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( Linear B)
*Dates (beginning with Ancient Greek) from D.B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids 1997), 12. The script appears to be related to Linear A, an undeciphered earlier script used for writing the Minoan language, and the later Cypriot syllabary, which recorded Greek. Linear B consists of around 87 syllabic signs and a large repertory of semantographic signs. These “signifying” signs stand for objects or commodities, but do not have phonetic value and are never used as word signs in writing a sentence. The application of Linear B was confined to administrative contexts. In all the thousands of tablets, a relatively small number of different "hands" have been detected 45 in Pylos (west coast of the Peloponnese, in southern Greece) and 66 in Knossos (Crete).[3] From this fact it could be theorized that the script was used only by some sort of guild of professional scribes who served the central palaces. Once the palaces were destroyed, the script disappeared. Linear B has roughly 200 signs, divided into syllabic signs with phonetic values and logograms (or ideograms) with semantic values. The representations and naming of these signs has been standardized by a series of international colloquia starting with the first in Paris in 1956. After the third meeting in 1961 at the Wingspread conference center in Racine, Wisconsin, a standard proposed primarily by Emmett L. Bennett, Jr., became known as the Wingspread Convention, which was adopted by a new organization, CIPEM, affiliated in 1970 by the fifth colloquium with UNESCO. Colloquia continue the 13th is scheduled for 2010 in Paris.[4]
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