What 𐂰 means
It has no settled one-word translation. In tablet transcriptions, *168 is an ideogram: a sign for an object or category, not a syllable to pronounce. Its referent remains unresolved, so the surrounding tablet entries matter more than a guessed object name.
Linear B first appeared at Knossos around 1450 BCE. That dates the script, not *168: a first surviving attestation for the sign remains unknown as of 2026. Linear B adapted the earlier Linear A script to write Mycenaean Greek; surviving clay tablets mainly record palace administration. In goods lists, ideograms indicate what the listed quantities refer to.
Is *168 an axe or a cloth sign?
“Wedge” and “textile” remain proposals. An early sign list labels *168 CUNEUS and gives ascia (“axe”) as an interpretation. These Latin labels name a possible object; neither tells you how to pronounce the sign.
Other epigraphic work describes *168 as a rectangular logogram that may belong to textile vocabulary, especially in the recorded *168SE ligature. Linear B inherited much of its graphic system from Linear A. As of 2026, no specific Linear A predecessor for *168 has been established, and Unicode identifies it as B168 without an object gloss.
Scholarly and archaeological; the sign needs its tablet context for a specific reading.
“Axe” is one proposal, not a settled reading.
Part of the collection
Who writes 𐂰
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Questions people ask
1Why does 𐂰 show as a box on some devices?
Because that device's fonts have no glyph for it. The character is still correct and still copies correctly — the box is a missing glyph, not a broken character.
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How to type or find 𐂰
- Also called
- B168 · *168 · cuneus
- Search it as
- linear b 168 · linear b sign · linear b axe · linear b textile · mycenaean sign · linear b keyboard
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
𐂰\100B0Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.