Skip to main content
Kent Academic Repository

Scribes Treated as Criminals: A Note on the Study of Palm and Fingerprints on the Linear B Tablets of Knossos

Kyriakidis, Evangelos (2003) Scribes Treated as Criminals: A Note on the Study of Palm and Fingerprints on the Linear B Tablets of Knossos. Festschrift volume for John Killen, 33-334 . pp. 1-8. ISSN 0544-3733. (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:1317)

The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided.

Abstract

The Linear B tablets written in Mycenaean Greek have been an invaluable source of information for the economy, administration, religion and bureaucracy of Mycenaean society. A great number of studies have been conducted on the relatively limited corpus: graphological analyses (of hand writing style), textual analyses, clay analyses, fingerprint analyses amongst others. This paper aims to use the fingerprint analysis and combine it with what we know about the various scribes (from the textual and graphological analyses) of the palace of Knossos. The fingerprints reveal who made which tablet, and we can thus see which scribes share tablets and work together. This then is coupled with the specialisation of the scribes. There is a very interesting correspondence between scribal collaborations and specialisations: scribes who exchange tablets before they were written, also work in the same part of the economy, or at least with comparable industries

Item Type: Article
Subjects: C Auxiliary Sciences of History > CC Archaeology
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Arts and Humanities > School of Culture and Languages
Depositing User: Maureen Nunn
Date Deposited: 19 Dec 2007 18:51 UTC
Last Modified: 16 Nov 2021 09:40 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/1317 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

University of Kent Author Information

Kyriakidis, Evangelos.

Creator's ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7057-0568
CReDIT Contributor Roles:
  • Depositors only (login required):

Total unique views for this document in KAR since July 2020. For more details click on the image.