Cretan Hieroglyphs: New Light on the Trojans

Abstract

The occurrence of Greek and Trojan names on the Linear B tablets at Knossos and Pylos raised a problem. Professor T. B. L. Webster, writing in 1955, a few years after the decipherment of Linear B, stated: ‘For the moment it may be safest to assume that Mycenaean poetry already possessed these names but that poetry was continually remodelled to tell of recent events, so that if the sack of Troy VIIa found its way into poetry, its defenders, as well as its attackers, would be given for the most part, as Nilsson long ago suggested, existing Mycenaean names.’ Four years later Professor D. L. Page deepened the issue when he stated: ‘An apparently Greek name on the Trojan side may be merely an adaptation, the assimilation of a foreign name to a Greek form. Let the name ofAlexandrasbe a warning to us: he looks Greek enough, but we know that he is merely a foreigner in a Greek dress.