5X53

ka-ka-re-a, one would get the Homeric adjective _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ 
"bronze-pointed" (cf _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_  _-_-_-_-_ Iliad 5.145). But the 
division of the spelling into two halves seems to go against 
this. Sittig thought he could detect signs in erasure following
_-_ - (the first one possibly _ ?) . Any comments ?

	Incidentally it was only the other day that I noticed 
that the other name of a "missile" on Jn09.3 _-_-_-_-_ also
has its nominative plural in _-_-_ on the ARROW sealing Ws 1704;
which Chadwick then pointed out had, by Evans' report, actually
been found in association with a box of arrows. 

(a hand-written note) Sittig compares _-_-_-_-_-_ "dart", which is better than our _-_-_-_-

	I am glad that you will be including tracings of the 
tablets in the publication of the new Pylos tablets. I always felt 
that was a slight lack in the '1939' edition, not so much because 
one suspects the transcription at all, but because it would give a
useful indication of how much matter is lost in the broken and
smudged areas. I am sure you will not be offended if I say that here 
and there in your MLBIndex there are words which, on the photos 
available to me, don't quite seem to square up. I propose to indicate 
these queries in coloured pencil on the copy of the 'glossary' I shall 
send you: I expect in most cases your own 'autopsy' will have proved 
to be the more correct.

	Dikaios sent two splendid photos of his new Enkomi tablet
for publication in the December number of our English quarterly 
ANTIQUITY, and the editor O.G.S.Crawford has lent them to me over 
the weekend. I have drawn him out a list of signs (which I get up to
58, possibly 57, on the tablet as it stands) and also a 'normalising'
tracing, intended to make the word-division and sign-differentiation 
clearer to the average user (the signs are built up of tiny 'slashing' 
strokes, not continuous lines like the Mycenaean, and so the problem 
of finding a reasonable "normalising" shape is difficult). There seem 
to be about 128 discrete words on the two sides of the tablet, but 
though I've drawn up an index, I don't expect ANTIQUITY will have room 
for it- and in any case, it takes some initial fun away from any one 
else playing with the tablet. From what one can see of the script, it 
looks very little related to Linear A or B, superficially at any rate; 
though one suspects that, geographically and historically, it ought to 
be the ancestor of the Cypriot syllabary. I have tried to collate the
signs with the terracotta ball inscriptions and vase inscriptions
published in Daniel's article, and in Masson's chapter in Enkomi-Alasia; 
but many of the drawings are bad, and if there are variations in the 
forms of the letters, I think the signary based on the tablet must 
be accepted as the "norm" as being obviously a carefully-written 
literary text.
	For the same number of ANTIQUITY Chadwick and I have also 
written a pair of articles going over much the same ground as our
JHS article, but in more popular terms. Please discount any excessive
confidence in it, on things you are still skeptical about. I will 
send you a copy of the ANTIQUITY number, and also a tidier offprint 
of the JHS article, which is on the way from the printers now.

	All the best,
	
		Micahael Ventris