Thebes Tablets - Findings

Findings

Many of the Thebes tablets can be read as containing information on divinities and religious rites; others mention quantities of various commodities. By the sites mentioned, the boundaries of the region controlled by the Theban palace can be estimated: the Theban palace controlled the island of Euboia and had a harbour in Aulis. The tablets contain a number of important terms previously unattested in Linear B, such as ra-ke-da-mi-ni-jo /Lakedaimnijos/ "a man from Lacedaemonia (Sparta)", or ma-ka /Mā Gā/ "Mother Gaia" (a goddess still revered in Thebes in the 5th century BC, as reported e.g. in Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes). Interesting is also ku-na-ki-si /gunaiksi/ "for women", exhibiting the peculiar oblique stem of Greek γυνή "woman".

Godart and Sacconi read the tablets to indicate cult activity dedicated to Demeter, Zeus protector of crops, and to Kore, and they speculate that the roots of the Eleusinian Mysteries can be traced back to Mycenaean Thebes. Palaima, however, has criticized their suggestions as "subject to very dubious interpretations" and "highly suspect on linguistic and exegetical grounds". Other arguments against the identification of cult activity in the texts have been advanced by Sarah James and Yves Duhoux.

Palaima does attach importance to one tablet (Uo 121) as evidence of linking sacrificial animals with foodstuffs at the end of LHIIIB. The same phenomenon, part of ritual Mycenaean feasting, occurs in the contemporary Pylos tablets.