You now have every piece: the signs (The Five Vowel Signs to Special Signs), the spelling rules (Clusters and Empty Vowels), the logograms (Logograms) and the numbers (Aegean Numbers). Time to read a tablet line the way a specialist does.
Key idea
Most lines follow one pattern: a word or name, then a logogram, then a number. A short stroke, the word divider, separates spelled words. Find the divider, the logogram and the number first; then read the word.
Four steps
- Find the number at the end of each entry: strokes, bars and circles.
- Find the logogram right before it: a sign standing alone that says what is counted.
- Find the word dividers, short upright strokes between spelled words.
- Read the words sign by sign, then apply the spelling rules to find the Greek.
Worked example: Read a line
Read this line, made for practice: 𐀓𐀈𐀛𐀊 𐂇 𐄒.
- Number: three bars, 30.
- Logogram: the sheep sign with the male mark, OVISm, rams.
- Word: ku-do-ni-ja, Kydonia (modern Chania), a place.
- Put it together.
Answer: At Kydonia: rams, 30.
Worked example: Read a line
Read: 𐀴𐀪𐀡 𐃠 𐄈.
- Number: 2 strokes.
- Logogram: the tripod cauldron, *201VAS.
- Word: ti-ri-po, tripod, which matches the picture.
Answer: Tripods: 2.
Why it works
Why start from the end? Because the number and the logogram can be read even when the word cannot. If the word is a name you have never seen, you still know what and how many. Scholars read damaged tablets this way: the logogram and number often survive when part of the word is broken.
Common mistake
Reading straight through and turning the logogram into a syllable, as if 𐀂𐀦 𐂃 were a three-syllable word. Find the word divider, the logogram and the number first, then read the word. Check: a logogram is never joined to the signs before it; it stands alone before the number.
Real tablets are often damaged. Editors mark a break in the clay with square brackets: ke-ka-u-me-no] means the tablet breaks off after that sign. When a number is broken, you may still read the logogram and know what was counted, but not how many.
Worked example: A Ta 641 entry
On Ta 641 one entry reads 𐀤𐀵 𐃢 𐄉. What is counted, and how many?
- Number: 3 strokes.
- Logogram: *203VAS, a kind of jar.
- Word: qe-to, the name of that kind of jar.
Answer: Jars (qe-to): 3.
The lines in practice problems are made in the style of real tablets, with words from real Linear B texts, to give you practice; they are not copies of particular tablets.