Linear B. There are two main ways in which verbal messages are communicated: in oral form and in written form. Of these two methods, the latter was unavailable to Greek speakers until the late Bronze Age (3000-1100 B.C.E.), when the rulers of the Mycenaean palaces instituted the first writing system used to represent the Greek language known as Linear B. In comparison with their neighbors, the Greeks were relative latecomers to the art of writing. Egyptian hieroglyphics and the cuneiform writing system used by various peoples in Mesopotamia and the Near East date to the fourth millennium, B.C.E. Linear B was adapted by the Mycenaeans from Linear A, the writing system used by the Minoan civilization on Crete (1800-1500 B.C.E.) to represent their non-Greek language. The earliest examples of Linear B are found on clay...