lineara.eu

Figs, and maybe something else

This is HT 6a, the front face of a clay tablet from Haghia Triada. Ten lines. A heading, the fig logogram, names, numbers, and three kinds of fraction sign. No ku-ro on this face, so no total to check.

The object

Found in the Villa Magazine, like HT 13. Heraklion Museum, number 8. Younger sees two hands on the tablet: Scribe 16 wrote this face and the top of the back, Scribe 17 the rest of the back.

Photograph of tablet HT 6a
Tablet HT 6a, the object. Photograph: lineara.xyz mirror. Published here for this document under a permission request. Image rights largely Ecole Francaise d'Athenes.

The tracing

A person drew the strokes from the object. Every crop below is cut from this drawing.

Tracing of HT 6a
Tablet HT 6a, the tracing. Sign drawings from SigLA: The Signs of Linear A, a palaeographical database, by Ester Salgarella and Simon Castellan (https://sigla.phis.me/), licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.

The signs, one by one

The heading is ka-pa. Line 2 runs da-ta-ra, te, then the fig logogram (AB30, FIC in the Linear B convention) and a number. After that, names and numbers. Line 4 is a ligature, JA+RU (*538), followed by the fraction DD. Lines 7 and 9 end with the fraction JE, line 10 with J. SigLA cuts JE as two crops, J and E; the sign-by-sign text has it as one sign.

  1. Sign AB77 ka, HT 6a, position 1 AB77 ka
  2. Sign AB03 pa, HT 6a, position 2 AB03 pa
  3. Sign AB01 da, HT 6a, position 3 AB01 da
  4. Sign AB59 ta, HT 6a, position 4 AB59 ta
  5. Sign AB60 ra, HT 6a, position 5 AB60 ra
  6. Sign AB04 te, HT 6a, position 6 AB04 te
  7. Sign AB30 ni FIC, HT 6a, position 7 AB30 ni FIC
  8. Sign AB39 pi, HT 6a, position 8 AB39 pi
  9. Sign AB59 ta, HT 6a, position 9 AB59 ta
  10. Sign AB57 ja, HT 6a, position 10 AB57 ja
  11. Sign A538, HT 6a, position 11 A538
  12. Sign A717 DD, HT 6a, position 12 A717 DD
  13. Sign AB80 ma, HT 6a, position 13 AB80 ma
  14. Sign A321, HT 6a, position 14 A321
  15. Sign AB61 o, HT 6a, position 15 AB61 o
  16. Sign AB76 ra2, HT 6a, position 16 AB76 ra2
  17. Sign AB07 di, HT 6a, position 17 AB07 di
  18. Sign AB24 ne, HT 6a, position 18 AB24 ne
  19. Sign AB77 ka, HT 6a, position 19 AB77 ka
  20. Sign AB03 pa, HT 6a, position 20 AB03 pa
  21. Sign AB78 qe, HT 6a, position 21 AB78 qe
  22. Sign A707 J, HT 6a, position 22 A707 J
  23. Sign A704 E, HT 6a, position 23 A704 E
  24. Sign AB01 da, HT 6a, position 24 AB01 da
  25. Sign AB78 qe, HT 6a, position 25 AB78 qe
  26. Sign AB60 ra, HT 6a, position 26 AB60 ra
  27. Sign AB78 qe, HT 6a, position 27 AB78 qe
  28. Sign AB39 pi, HT 6a, position 28 AB39 pi
  29. Sign AB59 ta, HT 6a, position 29 AB59 ta
  30. Sign A707 J, HT 6a, position 30 A707 J
  31. Sign A704 E, HT 6a, position 31 A704 E
  32. Sign AB30 ni FIC, HT 6a, position 32 AB30 ni FIC
  33. Sign A707 J, HT 6a, position 33 A707 J
The signs of HT 6a in reading order, each one cropped from the tracing. The label under each crop is the catalogue number and, where one is agreed, the sound value.

The numbers

Figs 15 on line 2. Then 24, 10, 2, 5 with JE, 22 with JE, and figs again on line 10, 15 with J. The fraction values on this site come from Corazza and colleagues (2021): J is one half, E one quarter, DD one third, JE three quarters. This face cannot prove them on its own.

  1. line 1 ka AB77pa AB03|
  2. line 2 da AB01ta AB59ra AB60|te AB04|ni_FIC AB3015
  3. line 3 pi AB39ta AB59ja AB5724
  4. line 4 A538DD A717
  5. line 5 ma AB80A32110
  6. line 6 o AB61AB76di AB07ne AB242
  7. line 7 ka AB77pa AB03qe AB785A732
  8. line 8 da AB01qe AB78ra AB60|
  9. line 9 qe AB78pi AB39ta AB5922A732
  10. line 10 ni_FIC AB3015J A707
Every line of HT 6a as text. Numerals are added up and shown as digits. A question mark is a damaged sign. A bar is a word divider.

What everybody agrees on

A list headed ka-pa, with the fig sign and quantities, some with fractions. Younger: because FIC repeats on line 10, JA+RU is likely a second commodity. His sums for the face, in his notation, are FIC 39 and JA+RU 40 J DD. No total on this face.

What is disputed

What ka-pa means. Younger's notes say it occurs only on the Haghia Triada tablets and looks like a transaction term or heading here; on line 7 it is part of a name, ka-pa-qe. Schoep suggests "summary account" or a place name. Whether the face records one commodity or two. And the fraction values, which no line on this face can settle.

Photograph against tracing

Drag the curtain and judge the tracing yourself.

The comparator needs JavaScript. The layers are the photograph, the facsimile, the tracing of HT 6a, registered into one frame.
Photograph against tracing for HT 6a. Drag the curtain. The layers were registered offline; the browser computes no geometry.

Credits

Tracing: SigLA, Ester Salgarella and Simon Castellan, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Photograph: as captioned above. Readings and commentary: John G. Younger, Linear A Texts and Inscriptions in phonetic transcription and Commentary (2024), quoted in short. Findspot and museum number: the lineara.xyz record, which draws on GORILA (Godart and Olivier, 1976 to 1985). Typology: Schoep 2002. Fraction values: Corazza, Ferrara, Montecchi, Tamburini and Valerio (2021).

The full record of HT 6a

Four more

The same walk for four other objects from Haghia Triada.