Writing Beyond the Palaces? The Case of the Ivory Houses at Mycenae (20 min)

Presenters

Theodore M. S. Nash, University of Michigan

Abstract

The Linear B script has, since its discovery, been associated closely with the buildings and institutions that we refer to as palaces. This is a function of both where tablets are found—almost always within the palaces themselves—and their content, often records of personnel, resources, and industry within the palatial territory. But this relationship is less obvious at Mycenae, where 41 tablets were found in a building complex known as the Ivory Houses, four interconnected buildings southwest of the citadel dating to ca. 1300 B.C.E. (Mid–Late Helladic IIIB). Prior scholarship has been much concerned with defining the relationship between the Ivory Houses and the palace, an argument that often hinges on the presence of Linear B and our understanding of writing as a palatial technology. But it has paid less attention to specific details of the tablets themselves. In this talk, I will present preliminary conclusions of a holistic study of this deposit, ranging from archaeological context and tablet layout to palaeography and linguistic features. Taken together, these indicate a very different model of scribal activity from the larger and better-studied deposits at Pylos and Knossos. The result is a challenge to conventional models of Mycenaean literacy and can help us better to understand the spread of writing across the Mycenaean world.

  AIA-8B