Linear A, Silver Plated

Region: Crete
Material: Brass Silver Plated
Weight: 546 g
Dimensions (LxHxW): 10 cm x 11 cm x 2 cm
Details: with marble base
Marble dimensions: 8 cm x 3 cm x 2 cm height
Gross Weight: 720 g
Includes: Gift Wrapping - Description Greek & English
Material: Brass Silver Plated
Chronology: 1500 - 1200 BC

Linear A is one of the oldest surviving scripts of the early Greek language and is the earliest form of Minoan Linear B. The script was used between 1800 BC-1450 BC, as shown by the tablets that have been found mainly on the island of Crete, in Knossos, Phaistos, Agia Triada, Malia, Chania, Archanes, but also outside Crete, in Milos, Kea, Kythira, Thira, Miletus and Troy.

We created this relief representation that depicts Linear A letters in a free rendering, inspired by images of ancient tablets found in archaeological excavations. The plaque with the embossed letters is made of solid brass plated in a 999° silver solution and placed on a marble base.

Linear A is a Minoan script discovered in Crete by Arthur Evans in 1900. This script is considered the ancestor of Linear B, which is Mycenaean.

Like Linear B, Linear A is mainly recorded on clay tablets. Such tablets have been found in Knossos, Phaistos, Agia Triada, Malia, Chania, Archanes, etc. but also outside Crete on Milos, Kea, Kythira, Thira, Miletus and Troy.

It dates back to before the arrival of the Mycenaeans in Crete, from approximately 1800 to 1450 BC.

Like Linear B, Linear A consists of syllabograms (characters with a specific syllabic phonetic value) and ideograms (or logograms, characters that represent objects). About 60-70 syllabograms and 60 ideograms have been found. About half of these are common to the characters of Linear B, which has led to the assumption that A is its ancestor.

Linear A has not been deciphered and is one of the greatest mysteries of modern archaeology. Its decipherment will reveal the language and possibly the origin of the Minoans.

The ideograms allow us to conclude with some certainty the content of the tablets. They are lists of people and goods.

The existence of common characters and common combinations of characters in the two Linear scripts allows for the widely accepted assumption that the common characters have the same phonetic value in both scripts. Based on the deciphered Linear B, the texts of Linear A have been transcribed, but their phonetic rendering does not belong to any currently known language. On the other hand, Linear B lacks characters that seem to be important in Linear A, while Linear B uses characters from Minoan hieroglyphic writing that are not found in Linear A.

At the end of the enumerations, the same word always appears, which, based on Linear B, is rendered as ku-ro or ku-lo. It is assumed that it means "total", "sum". As a word, however, it cannot be safely included in any of the known languages. The different conjectures have been put forward that it is related to the Semitic root *kul, to the Indo-European root *kwol or to the Etruscan word churu, which have a related meaning.

It is speculated that the language of the Linear A texts may be Eteocretan, which survived after the Mycenaean conquest of Crete and examples of which are preserved in later inscriptions written in the Greek alphabet. This conclusion is not accepted by everyone, because it is argued that more than one non-Greek language may have existed in Crete at that time. The non-Greekness of the Linear A language is reinforced, however, by the fact that its development, Linear B, does not accurately represent the Greek language. Based on this fact, many believe that Linear A was better suited to the language for which it was intended, while Linear B, taking its phonetic values, could only be partially used as a Greek script, which is why it was subsequently abandoned.