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The discovery in 1939, just before the outbreak of war, at Pylos in Messenia, the home of Homer's Nestor, of clay tablets written in a script (Linear B) hitherto found only in the Late Minoan II palace (c. 1500–1400 b.c.) at Knossos in Minoan Crete, created a stir at the time and brought to the fore an acute problem which had already been taxing the ingenuity of classical scholars for many a year in their attempts at a solution. Unfortunately, though the discovery was seen in its proper perspective by some, all thoughts and energies were soon devoted to the purposes of the war; Greece was occupied by the enemy and excavations were suspended. Thus it is only within the last few years that the Pylos tablets have been found to be decipherable; and with this has come the solution of a problem of outstanding importance not only to classical scholars but to prehistorians generally. It is perhaps as well to state briefly how this problem arose and then to discuss the resultant increase in our knowledge due to its solution.
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References
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The double axe appears to be the symbol of the young male deity of Crete whom the Greeks later identified with Zeus. The symbol and its cult were diffused all over western Anatolia, for Plutarch, Mor. 301 f–302 a, states that ἔ⋯λβρυς is the Lydian word for ‘double axe’ and, according to Strabo 659, at Labraunda in Karia there was an ancient shrine of Zeus Labrandeus whose image held the π⋯λεκυς or double axe.
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