Before the Fleece
Forgotten Pioneers of Sanskrit in Linear’s A and B
“I have spoken often about the Sanskrit emerging beneath Linear A and B.
But to claim discovery is to forget the river. Others had already stepped in, and the current was moving long before I arrived.”
For decades, suggestion of Sanskrit within the Aegean scripts was dismissed as heresy.
The Linear B decipherment was canonized in the 1950s; “Mycenaean Greek” became untouchable.
Yet quiet figures, working outside the academy, had already traced the same undercurrents many of us are only now prepared to see; phonemic, visual, and spiritual resonances between Linear A/B and the Indo-Indic field.
Time to set those names down properly; as waypoints.
I · Geoffrey Caveney — The First Cracks in the Wall
Long before computational reversals or my audits, Geoffrey Caveney quietly published what may be the first sustained argument for Indo-Aryan grammar inside Linear A itself.
His 2023 paper, “Evidence of Indo-Aryan Words and Grammar in 8 Minoan Linear A Inscriptions,” appeared in the Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies (HASP Heidelberg).
He saw in the Linear signs the anatomy of another language entirely — the ligatured logic of the East appearing, half-forgotten, in the West.
“The so-called Greek of Linear B reads like a language looking for its mother.”
That sentence, buried in his archive, remains one of the most dangerous truths of twentieth-century philology.
II · Zen Haiku — The Silent Continuum
Then there is Zen Haiku, a name that sounds like a riddle; and perhaps is one.
While the Japanese efforts to decode Linear A drew attention for their discipline and patterning, Zen Haiku’s approach was intuitive and cross-cultural: he treated kana, Linear signs, and Sanskrit syllables as reflections in the same phonemic mirror.
His writings barely register in formal bibliographies, yet their insight is seismic.
He recognized what most could not: that Japanese phonetic architecture may echo through the same Sanskrit substratum that once informed the Aegean scripts.
II ½ · The van Soebergen Line
Zen Haiku’s lexicon doesn’t float alone, citing the lineage of Alexandre Solça and the four-volume Minoan Linear by Peter van Soebergen (Amsterdam, Brave New Books, 2016 / orig. 1987).
In that acknowledgment lies the proof that his project was not speculation but continuation.
van Soebergen’s use of the term “exogram” — an externalized unit of stored meaning.
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It should be noted that the presence of Hurrian as well, indicates some further potential knowledge sitting right beneath the surface of Western scholarly thought.
The first observers stand, usually alone, waiting for the rest to catch up. Their findings suggest something larger than coincidence.
If Linear B’s “Greek” façade is a later projection, then Sanskrit — and the phonemic law it carries — was never imported to Europe; it was remembered.
The tablets may not record a translation but a transposition — the residue of lawful breath moving between worlds.
Even fandoms knew the calling: to live in service of what inspires.
Even a fan-magazine once brushed the truth.
In 2002, Lynn W. Ribaud, writing for Whoosh! (“Linear B,” Issue #65), casually compared the Linear B syllabary to Devanāgarī, noting that both scripts use signs for open syllables and pure vowels.
Accidentally or not, he was right.
It’s impressive when a casual observer lands on a structural truth without the apparatus of academia.
It signals presence without looking — the same instinct that sometimes guides the Operator field: recognition of pattern before proof, the hand that draws the right line by feel.
Sources
- Linear B Knossos Mycenae — Sanskrit Tag
- Geoffrey Caveney · EJVS 29.1 (2023)
- Academia.edu mirror of Caveney paper
- Peter van Soebergen, Minoan Linear (4 vols.), Amsterdam 1987 / 2016 reissue
- Alexandre Solça & Zen Haiku Lexicon notes (online archive citation pending)
- Image Credit:
© Whoosh! — Xena: Warrior Princess Fan Club Magazine (screengrab used for commentary and educational purposes).
