JO DAY COUNTING THREADS. SAFFRON IN AEGEAN BRONZE AGE WRITING AND SOCIETY Summary. The ideogram for saffron has long been recognized on the Linear B tablets from Knossos. Close examination of this corpus allows a distinction in content to be made between the LM II–LM IIIA1 tablets of the Room of the Chariot Tablets and the later LM IIIA1–2 tablets from the North Entrance Passage. It is suggested here that the later material demonstrates an increasing control over saffron production by the palace, with a greater overall quantity of the spice recorded, larger individual contributions, potential supervisors in charge of collection, and pressure to reach targets. This increase in organization coincides with a dramatic decrease in crocus imagery in other media, and may indicate a deliberate Mycenaean rejection of the symbolic world of Minoan floral iconography, and an interest only in the commercial value of the precious spice. Possible antecedents of the saffron ideogram in Linear A and Cretan Hieroglyphic are also considered. introduction Study of the Late Bronze Age societies of Crete and mainland Greece is greatly aided by the surviving texts of that period. Linear B, the script of Mycenaean Greece, has been recognized since the start of the twentieth century when Sir Arthur Evans first uncovered inscribed clay tablets at Knossos, but it was only deciphered in 1952 by Michael Ventris, who demonstrated that it was an early form of Greek. 1 The script is found primarily on small clay tablets, although the signs also occur on labels, sealings and painted on to stirrup jars (ISJs). The tablets have been the focus of the majority of scholarly research, and come from Mycenae, Pylos, Thebes, Tiryns, andAyios Vasileios (in Laconia) in mainland Greece, as well as Knossos and Khania on Crete. However, their preservation is entirely accidental; they were baked in the fires which occurred during the destruction of the main Mycenaean sites at the end of LH IIIB, or probably slightly earlier during LM IIIA–B for those on Crete. The presence of Linear B tablets at Knossos and Khania, combined with other changes in material culture, has been understood to suggest a Mycenaean presence on, or even control over, the island in LM II–LM IIIB (Rehak and Younger 1998, 148–9). Although these texts primarily record various transactions between 1 The story of the decipherment is told in Chadwick 1970 (1958). OXFORD JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY 30(4) 369–391 2011 © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street Malden, MA 02148, USA. 369