Mycenaean Linear B Rosetta Stone for Linear A Tablet HT 31 Archaeology and Science.pdf (original) (raw)

In partnership with The Association of Historical Studies, Koryvantes (Athens), we address past and current prospects for the decipherment of the Minoan language, which has never met with any credible success in the 117 years since the first discovery of Minoan Linear A tablets by Sir Arthur Evans at Knossos in 1900. A considerable number of philologists and historical linguists, some of them amateurs, claim to have deciphered the Minoan language, yet no one has ever formulated a convincing decipherment. We advance a unique and entirely untested approach to unravelling the text of Minoan Linear A tablet HT 31 (Haghia Triada), based on the principle of cross-correlative retrogressive extrapolation (CCRE) from Mycenaean Linear B to Linear A. HT 31 so closely parallels Mycenaean Linear B tablet, Pylos Py TA 641-1952 (Ventris) that the latter effectively serves as a kind of “Rosetta Stone” for the former. There is also credible evidence that a Mycenaean derived superstratum imposed itself on Linear A as the result of the Mycenaean conquest of Knossos and Crete ca. 1500 – 1450 BCE or, failing that, their all but absolute suzerainty over Knossos and its dependencies. Approximately 300 or 26 % of 1166 intact words in Linear A are very likely of Mycenaean origin. KEYWORDS: MINOAN, LINEAR A, DECIPHERMENT, SYLLABARIES, CROSS-CORRELATIVE RETROGRESS IVE EXTRA POLAT ION (CCRE ), POTTER Y, LINEAR B, IDEOGRAMS, SUPERSYLLABOGRAMS, SUPERSTRATUM, MYCENAEAN GREEK