Version 1.0, 17 February 2022
Version history:
1.0, 17 February 2022
About the script
Linear B, the script found on tablets in excavations of Knossos (Crete), Pylos and Mycenae, remained undeciphered for decades, until, in 1952, Michael Ventris (who profited from the preliminary analyses made by Alice Kober) managed to crack the code. Confirmation of the decipherment followed rapidly: Linear B had been used to write the oldest form of Greek know to us, Mycenaean Greek (15th-13th centuries BCE). Linear B consists of about 90 syllabograms, supplemented with about 165 logograms (or ‘ideograms’) and the so-called ‘Aegean numbers’, a numbering system already used by the Minoan civilization (in Linear A). There are word dividers (a small perpendicular line on the baseline). Linear B is exclusively written horizontally from left to right.
Font and font sizes
Only very few fonts support the rendering of Linear B. We have chosen Noto Sans Linear B because it has been professionally designed. Even so, there are a few software issues in typeset text; fortunately these can be remedied by the typesetter, provided that precise instructions are given. Anyone can download and use Noto Sans Linear B at no cost.
Noto Sans Linear B font sizes:
Brill 11 pt ~ Noto Sans Linear B 9¼ pt
Brill 10 pt ~ Noto Sans Linear B 8½ pt
Brill 9 pt ~ Noto Sans Linear B 8 pt
Chapter titles: Brill 16 pt (Bold) ~ Noto Sans Linear B 13½ pt
