Clay tablets inscribed with records in Linear B script

This tablet, made of unbaked clay, formed part of the extensive archives of the palace of Knossos. The fire that destroyed the palace in around 1375 BC baked the clay, and helped to preserve what was presumably intended only as a temporary record.

Linear B is the earliest form of the Greek language, and one of three scripts to survive from Minoan Crete. Hieroglyphic and Linear A, possibly representing the native Cretan language, have not been deciphered yet. Linear B was used to write an early form of Greek, and was used for a large number of records at Knossos. The tablets found always recorded the management of palace resources and no historical, literal or religious texts have yet been discovered

The tablet was given to the British Museum by the excavator, Arthur Evans. At the time, he was not able to decipher them, though he recognised some of the picture signs that represent commodities, and the counting system. The code was only cracked in 1952, by the architect Michael Ventris (1922-56). He found that the language represented was Greek, though the script may have been developed from a Minoan prototype.

This came as a great surprise, but it can now be seen as part of a wider picture indicating Mycenaean Greek domination at Knossos from about 1450 BC onwards. Archives of Linear B tablets have also been found in the Mycenaean palaces of the Greek mainland. This tablet concerns offering of oil to various deities.