Administrative Text Practice in Mycenaean Greece. On the Material and Medium-Related Aspects of Early Greek Scripturality

OBJECTIVES

• Analysis of the earliest Greek texts from a praxeological standpoint
• Documenting the transmitted and off-record areas of Mycenaean administration on the basis of select homogeneous text corpuses
• Shifting the research perspective from the passive concept of ‘knowledge’ to that of ‘information’, which as a dynamic process embraces selecting, shaping, securing, preparing and retrieving knowledge

SUMMARY

The aim of the sub-project is a thorough analysis of the material constitution and communicative potential of the corpus of the Mycenaean Linear B tablets, which comprises approx. 5700 tablets. At the centre of the study are the aspects regarding

• their material properties,
• the structure of the information,
• the format,
• their legibility,
• access to and
• mobilisation of the tablets.

RESEARCH STRATEGY

• Viewing the tablets not as a ‘source’ but as an object of study per se
• Drawing up material profiles of the tablets, including their material, graphological and contextual aspects
• Casting light on the various forms by which administrative information was exchanged at the interface between the written and spoken word