Linear B Ideogram B160

It is B160, an ancient inventory sign with no settled object name. In Unicode Standard Version 17.0 (2025), B160 has a catalogue label but no commodity gloss.

One scholarly proposal groups B160 with textile ideograms and suggests a kind of cloth. The “B160 cloth reading” is a proposal, not a settled translation. Textile records are especially rich at Pylos and Knossos, which makes the proposal plausible without identifying this sign.

What did Linear B records do?

They tracked items and amounts for palace administration. Ideograms identified goods or other listed items; numerals gave quantities. That makes 𐂨 part of an inventory system, not a sentence with a modern spoken word.

Linear B grew out of the earlier Linear A writing system. It reused many signs and administrative practices, then adapted them to write Mycenaean Greek, an early form of Greek.

The earliest surviving Linear B archive is associated with Knossos. The earliest Linear B tablets at Knossos come from deposits generally placed in the late 15th century BCE, though absolute dating remains debated. Linear B use ended with the palace system’s collapse around 1200 BCE.