Preliminary Notes (Dagv group)

The series Da, Db, Dc, Dd, De, Df, Dg and Dv constitute a homogeneous group of texts which deal with the inventory of the flocks of sheep of the Palace. They were compiled by the most important scribe of the Palace of Knossos, H 117. This group comprises about 670 tablets, some of which are complete and others fragmentary.

Each of the above-mentioned series deals with a particular type of flock: the documents which fall into the series Da deal with flocks of sheep made up of rams (OVIS^m), while the Db and Dc-Dg series may record both ewes and rams (OVIS^m – OVIS^f) or flocks of various types of sheep, including sheep differentiated not only by sex, but also as being young, old or missing (pa OVIS^m, pe OVIS^m, o OVIS^m). The series Dv comprises tablets which cannot be classified with precision, due to their fragmentary state (Greco 2010).

All these documents were found in the same place in the Palace of Knossos, the East West Corridor, located in an area just to the east of the great central court (conventionally known as J1) (Olivier 1967; Driessen 2000). They are dated approximately between LM IIIA2 and LM IIIB (between the end of the 14^th and the beginning of the 13^rd century BC) (Firth-Skelton 2016; Firth-Melena 2016a).

All texts show a homogeneous structure: they typically present on the left a shepherd’s name in larger characters, the inscription then continues on the right on two lines; the top line contains a collector’s name and the logogram for the animal (sheep), followed by a numeral, while a toponym appears in the lower section.  (Greco 2010, 148).

Preliminary Notes (series De)

The De series comprises 47 “palm-leaf” tablets, compiled by the scribe H117 (Olivier 1967; Aurora 2015, DAMOS, Database of Mycenaean at Oslo). The tablets record rams, ewes, and missing sheep. They also record the toponym, the shepherd’s name, and the collector’s name. Typically, the data are distributed on two lines.

De 1084 +

The tablet records a flock consisting of 34 rams, 4 ewes and 2 missing sheep. It was managed by the shepherd Ko-ti, was located in the Phaistos area and was under the supervision of the collector Alkaios (a-ka-i-jo). The latter occurs only twice in the D-class, in KN De 1084 and KN De 1085+, in both cases associated with Phaistos. The total amount of heads of flock recorded in the two documents is about 100. This is the smallest number of sheep in the Phaistos area, if compared with the flocks supervised by the other collectors related to Phaistos: we-we-si-jo with 1820 sheep (50%), da-mi-ni-jo ans ]ra-to-jo with 400 sheep, u-ta-jo with 350 and pe-ri-qo-te-jo (Greco 2010, 158).

The personal name a-ka-i-jo also occurs in some tablets from the RCT (KN F 153, KN Vd 62 e KN Vc 68). However, these documents are earlier (LM II-IIIA1) than the De-series (LM IIIA2). As a consequence, it is more likely that the Alkaios mentioned in the RCT tablets was not the same person of the collector in the De-series (Landenius-Enegren 2008, 54; Rougemont 2009, 438-439).

A further reference to a-ka-i-jo may be identified in the possessive feminine adjective a-ka-i-je-ja, recorded in TH Of 27 from Thebes. The tablet records a wool distribution and a-ka-i-je-ja would indicate a woman employed in the textile sector. The topic of the tablet is consistent with the sheep breeding sector in which the Cretan collector a-ka-i-jo was employed. Killen hypothesized that an international aristocratic elite would exist and be involved in the wool industry (Killen 1979, 176-179; Killen 1983, 75-76). However, the small number of sheep that made up the flock under the supervision of Alkaios would make us more inclined to consider this collector as a ‘minor’ palace official, rather than a member of the ruling elite (Greco 2010, 37, 60, 79).

.a        ]                      a-ka-i-jo

.b        ]  ko-ti  /  pa-i-to  ,           OVIS^m   34      OVIS^f   4       o   OVIS^m   2

Ko-ti (at) Festòs, under the supervision of Alkaios, 34 rams, 4 ewes, 2 missing sheep.

Ko-ti: male personal name in the nominative singular. This is the name of a shepherd at Phaistos (pa-i-to), who managed a flock under the supervision of the collector Alkaios.

Etymon: its etymology is unclear. Among the suggested proposals, there are *Κότ(τ)ις, *Κόντις and *Κράτις (DMic s.v.).

A-ka-i-jo: male personal name in the nominative singular, possibly *Ἀλκαῖος. This appears to be a collector’s name, the same recorded also in KN De 1085+. If we add the sheep recorded in the two tablets, KN De 1084 and KN De 1085+, the total amount of animals under the supervision of Alkaios is about a hundred. Since this number is relatively low, Alkaios may be considered to be a “small” collector (Greco 2010, 60).

Etymon: this name has been interpreted as the syllabic transliteration of the name *Ἀλκαῖος or an ethnic, in the light of the toponym a-ka.

Pa-i-to: toponym, in the locative (/nominative of rubric). This is a place name of pre-Greek origin, generally interpreted as /Phaistos/ (: Φαιστόϛ). The geographical localization in the plain of the Mesara, to the south of river Ieropotamos, is unanimously accepted.

⇒ Further information on LiBER

The tablet KN De 1084 belongs to a homogeneous group of texts compiled by scribe H 117. It measures about 10-14 x 2-2.5 x 1 cm (Olivier 1967).

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