#linear a

caveat: i CANNOT read linear B and only have superficial knowledge of both linears AND their pantheons. I'll be hedging a lot in my answer. the right person to ask is probably @dapurinthos

Also, most of my scholarly info about this comes from Françoise Rougemont's chapter in the book Nommer les Dieux about the names of gods in linear B. It's a great overview (with tables!).

that said: we can read some names in linear A (afaik)! linear A and B share many signs, just not enough to fully decipher linear A into a coherent language. This is because linear A (and B too) consist of ideograms (signs representing whole concepts/ideas/objects), numerical signs, and syllabic signs (signs representing syllables). The last one is the doozy: we have not yet been able to ascribe syllabic values to the signs in a way that results in a legible language. I.e. Linear A is somewhat deciphered, to a point where can sometimes discern certain suffixes, amounts, and names from context clues and comparison with linear B. Lastly, but not unimportantly, the existent corpus of linear A is so small, even in comparison to linear B, that decipherment is massively obstructed by our lack of data.

I mean, the iliad and the odyssey are from the Bronze Age, I know there were already writing systems in some cultures, but did they have it in Bronce Age Greece as well? While reading the iliad I noticed they used heralds to send messages, but sending a letter to someone that is less than 1km away is a bit silly.

Ah yes I believe you are referring to this particular painting

And yes I understand the confusion but I assure you ancient Greeks in bronze age definitely had writing alright! In fact Greece is still home to the earliest known literate civilization of Europe, the Minoans who inhabited Crete at least as far back as Egypt's unifying (c.a. 3100 BC) and they possessed two different types of writing. A) Linear A B) Cretan Hieroglyphic

You can see a sample of these two here:

(from "The Relationship between Cretan Hieroglyphic and Linear A: A Palaeographic and Structural Approach" research)

Unfortunately the nature of both these scriptures is not yet fully known given that neither Linear A or Cretan Hieroglyphic are yet deciphered so we do not know if they were Greek scriptures or not. I believe the greatest number of researchers are still considering them non-Greek scriptures.

However either way as far as Bronze Age in homeric texts is concerned we talk on the first proven by data Greek civilization, the Myceneans whose most ancient samples exist around 1700s BC. Myceneans were also a literate civilization and developed their own writing system Linear B

Linear B is deciphered for most part and is a valuable source of information for Bronze Age Greece and we have information on the distribution of goods from and to the palaces, some names and occupations even gods and goddesses that appear to the occasional tablets

The problem with the Mycenean (and Minoan for that matter) scriptures is that they are very scarce. Unfortunately for us, Greece has a much more humid climate than regions such as Egypt or Syria so more fragile material such as papyrus or wood tend to disappear. The main source of Linear B is clay tablets and even those usually were rescued by pure luck because the palaces got burnt and therefore the clay got baked. Otherwise we wouldn't have found them. By n large even in classical times, Greeks have used tablets from unbaked clay or wax to carve letters and then potentially erase mistakes by pressing the soft surface and reshape it. Also the reuse of writing material is not exclusive to ancient times such as Greece (or Egypt for that matter that tend to use the same piece of papyrus or stone slab just writing over it or pressing two pieces together and write on the clean side etc) but it was also used in medieval times when the patch paper was being scrapped off and reused

Either way unfortunately we also do not see the same phenomenon in Greece as we see in Egypt where the dudes tended to literally write on every wall! Hahaha unfortunately for us the frescoes as precious as they are, when found they are not accompanied by scriptures. Most of the tablets we discover are logistics books; speaking on goods coming in and out of the palaces or mentioning names of governors or other that bring them or priests and priestesses of temples. We have not yet discovered something more intimate such as letters or books or stories. What is more, we have discovered only the slabs used for the palatial archives so we do not know if other materials were used although we can rightfully hypothesize that Myceneans also used pieces such as papyrus that was distributed from Egypt across the area (and we know Greece and Egypt already were in contact with Egypt from the Middle Kingdom and particularly in New Kingdom)

So we can expect material such as papyrus might have been used for swapping letters or writing documents or daresay literature and poetry although none of it has survived. To my knowledge the most ancient piece of papyrus discovered in Greece or in Europe for that matter (and again by chance because it was part of a funeral pyre ) is the Derveni Papyrus dating in the 300s BC

It is the oldest manuscript on papyrus roll we have in Europe so far (presenting an Orphic poem, no surprise there given it was part of a funerary right) so even if we have no surviving samples of papyrus in Greece due to climate we can safely assume it was being used for writing but we have no clues there. Other samples of writing of Bronze Age Greece of Mycenean times that we can find is also on seals like this amber:

So yes I believe we can safely assume that letters could be swapped between two interested parties using lighter materials such as papyrus or recycled pieces of cloth or something of that nature but it is not proven archeologically. In fact there is also the hypothesis that papyrus and other material like that were saved for the most important documents given that the clay tablets of the palaces do not seem to include imported goods or status symbols from other countries even if we discover samples of that in funerary context. So we can expect rolls of papyrus being kept as well but they do not survive.

Linear B is a phonetic type of scripture involving ideograms and syllables. It was later on replaced with the alphabetic writing we have to this day which was adapted by the Phoenician alphabetical system

But yes that is very perceptive of you! The use of heralds or messengers being preferred over the swapping of letters to the battlefield seems to be logical. Now that is obviously because they wouldn't be carrying wax slabs around just to send one message from one side of the camp to another. No one would want to carry heavier material just to pass a brief message indeed hahaha and since papyrus was hard to produce and therefore expensive even in Egypt yet alone in Greece that it would have been imported then they would have no reason to use that just to swap small messages either so yes it would be much easier to pass a small message across the field by sending someone to tell you that rather than spending time and resources to write it. We can also expect heralds being used anyways for economy reasons in everyday life too but for sure in a military camp the swapping of letters seems unnecessary given the nature of the messages they deliver and the short distances.

Please god, a Rosetta Stone for Linear A.