The enigmatic script Linear A has long been one of antiquity’s most enduring mysteries. Emanating from Bronze Age Crete, its undecipherable cryptic symbols have frustrated researchers, historians, and archaeologists for over a century, but now, a British accountant in what has been called a “bold new theory” claims to have cracked the code and lifted the veil of mystery that has long hung over the script.
Mark Cook, a British forensic accountant realized the Linear A Tablets are partially complete accounting and argues that Linear A is a form of ancient Egyptian shorthand, similar in form to later Graeco-Roman shorthand (which evidently derived from the earlier Egyptian form). “ It actually seemed odd to me that an accountant had never looked at the Linear A tablets before. Linguists had pored over them, but numbers formed a large proportion of what was written, as well as the characters of whatever language was being conveyed, and it seemed that a large proportion of the information on the tablets was almost being ignored ,” says Cook.
Hellbound and Down 