Since the pictorial signs are now reduced to mere outlines, Evans named it Linear A. The direction of writing is from left to right.

John Chadwick, The decipherment of Linear B, Cambridge, 1958

A few figures about Linear A

>1427 documents are described in the Recueil des Inscriptions en Linéaire A, published by Louis Godart and Jean-Pierre Olivier between 1976 and 1985

>at least 34 Cretan sites have revealed Linear A inscriptions and more than 210 inscriptions have been unearthed at Haghia Triada, in the South - out of Crete, there are 3 sites with Linear A in the Cyclades, 2 on the European mainland, and 2 in Asia Minor

>Linear A comprises 213 different signs

>49 % of the signs are graphically related to signs of the Canaanite family of scripts (Proto-Sinaitic and Proto-Canaanite)

>global frequency of signs (frequency at every position in the words) : maximum 3.57 % for the sign 03 and for the sign 67 (sample of 812 signs)

>initial frequency of the signs (frequency at the beginning of the words) : maximum 6.40 % for the sign 08a and 4.98 % for the sign 81 (sample of 843 signs)

>final frequency of the signs (frequency at the end of the words) : maximum 5.51 % for the sign 02a, and 5.32 % for the sign 57 (sample of 526 signs)

>96.8 % of the words belong to a 'mother language' made of Indo-Iranian (93.2 %) and inherited Proto-Indo-European(3.6 %)

(on the left, the tablet HT115, side a, from Haghia Triada - H. La Marle)

> see the Chronology of Linear A on the next page

> Trying to read Linear A

> about the 'false friends' in Linear A