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Linear B Ideograms

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Introduction

Most Linear B texts are accounting records from around 1550-1200 BCE. They are the oldest recorded form of Greek and were found on the island of Crete and the nearby mainland. Linear B is split into three Unicode blocks: Linear B Syllabary, Linear B Ideograms, and Aegean Numbers.

Linear B "ideograms" are non-phonetic signs (some of them pictograms) used mainly to identify commodities.

Font Samples

font sample *	font information
	Aegean    [ show all samples ]  (Aegean.otf) Source: Free download from George Douros's 'Unicode Fonts for Ancient Scripts' page. Stats: Version 1.01 has 3,578 glyphs and no kerning pairs Support: Cypriot Syllabary, Greek, Latin, Linear B (ideograms and syllabary), Old Italic, Old Persian cuneiform, Phoenician, Ugaritic, Private Use Area (Lycian, Carian, Linear A, Lydian, Anatolian/Luvian Hieroglyphs, Cypro-Minoan, Cretan Hieroglyphs, others) OpenType Layout Tables: Greek, Latin
	ALPHABETUM Unicode    [ show all samples ]  (ALPHABETUM v.9.00.ttf) Note: Excellent font for linguistics and ancient languages. PLEASE volunteer to translate the home page of the Four Essential Travel Phrases for David McCreedy. Source: Shareware ($15) from Juan José Marcos. Stats: Version 9.0 Feb 2007 has 5,515 glyphs and 220 kerning pairs Support: Coptic, Cypriot Syllabary, Cyrillic (all or most of range), Gothic, Greek (including polytonic and Coptic characters), Glagolitic, Hebrew, IPA, Japanese (Hiragana and Katakana only), Latin, Linear B (ideograms and syllabary), Ogham, Old Italic, Old Persian cuneiform, Phoenician, Runic, Ugaritic, Private Use Area (Iberic & Celtiberic, additional Old Italic glyphs, Old & Medieval Latin)
	Code2001    [ show all samples ]  (code2001.ttf) Source: Free download from James Kass's webpage. Stats: Version 0.917 has 2,944 glyphs and no kerning pairs Support: Cirth, Cypriot Syllabary, Deseret, Gothic, Latin, Linear B (ideograms and syllabary), Old Italic, Old Persian cuneiform, Osmanya, Shavian, Tengwar, Ugaritic OpenType Layout Tables: Latin
	MPH 2B Damase    [ show all samples ]  (damase_v.2.ttf from damase_v.2.zip) Source: Free download locally. Stats: Version 001.000 / 002.000 has 2,896 glyphs and 192 kerning pairs Support: Armenian, Cherokee, Coptic (Bohairic subset), Cypriot Syllabary, Cyrillic (Russian and other Slavic languages), Deseret, Georgian (Asomtavruli and Nuskhuri but no Mkhedruli), Glagolitic, Gothic, Greek (including Coptic characters), Hebrew, Latin, Limbu, Linear B (partial coverage of ideograms and syllabary), Old Italic, Old Persian cuneiform, Osmanya, Phoenician, Shavian, Syloti Nagri (no conjuncts), Tai Le (no combining tone marks), Thaana, Tifinagh, Ugaritic, Vietnamese

 

Additional Information About These Font Samples

What's New?

Find out about new fonts at the "What's New?" page.

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announcements of new fonts for Aegean scripts (Cypriot, Linear B, and Phaistos)
 

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Related Links

• The Unicode implementation of Linear B Ideograms is described in chapter 14 (Archaic Scripts) of The Unicode Standard, Version 5.0.
• The Unicode character code charts are available at the organization's website.
• Writing system information at Wikipedia and Omniglot.

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