A Look at Early Mycenaean Textile Administration in the Pylos Megaron Tablets

Christina Skelton Kadmos 50 (2012): 101-121.

Abstract

The significance of the sixteen Linear B tablets from the Pylos Megaron dealing with textiles and related topics has thus far largely been ignored, and with good reason – the tablets are fragmentary, and appear to make very little sense either on their own or as part of a larger whole. However, recent work has shed new light on the context of the Megaron tablets, placing them in an earlier time period than the Pylos main archives, which date to the final destruction of the palace. In this paper, I examine the Megaron tablets in light of this new research, arguing that all aspects of the Megaron tablets are consistent with an early date, and some archaic features of the tablets provide support for an early date. I also discuss the content of the Megaron tablets, and argue that even though their fragmentary nature makes them difficult to interpret, they provide us with the basic outlines of the same kind of organized textile industry that we find later at Pylos and Knossos. Thus, the Megaron tablets provide us with a unique perspective into the stability and conservatism of the Mycenaean textile industry.