is no longer with us. Mark Southern's passing came as a shock earlier this year. The topic of my dissertation arose while I was working on a paper for one of his classes. He inspired his students by challenging them to open their minds to new ways of thinking about the interplay between language and society in the present and the past. I am indebted to him for his steadfast support, generous sharing of his time and knowledge, and for his patient and insightful guidance. He was a brilliant scholar and a dynamic teacher.
Near Eastern and Aegean Texts from the Third to the First Millennia BC
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,
KO Ko 2010 Cloth Fragments of the Rapinewiad
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' *
Porphureion and Kalkhion and Minoan-Mycenaean Purple Dye Manufacture and Use
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.
Texts, tablets and scribes : studies in Mycenaean epigraphy and economy : offered to Emmett L. Bennett, Jr
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.
The possible methods in deciphering : the pictographic cretan script
Cahiers de l'Institut de Linguistique de Louvain, 1989
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe
Caring for and Nourishing Animals and Humans in Linear B and Homer
Peeters Publishers eBooks, Aug 4, 2021
LINEAR B VE Vd 2018 A MEMORIAL SĒMA
Problems in Minoan and Mycenaean Writing Style and Practice
Still Searching for Homer
Peeters Publishers eBooks, May 1, 2024
In his recently completed dissertation, Dimitri Nakassis analyzes theoretical approaches to under... more In his recently completed dissertation, Dimitri Nakassis analyzes theoretical approaches to understanding how states form and how th ey operate. He points out that most archaeological definitions of 'state' rely on Weber's classic definition of a 'state' as "a human community that (successfully) claims the monopol y of the legitimate us e of force within a given territory ," while Bourdieu (1999) emphasizes the state's claim on both physical and symbolic violen ce. Power , which is ju st another way of talking about the abi lity to us e compelling and coercive force, is the first element of John Cherry's classic definition of 'sta te' in an Aegean context: "a powerful, complex, perman ently instituted system of centralized political administration" (italics mine). I take the opportunity of the Epos conference to consider three important recent (in the last decade) negative appraisals of Mycenaean ruler s and the Mycenaean palatial system as a whole (Deger:Jalkotzy, 5 Sherratt, 6 and, the most extreme and phi losophical, Kopcke 7 ) . These are chosen for four reasons. First, they have had a cumulative weight in th at the most recent appraisal by Kopcke reli es on Deg er :Jalkotz y's and Sherratt's appraisals. Second, these thre e studies are methodologicall y diverse and use differ ent persp ect ives, methods and critical assumptions to arrive at their negative conclusions about the Mycenaean palatial system and how its kings and elites exerted th eir pow er . Third, they all have some bearing upon the evidence offered by the epic tradition. Fourth, oral song tradition (epos) and pub lic performanc e literature derived from it served key cultural functions in ancient Greek society from the Bronze Age down through the classical period. Through epic, drama, and other forms of socialized song the Greeks themselves made judgments about the Mycenaean period and used man y different visions of the Bronze Age past to reflect upon important contemporary issues. Discussing how three important modern scholars view the same period gives us the opportun ity to understand how human beings in the remot e past felt abo ut the world around them. It also will help us to think about how we should evaluate the 'success ' or 'fai lure' of syste ms of hum an social organization. Kopcke's article begins with a reference to a Platonic dialogu e (see below). I take this as an invitation to engage in constructive dialogue with th e arguments emp loyed by Kopcke, Sherratt and Deger:Jalkotzy in the positive sense in which this form of inquiry was employed by Socrates and Plato, in search of things that should not esca p e our notice, i.e., things that were a-lethes, what the Greeks called 'true.' In what follows I italicize key elements of Dege r:Jalkotzy 's, Sherratt's and Kopcke's reconstructions that are vital to our understanding of Mycenaean rulers and the palatial system over which they presided. I.e., all italics are mine, unless otherwise noted.
Kosmos in the Mycenaean Tablets: The Response of the Mycenaean 'Scribes' to the Mycenaean Culture of Kosmos
Paper delivered at the 13th Annual International Aegean Conference at the University of Copenhage... more Paper delivered at the 13th Annual International Aegean Conference at the University of Copenhagen. Palaima considers the idiosyncrasies of individual Mycenaean scribal hands in light of palace architecture and the material surroundings of their day-to-day world.Classic
The Man Who Deciphered Linear B: The Story of Michael Ventris. By Andrew Robinson
American Journal of Archaeology, Apr 1, 2003
This paper presents a critical hi storical survey of problems in research on Cyprio1e Bronze Age ... more This paper presents a critical hi storical survey of problems in research on Cyprio1e Bronze Age writing (Cypro-Minoan = CM) and draws the foll owing conclusions: (I) the current class ification of the epigraphical data into 4 general subdivi sions of writing (archaic CM, CM I, CM 2 and CM 3) is invalid. being based on faulty palaeographical assumptions , unwarranted geographical clustering , and contaminatio of inscriptions of distinct typological classes; (2) the palaeographical connection between archaic CM and Minoan Linear A is far closer than has heretofore been acknowledged; (3) the creation of Cypro-Minoan under the strong inOuence of Cretan linear writing is understandable in terms of the historical development of Cypriote contacts with the Aegean and in terms of the relative simplicity and adaptability of Linear A in comparison with contemporary Near Eastern cuneifom1 scripts; (4) Cypro-Minoan retains a remarkable independence and integrity throughout its 500 year history,...
Kosmos in the Mycenaean Tablets: The Response of the Mycenaean 'Scribes' to the Mycenaean Culture of Kosmos
Paper delivered at the 13th Annual International Aegean Conference at the University of Copenhage... more Paper delivered at the 13th Annual International Aegean Conference at the University of Copenhagen. Palaima considers the idiosyncrasies of individual Mycenaean scribal hands in light of palace architecture and the material surroundings of their day-to-day world.Classic
Plutarch, Sayings of Spartan Women, 241.16 vi Acknowledgements I joined PASP (the Program in Aege... more Plutarch, Sayings of Spartan Women, 241.16 vi Acknowledgements I joined PASP (the Program in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory) at UT-Austin in order to complement my background in Bronze Age Aegean Archaeology with a study of the Linear B script. I thank Tom Palaima and Cynthia Shelmerdine for their expertise and assistance in this endeavour. The precision with which they analyze the texts is truly inspiring. I thank Pierre Carlier for all his efforts, encouragement and helpful suggestions during this particular project, Paula Perlman for her comments and interest, and Adam Rabinowitz for his questions which have motivated me to continue researching this topic from different angles in the future. One of my committee members is no longer with us. Mark Southern's passing came as a shock earlier this year. The topic of my dissertation arose while I was working on a paper for one of his classes. He inspired his students by challenging them to open their minds to new ways of thinking about the interplay between language and society in the present and the past. I am indebted to him for his steadfast support, generous sharing of his time and knowledge, and for his patient and insightful guidance. He was a brilliant scholar and a dynamic teacher.
Near Eastern and Aegean Texts from the Third to the First Millennia BC
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,
KO Ko 2010 Cloth Fragments of the Rapinewiad
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' *
Porphureion and Kalkhion and Minoan-Mycenaean Purple Dye Manufacture and Use
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.
Texts, tablets and scribes : studies in Mycenaean epigraphy and economy : offered to Emmett L. Bennett, Jr
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.
The possible methods in deciphering : the pictographic cretan script
Cahiers de l'Institut de Linguistique de Louvain, 1989
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe
Caring for and Nourishing Animals and Humans in Linear B and Homer
Peeters Publishers eBooks, Aug 4, 2021
LINEAR B VE Vd 2018 A MEMORIAL SĒMA
Problems in Minoan and Mycenaean Writing Style and Practice