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1. 1 2017-11-29T10:50:54-08:00 The Program in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory 7a131294dc4e7f7f6a5ad0405218a6f222f3c408 na - se The Program in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory 3 plain 2017-11-29T10:56:20-08:00 The Program in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory 7a131294dc4e7f7f6a5ad0405218a6f222f3c408
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1. 1 2017-10-25T17:34:48-07:00 The Program in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory 7a131294dc4e7f7f6a5ad0405218a6f222f3c408 Samartzidis Painting Gallery Kevin Stuart Lee 31 Annotated Paintings of Samartzidis structured_gallery 2018-04-02T14:52:40-07:00 Kevin Stuart Lee beced6b3cba217be436e57a3030fc1611bddbcaa

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• 1 media/Header5.1.jpg 2017-12-06T08:29:09-08:00 Forgotten Scripts 22 Linear B disappearance and Samartzidis image_header 2018-04-02T14:43:21-07:00

  Why Did Linear B Disappear?

  The archaeological traces of Linear B disappear around 1100 B.C. Its syllabary never reappears in the ancient world as a means of writing Greek. By 700 B.C., the people inhabiting the Greek lands and islands were using city- or region-specific variations of the Greek alphabet.
  
  The tablets of Linear B were buried with the palaces they were housed in. The archaeological record shows us that around 1200 B.C. many of the palaces which housed the Linear B tablets were burned and destroyed. Incidentally, the burning of the palaces preserved the clay tablets by firing them.
  
  The bulk of Linear B clay tablets are administrative records. They document inventories of goods at the palatial centers where they were written and stored. Clay tablets on which Linear A and B were written were often reused and sometimes inscriptions appear on both sides of the tablets.  Other times, records were even etched onto the tablets' thin edges.  
  
  There is much speculation on what caused the collapse of the palace centers where Linear B was in use. No records exist from this period which describe what happened. For more information on this, a book like John Chadwick's The Mycenaean World provides longstanding views.
  
  More granular research on the last days of the Pylos palaces, based on the archaeological record, can be accessed through PASP's Aegean Scholarship portal here.

  "Language Homeland"

  In his youth on Crete, Samartzidis encountered Greek's earliest syllabic scripts: Linear A, Linear B,  and that on the Phaistos Disk. He calls this encounter an “apokalypse.”
  
  In Samartizidis's own words:

  •“Crete was really like an ‘apokalypse’ for me. It revealed slowly the dust of my confused world and ‘cosmotheories’ (Samartzidis).”

  •“…I found in front of me the syllabic scripts Linear-A and Linear-B as well as the Phaistos Disk. In the beginning I was fascinated with all these signs and symbols, from their pure graphic and artistic values. Then I read the history of the decipherment of Linear-B by Michael Ventris and was doubly fascinated with the plot of the whole story (Samartzidis).”

  For Samartzidis, these are a part of his “language homeland.”

  •"All these verses I transcribe ... are part of my ‘language homeland,’ this universe in a nutshell that I carry through my birth, my education, my experiences. This universe is not visible but it is comprehensible and perceived through emotions and imagination. The covering of it with Linear-B symbols is like a gold plating technique to beautify and add sparkle to it on the one hand and give it an identifying feature of Hellenism on the other. And - who knows?  It might protect it from barbarians too…(Samartzidis).”

  
  One theme that appears throughout the paintings is what a forgotten language would look like in other contexts than clay tablets. One approach Samartzidis takes is to present his paintings as fractured with pieces missing, or nearly washed away like sand on a beach. In another painting, "Seaweed" (below) Samartzidis depicts Linear B characters as if blotted out, its characters and poetry not fully recognizable.