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The Undeciphered Signs of Linear B 10.17863/CAM.11800 Judson, AP Meissner, T More than sixty years after Michael Ventris’ decipherment of the Linear B script, 14 of its 87 syllabic signs still have no sound-values assigned to them. This group of ‘undeciphered’ signs represent a significant gap in our ability not only to read the Linear B script, but also to understand its development and use. Chapter 1 of this thesis analyses the origins and usage of signs with known sound-values to establish what types of values are in principle most likely to be found amongst the undeciphered signs: this investigation also enables an exploration of the development of Linear B, its relationship with its parent script Linear A, and the motivating factors underlying the creation of new Linear B signs. Chapter 2 consists of studies of each individual undeciphered sign, including a palaeographic analysis of their forms, discussion of their corpus of attestations, and an examination of their prospects of decipherment and possible sound-values in the light of the results of Chapter 1. Finally, Chapter 3 employs this group of signs in a case-study to explore the potential of palaeographic analysis to contribute to our understanding of wider issues concerning the Linear B script and its context of use within the Mycenaean palaces. This case-study focuses in particular on two main uses of palaeography: as a means of assigning a relative chronology to Linear B texts, and as evidence for the reconstruction of the Mycenaean scribes’ administrative work and training. University of Cambridge 2017-01-28 Thesis Doctoral Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) en AHRC doctoral award (2012-2015), grant number AH/J500094/1 British Federation of Women Graduates, J. Barbara Northend Scholarship (2015-2016) Faculty of Classics Graduate Studies Fund (2015) https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/265630 https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/3eb94fa9-719c-486c-918b-7ba8ea1d20d5/download 6a8b8a509b9672f87bc60904a9320bde https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/ebc6d91d-bf71-4014-b44c-ceb4089cdf7e/download 1bc0242e47bc349d4199de4251888b0f https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/14093f43-a9e0-4184-a6a3-15d7eebf8e6a/download e4aad93580283c27631e53e9b889e72d https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/6511eda9-a5df-4e59-8a04-54f72ff3edf4/download 5ecfccad7d2e5ce109596812c4193ffa https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/5cd4ac1e-3050-451a-83b3-9dfd4c3d237f/download 87eda9de84448d1f82354d60eee3eb5f https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/ Permission has been obtained to include all third-party material, with the exception of some images included in the submitted version of this thesis, which have been removed from this version. Linear B Mycenaean Greek Greek linguistics Aegean prehistory Bronze Age Greece