Drawing lines: The palaeography of Linear A and Linear B

Abstract This paper focuses on the palaeography of two Bronze Age Aegean writing systems, Linear A and Linear B. Linear A, used to render the Minoan language (ca. 1800-1450 BC), is understood to have acted as template upon adaptation of the system to write Greek, giving rise to the script traditionally called Linear B (ca. 1400-1190 BC). The adaptation process is likely to have operated on different levels: palaeographical, structural, phonological, logographical, metrological. In this paper, the palaeographical level will be examined. In order to throw light on the transmission process on graphic grounds, that is to say from a palaeographical perspective, the study of sign variants comes to play a key role. For a script (i.e. the graphic manifestation of a writing system) to be analysed, it is in fact necessary to ‘single out’ its constitutive components, namely signs, as well as their different graphic representations, namely variants. The aim of this paper is to see how these sign variants, in both Linear A and Linear B, were treated and transmitted.