Linear B Vessel Sign B208

A vessel sign; in one record, a handleless metal bowl.

Read 𐃧 as a Linear B vessel ideogram, a bookkeeping sign for an item. In the Pylos tablet PY Tn 996, 208VAS refers to a handleless metal bowl: the entry lists one gold example and three bronze ones. That is a specific inventory reading, not a free-standing meaning for every appearance.

If it appears in a modern message, take it as a reference to the Linear B sign unless the surrounding context gives another reading.

What did B208 do in Linear B?

It identified goods in palace inventory records.

Linear B served administrative records of stored goods, quantities, and movement. An ideogram—a sign standing for an item—identified the vessel; material marks and numerals completed the entry, as they do in the gold and bronze count at Pylos.

Linear B appears at Knossos around 1450 BC; the surviving sign list is dated to the 14th–13th century BC. These dates describe the script and its record-keeping, not a first-use date for B208; no separate first-use date is established in the surviving record. B208 belongs to a documented 200-series group of vessel signs.