Linear A sign A660

A660 identifies a sign, not a known word. It belongs to Linear A, a Bronze Age writing system used mainly on Crete from roughly 1800–1450 BCE; the script is attested from the early second millennium BCE, with occasional finds on the mainland and Aegean islands. As of 2026, no secure sound value is assigned to A660.

Linear A remains undeciphered. When proposing readings for sequences, scholars sometimes use approximate values from similar Linear B signs, but that cannot confirm A660’s reading. Its name is a catalogue label, not a translation.

Why was Linear A written?

It recorded goods and also marked ritual objects. Clay tablets, small inscribed disks called roundels, and clay nodules preserve administrative records of goods, people, and transactions at palace centers. Inscriptions also appear on stone offering tables, pottery, jewelry, bronze axes, and figurines; these non-administrative texts are understood as mainly religious, including libation formulas—short texts accompanying liquid offerings.

The ancient reading depended on the document and its setting; a lone modern glyph carries neither by itself.

Is 𐜲 related to Linear B or Cretan hieroglyphs?

Yes, but resemblance is not a translation key. Cretan Hieroglyphic, an earlier Cretan script, overlapped with Linear A at some sites. Linear B developed from Linear A around the fifteenth century BCE to write Mycenaean Greek; Cypro-Minoan, used in Cyprus from around the sixteenth century BCE, is also argued to descend from Linear A. Similar signs may suggest approximate readings for some sequences, but they do not settle A660.

Unicode’s sign annotation also links A660 with the labels A413-VAS and AB058. These catalogue cross-references describe its place in the sign repertoire; they do not reveal a spoken Minoan word.