Linear B B100 Man Sign

It marks a male person in a Linear B record, not a sound.

B100 is the Linear B man sign; editions label it VIR or MAN. Those are editorial readings of the sign, not pronunciations.

Its sense comes from its place beside names, numerals, and administrative headings. By itself, it does not tell you how to pronounce a neighboring name.

Why is 𐂀 after a name?

It turns a name into a counted male-person entry.

In personnel lists, a name can be followed by the sign and a numeral; the numeral counts men in that entry.

A Pylos guard list uses the name-plus-sign pattern for groups of men. These tablets are palace bookkeeping for assigning people to places, commands, or work.

Where did the related human sign appear earlier?

A related human sign appears in Linear A.

A human sign related to B100 is attested in Linear A by the end of the nineteenth century BCE. Linear B adapted much of Linear A’s graphic repertoire to write Mycenaean Greek.

As of 2026, Linear A’s language remains undeciphered, so the exact path from that earlier sign to B100 is uncertain. In Linear B’s human-sign series, B100 marks a man and neighboring B102 marks a woman.