Evans' missing batch of Linear B Tablets

Abstract

The principal aim of this paper is to consider the Knossos tablets KN 288-336 and KN 374-393. These tablets were excavated during the 1900 season but appear to have gone missing before they could have been given to the Heraklion Museum. Fifteen of these tablets later appeared within the Giamalakis collection. In the Original Handlist, Evans included only transcriptions of these tablets, whereas the tablets are represented by drawings in Scripta Minoa II (SMII). It is shown that these were not drawings of the tablets themselves but stylized sketches reconstructed from the transcriptions in the Original Handlist. The tablets from the Missing Batch are reviewed in the light of this new finding. The paper also includes consideration of the other inscriptions which were excavated from the main palace building and published in SM II, but which are now listed as missing.

The principal aim of this paper is to consider the Knossos tablets KN 288-336 and KN 374-393. These tablets were excavated during the 1900 season but appear to have gone missing before they could have been given to the Heraklion Museum. Fifteen of these tablets later appeared within the Giamalakis collection. In the Original Handlist, Evans included only transcriptions of these tablets, whereas the tablets are represented by drawings in Scripta Minoa II (SMII). It is shown that these were not drawings of the tablets themselves but stylized sketches reconstructed from the transcriptions in the Original Handlist. The tablets from the Missing Batch are reviewed in the light of this new finding. The paper also includes consideration of the other inscriptions which were excavated from the main palace building and published in SM II, but which are now listed as missing.