IN CLASS: Women's labor in Linear B

In class group assignment. Women's Labor in Linear B

Detail from a Linear B tablet from Knossos recording women textile workers and their children, around 1375-1350 BC. Links to an external site. (Ashmolean Museum)

IN CLASS:

1. Discuss (give yourselves 15-20 minutes) together the examples of Mycenaean tablets written in Linear B that are assigned to your group. Try to extract as much information about women out of these tablets as you can. Use any background information or knowledge you acquired from reading for this class or from lecture to help you interpret the tablets. Draw on the materials presented in the readings and class sessions to develop a fuller sense of the context of each example. Where and why was the tablet produced and how was it preserved? Who is being described? What labor are they doing? What roles do they have relative to others in the group? What compensation do they receive for that labor? Can you get any insight from the numbers mentioned in the tablets?

2. Then, do two things:

A: on one side of your card, record the results of our discussion in bullet points (select one person from the group to write).

B: on the other side of your card, try to imagine an alternative scenario or two. What if we’ve been reconstructing and imagining about Mycenaean society is all wrong? How ever you imagined the life of the women in your tablet on side A, what other options can you see? Record your alternatives as another set of bullet points.

3. Reconvene to share your results with the other groups. 

4. Please remember to put all your names on your card and turn it in to me at the end of the class!

If you are done with your tablets but other groups are still working feel free to look around at other groups’ tablets and record any additional conclusions you reach.

I am available for questions and troubleshooting throughout the session. Please don't hesitate to ask about or comment on anything.

THE TABLETS

Group One: Pylos

Group Two: Knossos

Group Three: Midea

Group Four: Thebes

Group Five: Gla

Group Six: Tiryns

Group Seven: Orchomenos

Group Eight: Mycenae