Datasets:

Nacryos
/

ancient-scripts-datasets

Tables 5-6 (pp. 51-52): The libation formula structure, parsed into 6 positional slots (verb, place-name, dedicant, object, subordinate verb, prepositional phrase). IO Za 2 is the principal exemplar with full transcription: a-ta-i-*301-wa-ja ja-di-ki-tu [dedicant] ja-sa-sa-ra-me u-na-ka-na-si i-pi-na-ma si-ru-te.
Section 7.2 (pp. 45-46): A 301 discussed as the central verb root, with variant forms listed (a-ta-i-*301-wa-ja, a-ta-i-*301-wa-e, ta-na-i-*301-ti, ta-na-i-*301-u-ti-nu).
Section 4 (pp. 20-21): The AB/A naming convention explained. AB = shared between Linear A and Linear B. A = Linear A only.
Section 6.2 (pp. 38-41): Stone vessels (Za category) described as cultic/ritual. 9 Za inscriptions with GORILA references cited.
Section 8.1 (p. 50): Phonetics policy — reading LA via LB values is "approximate." The complete sign list is deferred to the online appendix at www.cambridge.org/salgarella (inaccessible, returns 403).
p. 49: AB 07/DI and AB 28/I explicitly named with their readings.
p. 57: AB 30/NI confirmed as logogram for "fig" (acrophonic: Minoan *nikyleon).

PDF 2 — Salgarella 2020, "Aegean Linear Script(s)" (Cambridge Classical Studies)

Table 2 (p. 35): The core CV syllabary grid — the complete mapping of consonant-vowel combinations to AB numbers. This was the primary source for all 32 deciphered sign readings.
Table 3 (p. 36): Additional syllabary signs (a2, a3, au, dwe, dwo, nwa, pte?, pu2, ra2, ra3, ro2, ta2?, twe?, two).
Table 4 (p. 37): Undeciphered syllabograms: *18, *19, *22, *34/35, *47, *49, *56, *63, *64, *65, *79, *82, *83, *86, *89. This is where AB 56 is explicitly classified as undeciphered.
Table 5 (pp. 65-68): Catalog of all non-administrative inscriptions by site, including Za entries. This was the basis for the initial inscription inventory.
pp. 33-34: The homomorphy-homophony principle and evidence hierarchy for phonetic values (Cypriot cross-script confirmation > shared toponyms > acrophonic logograms).
p. 234, p. 355: SY Za 4 cited as the sole Linear A attestation of sign nwa (AB 48).
Index of Signs (pp. 412-416): Complete list of every AB and A sign cited in the book, with page references.

1.2 SigLA Database (sigla.phis.me)

SigLA (Signs of Linear A) is an online palaeographic database by Salgarella & Castellan, licensed CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. The SSL certificate was expired during scraping, so all access used curl -sk to bypass verification.

Discovery method:

The browse page (/browse.html, 772 documents) was searched for all Za entries. Only 2 found: PS Za 2 and SY Za 4.
The kind pages were probed: /kind/Libation%20table/ returned PS Za 2 and SY Za 4. All other kind names (Stone vessel, Ladle, Bowl, etc.) returned 404.
Individual document pages were probed for all 60 Za inscriptions in our database. Only PS Za 2 and SY Za 4 returned 200; all others returned 404.

Sign data extraction from SigLA:

PS Za 2: 16 signs extracted from /document/PS%20Za%202/ and individual sign pages (/document/PS%20Za%202/index-1.html through index-16.html).
SY Za 4: 13 signs extracted from /document/SY%20Za%204/ and individual pages.
Each sign page contains: AB number in a sure-reading or info-title span, conventional reading, sign type (syllabogram), reading certainty, and an individual sign image PNG URL.
Word boundaries were extracted from /document/PS%20Za%202/index-word.html and /document/SY%20Za%204/index-word.html, which use class="word" dividers.

1.3 lineara.xyz (Digital GORILA Corpus)

The JavaScript data file LinearAInscriptions.js was the definitive ground-truth source for inscription existence and Unicode sign data. Accessed via curl -sk "https://lineara.xyz/LinearAInscriptions.js".

Discovery method:

The file contains a JavaScript Map with every inscription as a key-value pair.
All Za entries were extracted with: grep -oP '^\["[A-Z]+Za[^"]*"'
The sitemap.xml was cross-verified to ensure no entries were missed.
Result: 59 unique Za inscription keys (including angle-bracket uncertain attributions like IO Za <1> and AP Za <3>).

What this provided:

parsedInscription: Unicode Linear A characters for each inscription
transliteratedWords: Syllable-by-syllable transliteration (e.g., "A-TA-I-*301-WA-JA")
words: Unicode character sequences per word (e.g., "𐘇𐘳𐘚𐙕𐘮𐘱")
site, support, context metadata
Image URLs for facsimiles and inscription photographs

1.4 Audit Against lineara.xyz

The initial database (v1.0.0, 45 entries) was built from the two PDFs + SigLA. A deep audit against lineara.xyz revealed:

v1.1.0: Added 13 entries from GORILA digital corpus (IO Za 3/4/5/14, SY Za 5, KY Za 2, KAN Za 1, LACH Za 1, KN Za 13/17/18/19, KO Za 4). Removed none.
v1.2.0: Further verification against LinearAInscriptions.js map keys revealed 2 hallucinated entries (KN Za 13, KO Za 4 — an earlier agent had fabricated these) and 4 genuinely missing entries (IO Za 13, IO Za 15, NE Za 1, ZO Za 1). Final: 60 entries matching 59/59 lineara.xyz entries plus IO Za 10 from Salgarella 2020.

2. Converting Signs to Unicode Characters

2.1 The Unicode Linear A Block

Linear A signs are encoded in Unicode block U+10600–U+1077F (Linear A, added in Unicode 7.0, 2014). Each sign has a codepoint named LINEAR A SIGN AB0XX or LINEAR A SIGN AXXX.

2.2 Mapping Method

The mapping from conventional reading to Unicode codepoint was established by aligning transliterated words with their Unicode character sequences from lineara.xyz:

Step 1: Extract paired data. For IO Za 2, lineara.xyz provides:

transliteratedWords: ["A-TA-I-*301-WA-JA", ...]
words:              ["𐘇𐘳𐘚𐙕𐘮𐘱", ...]

Step 2: Split and align. Each transliterated word is split on hyphens (handling *NNN as single tokens). Each Unicode word is split into individual characters. The resulting parallel arrays give a 1:1 syllable-to-codepoint mapping:

A    → 𐘇 (U+10607)
TA   → 𐘳 (U+10633)
I    → 𐘚 (U+1061A)
*301 → 𐙕 (U+10655)
WA   → 𐘮 (U+1062E)
JA   → 𐘱 (U+10631)

Step 3: Verify across multiple words. The same mapping was verified across all 6 words of IO Za 2, plus PS Za 2 and SY Za 4, ensuring consistency. The character 𐝫 (U+10777, LINEAR A SIGN UNDETERMINED) was filtered out as a damage/lacuna marker.

Step 4: Cross-check with SigLA. The AB numbers from SigLA's sign data (e.g., "AB 59" for position 1 of PS Za 2) were verified against the Unicode codepoint names (e.g., U+10633 = LINEAR A SIGN AB059). All 29 signs present in both SigLA and lineara.xyz matched perfectly.

2.3 Signs Verified

Reading	AB Number	Unicode	Verification Source
a	AB 08	U+10607 𐘇	IO Za 2 word 1, SY Za 4 word 1
ta	AB 59	U+10633 𐘳	IO Za 2 word 1, PS Za 2 word 1, SY Za 4 word 1
i	AB 28	U+1061A 𐘚	IO Za 2 word 1, PS Za 2 word 1, NE Za 1
*301	A 301	U+10655 𐙕	IO Za 2 word 1, PS Za 2 word 1, SY Za 4 word 1
wa	AB 54	U+1062E 𐘮	IO Za 2 word 1, SY Za 4 word 1
ja	AB 57	U+10631 𐘱	IO Za 2 words 1/2/4, PS Za 2 words 2/3, SY Za 4 words 1/2
di	AB 07	U+10606 𐘆	IO Za 2 word 2
ki	AB 67	U+10638 𐘸	IO Za 2 word 2
tu	AB 69	U+10639 𐘹	IO Za 2 word 2
sa	AB 31	U+1061E 𐘞	IO Za 2 word 4, PS Za 2 word 4
ra	AB 60	U+10634 𐘴	IO Za 2 word 4, PS Za 2 word 4
me	AB 13	U+1060B 𐘋	IO Za 2 word 4, PS Za 2 word 4
u	AB 10	U+10609 𐘉	IO Za 2 word 5
na	AB 06	U+10605 𐘅	IO Za 2 word 5, PS Za 2 word 1
ka	AB 77	U+1063E 𐘾	IO Za 2 word 5
si	AB 41	U+10624 𐘤	IO Za 2 words 5/6
pi	AB 39	U+10622 𐘢	IO Za 2 word 5
ma	AB 80	U+10641 𐙁	IO Za 2 word 5
ru	AB 26	U+10618 𐘘	IO Za 2 word 6
te	AB 04	U+10603 𐘃	IO Za 2 word 6
ti	AB 37	U+10620 𐘠	PS Za 2 word 1, SigLA position 5
re	AB 27	U+10619 𐘙	PS Za 2 word 5, SigLA position 14
ke	AB 44	U+10625 𐘥	PS Za 2 word 5, SigLA position 16
nwa	AB 48	U+10629 𐘩	SY Za 4 word 2
za	AB 17	U+1060D 𐘍	SY Za 4 word 2
*56	AB 56	U+10630 𐘰	SY Za 4 word 3 (lineara.xyz reads as PA₃)
ni	AB 30	U+1061D 𐘝	SY Za 4 word 3
wi	AB 40	U+10623 𐘣	SY Za 4 word 3
da	AB 01	U+10600 𐘀	NE Za 1 (I-DA = 𐘚𐘀)
e	AB 38	U+10621 𐘡	Standard grid (variant suffix -wa-e)
nu	AB 55	U+1062F 𐘯	IO Za 2 (variant verb -u-ti-nu)
ri	AB 53	U+1062D 𐘭	Standard grid (toponym tu-ri-sa)
se	AB 09	U+10608 𐘈	Standard grid (toponym se-to-i-ja)
to	AB 05	U+10604 𐘄	Standard grid (toponym se-to-i-ja)

3. Assigning Phonetic Values via Linear B Homophony

3.1 The Homomorphy-Homophony Principle

The standard method (Salgarella 2020 pp. 33-34; 2024 p. 50) works as follows:

Identify homomorphs: If a Linear A sign is graphically identical or very similar to a Linear B sign, they are "homomorphs" and receive the same AB number.
Transfer the LB reading: Since Linear B is deciphered (Ventris 1952), its known phonetic values are applied to the matching Linear A signs as "approximate" readings.
Qualify as "approximate": Salgarella repeatedly emphasizes these are approximate — we are explaining an earlier phonological system using a later one.

Of the ~87 distinct syllabograms in Linear B, approximately 59-61 form the "core syllabary" with securely deciphered values. About 14 remain undeciphered (*18, *22, *34/35, *47, *49, *56, *63, *64, *65, *79, *82, *83, *86, *89). The rest are "additional syllabary" signs with specialized values (nwa, pu2, ta2, etc.).

3.2 Three Tiers of Phonetic Confidence

We classified each sign's phonetic status using Salgarella's evidence hierarchy (2020 pp. 33-34):

Tier 1 — "Secure" (11 signs): Confirmed by cross-script comparison with the Cypriot Syllabary (an independently deciphered descendant of the Aegean script tradition). Salgarella 2020 p. 34 lists these signs as having values confirmed via the Cypriot connection: a, i, da, na, pa, po, ro, sa, se, ti, to. Of these, the following appear in our libation formula corpus: a (AB 08), i (AB 28), da (AB 01), na (AB 06), sa (AB 31), se (AB 09), ti (AB 37), to (AB 05).

Three additional signs were upgraded to "secure" based on supplementary evidence:

di (AB 07): Explicitly named as "AB 07/DI" in Salgarella 2024 p. 49. Also confirmed via the shared toponym DI-KI-TE (Mount Dikte), which appears in both Linear A and Linear B.
ni (AB 30): Explicitly confirmed as the logogram for "fig" via acrophonic principle (Minoan *nikyleon), per Salgarella 2024 p. 57.
ta (AB 59): Confirmed via shared personal names and toponyms across LA/LB.

Tier 2 — "Approximate" (21 signs): AB signs shared between LA and LB whose readings are applied from LB based on the homomorphy-homophony principle, but lack independent confirmation from Cypriot or other external sources. These include: ja, wa, ki, tu, ra, me, u, ka, si, pi, ma, ru, te, re, ke, nwa, za, wi, e, nu, ri. These readings are used universally in scholarly transcription and are considered reliable enough for practical use.

Tier 3 — "Undeciphered" (2 signs): Signs with no established phonetic value. See Section 5 below.

4. SigLA Image Pipeline

For the two inscriptions with full SigLA data, individual sign images are available as PNG files:

URL pattern: https://sigla.phis.me/document/{INSCRIPTION}/{INSCRIPTION}_{POSITION}.png

Example: Sign 1 of PS Za 2 → https://sigla.phis.me/document/PS%20Za%202/PS%20Za%202_1.png

These URLs are stored in the sigla_image_urls field of each sign entry. 18 of the 34 unique signs have at least one SigLA image URL (the ones attested in PS Za 2 or SY Za 4). The remaining 16 signs (those only attested in IO Za 2 or variant/toponym forms) do not have SigLA images because SigLA only contains PS Za 2 and SY Za 4.

For lineara.xyz, facsimile images are available at https://lineara.xyz/images/{ID}-Facsimile.jpg and inscription drawings at https://lineara.xyz/images/{ID}-Inscription.jpg (e.g., IOZa2-Inscription.jpg). These show whole inscriptions, not individual signs.

5. The Two Undeciphered Signs

5.1 Sign A 301 (*301) — U+10655 𐙕

What it is: An anthropomorphic pictogram depicting a human figure bending toward and grasping a vertical pole or staff. Informally called the "slave sign" or "acrobat sign." Descended from Cretan Hieroglyphic CH 046 (traditionally described as an "adze with handle").

Why it is undeciphered:

(a) It is Linear A-only. Sign A 301 belongs to the 300-series — signs that exist ONLY in Linear A with no Linear B counterpart. The standard decipherment method (transfer LB reading → LA) is therefore impossible. When Mycenaean Greeks adapted Linear A into Linear B (~1450 BCE), they did not carry this sign over, probably because it represented a Minoan phoneme absent from Greek.

(b) It is confirmed as a syllabogram (not merely an ideogram). Evidence:

It appears within polysyllabic words flanked by other syllabograms (e.g., A-TA-I-*301-WA-JA), carrying prefixes and suffixes that indicate verbal morphology (Davis 2013).
It participates in ligatures (composite signs): A 503 (DA+301), A 519/A 520 (I+301), A 553 (301+ME). Logograms do not typically form ligatures with syllabograms.
However, it ALSO functions as a logogram when written standalone on seals and nodules (235 out of 287 attestations are standalone on Haghia Triada nodules). This dual function is itself an obstacle — it is unclear in some contexts whether the sign is contributing a syllable or a semantic unit.

(c) Proposed values remain contested. At least six readings have been proposed:

Proposal	Proponent	Basis	Problem
jo	Raison & Pope 1977	Visual similarity to LB *36 (jo) rotated 90°	Evidence suggests *301 ends in -U, not -O
do	Solca	Formal comparison	DO is already securely assigned to LB *14 / LA sign 101
we	Minoablog	Late Minoan variants converge on LB *75 (we) form	Would give a-ta-i-we-wa-ja — unusual semivowel cluster
ri/li	Samson 2021	Computational alignment; visual similarity to LB ri	Assumes Greek substrate (minority position)
zu	Minoablog (alt.)	Etruscan-Lemnian *AIS ("god") connection	Etruscan-Minoan link is speculative
DYAU	Indo-European hypothesis	Parallel with Luwian tatis Tiwaz	Treats *301 as logogram, not syllabogram

None has gained scholarly consensus. The sign remains transcribed as *301 with an asterisk.

(d) Attestation statistics (from lineara.xyz LinearAInscriptions.js):

287 total attestations across 16+ sites
235 are standalone on Haghia Triada nodules (administrative/sealing)
19 on stone vessels (libation formula context)
15 on tablets
11 on roundels
The word A-TA-I-*301-WA-JA appears 11 times across sanctuary sites (Iouktas, Syme, Kophinas, Palaikastro, Troullos, Zakros)

5.2 Sign AB 56 (*56 / PA₃) — U+10630 𐘰

What it is: An abstract linear sign shared between Linear A and Linear B (hence the AB prefix). Unlike A 301, this sign DOES exist in Linear B — but it is undeciphered in Linear B too.

Why it is undeciphered:

(a) Undeciphered in Linear B itself. AB 56 is one of approximately 14 Linear B syllabograms whose phonetic values have never been formally established. The Comité International Permanent des Études Mycéniennes (CIPEM) has not ratified any reading. It is always transcribed as *56 in formal scholarship.

(b) Too rare for definitive analysis. The standard LB decipherment method relies on spelling alternations (the same word spelled different ways, allowing triangulation). Sign *56 appears in only ~33 inscriptions in Linear A and is similarly rare in Linear B, providing insufficient data for conclusive alternation analysis (Judson 2020, The Undeciphered Signs of Linear B, Cambridge UP).

(c) It is confirmed as a syllabogram (not an ideogram). Evidence:

It appears within multi-sign words in both LA and LB: *56-ra-ku-ja (LB textile term), KU-PA₃-NU (LA commodity term, 8 attestations), *56-ni-wi (SY Za 4 libation formula).
Unicode classifies it as a "SYMBOL" rather than "SYLLABLE" only because its value is unknown, not because it is ideographic.

(d) The leading candidate reading is PA₃ (/pha/) but it is unconfirmed. The evidence:

Evidence	For pa3	Against pa3
LB textile term `*56-ra-ku-ja` alternates with `pa-ra-ku-ja`	Strong: same word, different spelling → *56 ≈ pa	Could be different words or a scribal error
LB personal name `*56-ru-we` vs. `ko-ru-we`	Weak: if same person → *56 ≈ ko, NOT pa	May be different individuals with similar names
Structural prediction: pu2 = /phu/ exists, so pa3 = /pha/ should exist	Supports pa3 as filling a predicted gap	Prediction ≠ proof

Judson (2017, 2020) considers pa3 (/pha/) "most likely" but explicitly states there is insufficient evidence for formal acceptance. Melena (1987, 2000) argued that the pa-ra-ku-ja / *56-ra-ku-ja alternation had "failed" as proof — the alternations were not robust enough.

(e) lineara.xyz uses PA₃ as a working convention. The digital GORILA corpus transcribes *56 as PA₃ in all contexts, which is why the word on SY Za 4 appears as PA₃-NI-WI rather than *56-NI-WI. This is a practical convention, not a scholarly consensus.

(f) It likely represents a Minoan phoneme. Melena (1987, 2000) argued that *56 and similar undeciphered signs represent pre-Greek Minoan consonants — sounds that existed in the Minoan language but not in Mycenaean Greek. When Greeks used Linear B, these signs appeared only sporadically in pre-Greek names and loanwords, making them intrinsically harder to decipher.

(g) Attestation statistics (from lineara.xyz):

33 inscriptions, 39 word tokens, 28 distinct word forms
Most common word: KU-PA₃-NU (8 occurrences, Haghia Triada/Phaistos tablets)
Libation formula: appears once, in PA₃-NI-WI on SY Za 4
Distributed across 8 sites including Miletos (Anatolia) — one of few LA signs attested outside Crete

6. Summary

Category	Count	Signs
Total unique signs in libation formula	34
Secure phonetic value (Cypriot + other confirmation)	11	a, i, da, di, na, ni, sa, se, ta, ti, to
Approximate phonetic value (LB homophony)	21	ja, wa, ki, tu, ra, me, u, ka, si, pi, ma, ru, te, re, ke, nwa, za, wi, e, nu, ri
Undeciphered	2	301 (LA-only, no LB match), 56 (undeciphered in LB too)

Both undeciphered signs are confirmed syllabograms (not ideograms) based on their syntactic behaviour within polysyllabic words. They resist decipherment for fundamentally different reasons:

*301 has no Linear B counterpart at all — the standard decipherment pathway is completely blocked.
*56 exists in Linear B but is too rare there to be deciphered — the standard pathway exists but lacks sufficient data.

These are the two signs that the PhoneticPriorModel would need to assign phonetic values to. *301 is the more impactful target: it appears ~287 times in the corpus and forms the core verb root of the libation formula. *56 appears ~33 times and occurs in a single libation formula word.

References

Salgarella, E. (2024). Writing in Bronze Age Crete. Cambridge Elements.
Salgarella, E. (2020). Aegean Linear Script(s). Cambridge Classical Studies. Tables 2-4 (pp. 35-37), Index of Signs (pp. 412-416).
Davis, B. (2013). Syntax in Linear A: The word-order of the 'libation formula'. Kadmos 52(1), pp. 35-52.
Davis, B. (2014). Minoan Stone Vessels with Linear A Inscriptions. Aegaeum 36.
Judson, A. (2020). The Undeciphered Signs of Linear B. Cambridge UP.
Judson, A. (2017). The mystery of the Mycenaean 'labyrinth': the value of Linear B pu2. SMEA.
Melena, J. (1987). On Untransliterated Syllabograms *56 and *22. Tractata Mycenaea, pp. 203-231.
Melena, J. (2000). On the Structure of the Mycenaean Linear B Syllabary: I. The Untransliterated Syllabograms.
Muhly, P. & Olivier, J.-P. (2008). Linear A inscriptions from the Syme Sanctuary. Archaiologike Ephemeris 147, pp. 197-223.
SigLA database: https://sigla.phis.me/ (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
lineara.xyz — Digital GORILA corpus by George Douros
GORILA = Godart & Olivier (1976-1985). Recueil des inscriptions en lineaire A. Vols. I-V.