Linear A Sign AB131a

The sign's conventional reading is wine. Specialists label it AB131a or VINa; those labels identify a sign, not a recovered Minoan word or pronunciation. The language written in Linear A remains undeciphered as of 2026, so this is a semantic identification rather than a translation.

Linear A is securely attested by Middle Minoan IIA, by the end of the nineteenth century BCE, in Bronze Age Crete and the wider Aegean.

AB131 is compared with Cretan Hieroglyphic sign CH *156, another wine sign used on seals and clay documents. Linear B, a later Aegean script, also has a corresponding wine ideogram. These parallels support the sign's meaning but do not decipher the language of Linear A.

What was AB131a used for?

It helped record wine in Bronze Age administration. Tablets place AB131a beside commodities and quantities; the sign family also appears on roundels, clay vessels, and a sealing. These records fit a system for tracking goods through production, storage, and distribution.

The interpretation changed: Evans read the broader AB131 sign as ship-like, while later scholars compared AB131a with an Egyptian vine sign and the corresponding Linear B ideogram. Those parallels support a wine meaning, not a translation of the surrounding text.

What does 𐙍 mean when someone sends it?

With no message-specific context, read it as a reference to Linear A or wine. It has no established shared chat meaning. If it arrives alone, ask the sender what they intend before treating it as a toast or joke.