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

The study of the palm and finger prints on the tablets of Knossos proves to be very useful in the light of the arguments set in a previous article (Kyriakidis 1998) and it refines the picture we have of the relation between the preparing and the inscribing hands. Moreover, it can give us an idea as to the relations between some of the scribes and between the scribal bureaus. It can also scertain the attribution of some tablets in cases when the scribe was identified with some uncertainty. Quite often one preparing hand makes tablets for more than one scribe. In that case, these scribes are ‘linked’, irrespective of whether one follows my argument on the identity of the scribal and the tablet preparing hand. In some cases, there is a chain of connections among three or more scribes. In this short contribution I attempt to elaborate on the links between the scribes at the palace of Knossos, since those at Pylos have already been assessed elsewhere (Kyriakidis 1998)