Linear B Vessel Sign B215

It marks a vessel entry in a Linear B record.

Linear B uses signs like this to label goods being counted; this one identifies a category, not a spoken word. In surviving records, such signs usually appear in palace stock lists.

At Pylos, tablet Tn 316 places it in an offering list that records gold vessels given to deities.

Was 𐃮 a cup or vase?

The sign identifies a vessel, but its exact shape is debated.

Some scholars read the Pylos example as a handled drinking cup, perhaps a kylix (a shallow Greek cup with two handles); others leave the shape open. “Vessel” is the safest plain-language reading.

On Tn 316, *213VAS and *216VAS are separate vessel entries. AUR, the gold marker, before *215VAS and its numeral makes a counted gold-vessel entry.

How did Linear B develop?

Linear B was adapted from Linear A to write Mycenaean Greek.

Cretan Hieroglyphic, an earlier picture-based script, dates to around 1900–1600 BCE; Linear A to around 1800–1450 BCE; and Linear B to around 1400–1200 BCE. Linear B was adapted from Linear A to write Mycenaean Greek, an early form of Greek. The scripts are historically connected, but their signs are not interchangeable.

Knossos, a palace center on Crete, preserves the earliest surviving Linear B archive in the Room of Chariot Tablets. It dates to the end of the 15th century BCE or beginning of the 14th century BCE.