Linear A sign A131c

A wine-family sign; “vinegar” remains a proposal.

The AB 131 family is linked to wine because its common form appears beside liquid measures and marks a commodity in Linear A records. A131c is fragmentary, so the records do not settle whether it meant wine, grape must (freshly pressed juice), vinegar, or a product marked by age.

The A131c vinegar proposal, published in 2020, treats its two upper strokes as deliberate marks for a changed stage of the product, perhaps aged wine or vinegar. That is an interpretation, not a deciphered word.

How did the sign become associated with wine?

The wine reading grew from later interpretation of the records.

Surviving Linear A records date to the 18th–14th centuries BC. A 2020 study reports A131c in damaged tablet contexts from Khania: KH 18.4, KH 61.2 (?) and KH 85.2.

Evans first read the family as a ship. Sundwall later proposed wine, comparing the common form with Egyptian wine imagery; its use in commodity records supported that interpretation. The family is also compared with CH*156, a sign from Cretan Hieroglyphic, another Cretan script.

In the Linear B corpus, the related 131a and 131b forms continue; A131c does not. The scripts’ historical relationship does not give 𐙏 a secure Greek syllable reading.