Aegean Number Nine Thousand

It marks 9,000 in the Aegean number system. Aegean number signs appear beside words, marks for goods, and measures in records. Linear A, used on Crete for a language that remains undeciphered, is known largely from economic records; Linear B was adapted to write Mycenaean Greek, an early form of Greek, and its tablets list people and goods. The numeral gives an amount; nearby entries say what is counted.

The Aegean number signs derive from Linear A and were also used in Linear B; the Cypriot syllabary, a script used on Cyprus, seems to share the system for lower values. Linear A is attested by Middle Minoan IIA, no later than the end of the nineteenth century BCE. It coexisted on Crete with Cretan Hieroglyphic for at least two centuries in the first half of the second millennium BCE. Much of Linear A’s sign repertoire appears adapted from Cretan Hieroglyphic, a more picture-like script; that broader link does not establish an ancestor for 𐄪 itself.

How does the Aegean number system work?

Different shapes mark different place values. Vertical strokes stand for ones, horizontal strokes for tens, circles for hundreds, and circles with projecting rays for thousands. In Linear A records, number signs were usually stacked vertically in groups of five or fewer. A 2010 Unicode working document reports 3,000 as the largest recorded Linear A number, on tablet HT 31, an inventory of vases. That report does not establish a surviving Linear A record for 9,000.