X 7546

The tablet KN X 7546 was found in deposit F7, in the area of the West Magazines, to the west of the large Central Court of the Palace of Knossos.

This fragmentary tablet belongs to the Series X. It shows no logograms, and the scribal hand is unknown.

However, despite the fragmentary state, what remains of the inscription has led to several observations. The toponym pa-i-to appears in larger characters and allows us to trace back the text to the group of recordings related to Phaistos. To the right of it, two lines of text (KT VI, CoMIK) are still visible. Although the absence of any logograms does not allow us to identify the main content of the text, the presence of the form o-pi seems to suggest that this inscription might fall into the class of o-pi tablets; o-pi may be interpreted as the preposition /opi/ (gr. *ὀπί, Ion.-Att. ἐπί) (Killen 1968; DMic s.v.).

It may be interesting to remember that at Knossos there are at least 27 occurrences of the preposition o-pi. This preposition generally occurs in initial position and is followed by an anthroponym in the dative case (Morpurgo 1981, in Res Mycenaeae). Most of the so-called o-pi tablets were compiled by scribe H 103 (see Killen 1968; Killen-Del Freo 2015). According to Killen, the recurrence of o-pi + anthroponyms in the dative case might allude to the recording of individuals who supervised groups of workers in the textile industry. This is particularly interesting considering that some tablets of the Ak series, compiled by the same scribe H 103, appear to record groups of women and children, employed precisely in the textile industry, under the supervision of male and female supervisors.

Contrary to other documents compiled by H 103, this tablet is too fragmentary to allow us to identify its content. However, it might not be illicit to wonder – at least in theory – whether this document could deal with groups of female workers employed at Phaistos and placed under the supervision of an individual, whose name, which might have followed o-pi in the first line, has now been lost.

.A                       ,   o-pi

.B        pa-i-to  ,  /  pa[

Under the supervision of …

(At) Phaistos, Pa …

o-pi:  prob. o-pi

The preposition o-pi occurs in the archives of Knossos and Pylos. Normally, it precedes an anthroponym in the dative case. In particular, most of the anthroponyms preceded by this preposition are feminine (Killen 1968; Killen-Del Freo 2015), despite a few exceptions, e.g. PY Ae 108, 134 and 489 (DMic s.v. o-pi). It has been unanimously interpreted as /opi/ *ὀπί (a doublet of ἐπί, cf. ὄπισθεν) “in the charge or house of (a supervisor), at the workshop of” (Olivier 1968 in Minos 9; Killen 1968; Killen-Del Freo 2015).

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

pa [: probably the initial of a man’s name, the restoration of which is not possible due to the fragmentary state of the document.

⇒ Further information on LiBER

Fragmentary tablet. Incomplete on the right. The tablet fragment measures ca. 5.08 x 3.42 cm x 1.84 cm.

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