Linear B Ideogram B231 Arrow

𐃇 is the Linear B sign for an arrow. Sign lists call it B231 and conventionally transcribe it as SAG or SAGitta; those are scholarly labels, not a syllable to pronounce. It is a logogram—a sign for an object—so it identifies arrows in a record rather than pointing the reader somewhere.

Linear B grew from earlier Linear A. The earliest surviving Linear B texts belong to the Knossos group known as the “Room of the Chariot Tablets,” dated around the end of the 15th or beginning of the 14th century BCE. Mycenaean, or Bronze Age Greek, palace officials used Linear B chiefly for bookkeeping: inventories, transactions, and counted goods. B231 belongs to that administrative setting, not to a general system of directional signs.

How did 𐃇 move from tablets to text?

Its job changed from counted object sign to digital character. In Linear B, syllabograms spelled words, while ideograms named kinds of objects; numerals could record how many. In modern text, 𐃇 is an encoded character for the catalogued sign, not a newly adopted chat arrow.

Linear B is closely related to Linear A: many syllabograms appear in both, while much of the ideogram inventory changed. The later Cypriot syllabary belongs to a related Greek-writing tradition, but it is not a continuation of B231.