Kafkania pebble
Alleged archaeological artifact
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The pebble bears a short inscription of eight signs apparently from the Linear B syllabary, possibly reading a-so-na / qo-ro-qa / qa-jo. The reverse side shows a double-axe symbol. The inscription is identified by some to be in Mycenean Greek, but that identification remains disputed. It has been suggested that such an isolated example of Linear B script indicates, at best, an early stage of Mycenaean writing at the time of origin.
G. Owens suggests that the inscription is Minoan in origin rather than Mycenaean. Then, a Minoan could have written the text for a Mycenaean. No evidence exists that the Mycenaean Greeks wrote before the Linear B archive of Knossos.
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Forgery
Several specialists in Mycenaean epigraphy have expressed serious doubts about the authenticity of the inscription; indications that it is a modern forgery include:
- Inscriptions on pebbles are otherwise unknown in Mycenaean and Minoan epigraphy.
- The "rays" surrounding the axe have no parallels in Mycenaean or Minoan iconography.
- Most of the symbols are "carefully executed" but one appears to be a "random graffito".
- Its context, imbedded in a wall, is peculiar and unprecedented.
- Linear B is otherwise consistently written left-to-right, but the inscription is apparently written in boustrophedon.
- The writing style appears anachronistic.
- It is unlikely on historical grounds that Linear B writing then existed in the northwest Peloponnese.
- Finally, the pebble was apparently discovered on the morning of April Fool's Day. If it is indeed a forgery, the symbols spelling a-so-na may spell out the name Iasonas, the first name of the son of Xeni Arapojanni and Jörg Rambach, the alleged discoverers of the pebble.