Linear B Vessel Ideogram B226

It marked a vessel category, not a spoken syllable. Linear B paired ideograms, which marked things or categories, with syllabograms, which wrote spoken syllables. A vessel sign could follow a written description and come before a numeral, making the entry an inventory record rather than a sentence to read aloud.

At Pylos, the Ta tablets record valuable objects prepared for a sacrifice and banquet connected with an official appointment. PY Ta 709, dated to the end of the 13th century BCE, is published with the transcription *228VAS, which identifies a different sign, B228. It shows the vessel-recording context; it does not securely identify B226.

Why is B226’s exact object uncertain?

The surviving evidence does not settle which object it marked. Proposals include a tool for drawing, an ash shovel, fire tongs, a chisel, or a ladle. These are competing identifications of one ancient sign, not separate meanings. The tablet context and the drawn sign do not settle which object it represented.

Linear B followed Linear A in the Aegean and shares some generic signs with it, but Linear B records Mycenaean Greek, an early form of Greek. That is a connection between writing systems, not proof of a matching Linear A character for B226.