Many of the Greek deities are known from as early as
Mycenaean (Late Bronze Age) civilization. This is an incomplete list of these deities[n 1] and of the way their names,
epithets, or titles are spelled and attested in
Mycenaean Greek, written in the
Linear B[n 2]syllabary, along with some reconstructions and equivalent forms in later
Greek.
Deities
Pantheon
Name
Notes
English
Linear B
Transliteration
Comments
Footnotes
Pantes Theoi
๐๐ฏ๐ณ๐๐
pa-si-te-o-i
"To All the Gods"; a special invocation, irrespective of sex, etc.; recurrently attested at Knossos[1][2][3][4]
A possible
sun goddess, predecessor to
Helios, and possibly related to Helen.[150] No unambiguous attestations of words for "sun" have yet been found, though the Mycenaean word for "sun" is reconstructed as *hฤwรฉlios.
^This list includes deities which in later Greek times and sources were thought of as semigods or mortal heroes. Scholars assign to attested words in Linear B a possibility or probability, sometimes controversially, of being a
theonym or an
anthroponym, a
toponym, etc.; Mycenaean Linear B sources are often damaged inscriptions bearing
lacunae, and in any case, they are too few to enable classifications with certainty. Finally there is a list of attested words which seem to refer to mortals or whose reference is unclear, yet they may have a connection to religion or to a divine or heroic figure of later times.
^The names/words in Linear B and the transliteration thereof are not necessarily in the
nominativecase and also not necessarily of said gods
per se, as e.g. in the case of Hephaestus.
^This term is for example found, on the Kn Fp 1 and KN Fp 13 tablets.[5][6]
^It should be made clear that an absence of offerings, in parallel, to explicitly named deities or people (like priests or priestesses) on relevant attested inscriptions, does not necessarily follow from the presence of this special dedication; for example, the Kn Fp 1 inscription also includes, among others, offerings to Zeus Diktaios, Pade, Erinys and Anemon Hiereia.
^The words are two - despite the lack of a separator symbol - and in the dative plural case; their reconstructed form is *pansi tสฐeoihi; see the words ฯแพถฯ,
ฮธฮตฯฯ.[2][7][8]
^The inscriptions read that the offers are made to her, thus they could refer to a goddess; this is not though, what modern scholars seem to believe.
^The first cited form could just be an instance of a
scribe forgetting to write the word-separator sign ๐ between two words. In that case *Anemohiereia should be instead read as *Anemon Hiereia also.
^
abcdThe word Poseidon (ฮ ฮฟฯฮตฮนฮดแฟถฮฝ; variant forms include ฮ ฮฟฯฮตฮนฮดฮฌฯฮฝ, the former's final syllable being a
synaeresis of the latter's final two) itself, could be connected in an etymological sense - cf. ฯฯฯฮนฯ - to Despotas (if indeed this is the correct reading-interpretation of do-po-ta) and Potnia;[34] likewise compare the same word in connection to Ge-Gaia (hence possibly to Ma Ga) and the possible Enesidaon and other undoubted later-times epithets of him, in consideration of the word-endings, etc.. Moreover some scholars have connected - in a similar manner to the one of Poseidon - Demeter to "Earth" via the De (Da; considered in this case as
Pre-Greek and as meaning "Earth") syllable, the goddess thus viewed as representing Da-Mater, "Mother Earth" or similar; others on the other hand have interpreted Demeter's Da syllable as related to domos (i.e. to be
Indo-European), interpreting her name as "Mother of the House", creating thus an etymological connection to Despotas and Potnia. ร propos, some scholars have considered the attested, on the PY En 609 tablet,[58] Mycenaean word ๐ ๐๐ณ, da-ma-te, as reading Demeter, but the view is not widely held anymore; the former is indeed thought to be connected to domos, etc, but it is believed to probably be a form of, or something similar to, ฮดฮฌฮผฮฑฯ.[59][60][61][62]
^According to Chadwick,[27] "Dionysos surprisingly appears twice at Pylos, in the form Diwonusos, both times irritatingly enough on fragments, so that we have no means of verifying his divinity". This old view can be found reflected in other scholars[28] but this has changed after the 1989-90 Greek-Swedish
excavations at Kastelli Hill, Chania, unearthed the
KH Gq 5 tablet.[19][29][30][31]
^Hiller's[1] or Schofield's[28]pa-ja-wo is not actually attested per se; the word actually attested on the damaged KN V 52 tablet and the fragments thereof, reads pa-ja-wo-ne; the latter would be the
dative case form of the former.[54][55]
^Found on the PY Tn 316 and PY Fr 1204 tablets.[22][66]
^It is generally thought to be connected to ฯฯฮนฯฮฌฯฮฟฯฮตฯ, i.e. the "collective, anonymous family ancestors",[64][70][71] but it could perhaps instead refer to
Triptolemus, himself possibly "a '
hypostasis' of Poseidon".[70][72]
^
abThe King and the Two Queens are sometimes attested on tablets together, in the offerings or the
libations to them; forms of both "the King" and "the Two Queens" are in the dative case. An example of said concurrent attested worship is the PY Fr 1227 tablet.[74]
^
abOn the other hand, there are scholars who have argued that "the King" and "the Two Queens" are not theonyms, that they simply refer to mortal royalty.[75]
^Said Potnia or Potnia in general is found on only one table at Thebes:
TH Of 36.[128] Her premises, her house is thought to have been her shrine.[27][126]
^The word, on the same tablet, ๐ก๐ฉ๐, po-re-na, *phorenas, understood to mean "those brought or those bringing" (it actually reads ๐ก๐ฉ๐๐ค, po-re-na-qe, but a postfixed ๐ค, qe, is usually a
conjunction; cf. ฮบฮฑฮฏ, ฯฮต, and
Latinet, qve),[131][132] has been interpreted by some scholars as evidence of human sacrifice at said sanctuary:[133] "According to this interpretation, the text of Tn 316 was written as one of many extreme emergency measures just before the destruction of the palace. Tn 316 would then reflect a desperate, and abnormal, attempt to placate divine powers through the sacrifice of male victims to male gods and female victims to female gods".[134]
^The nominative case form of the place (i.e. of the sanctuary) is ๐๐๐๐, pa-ki-ja-ne; it is also found in other forms, including derivative words; the specific form found on the PY Tn 316 tablet is ๐๐๐๐ฏ, pa-ki-ja-si, i.e. possibly its
locative plural form.[130]
^Possibly an
ethnic or geographic adjective of Asia understood in this context as referring to
Lydia or the
Assuwa league; i.e. in the sense of, or similar to,
Anatolia.[135]
^Beekes, Robert (2010) [2009]. "E.g.,
s.v.ฮณฮฑแฟฮฑ, ฮดฮฌฮผฮฑฯ, ฯฯฯฮนฯ, ฮฮทฮผฮฎฯฮทฯ". Etymological Dictionary of Greek. With the assistance of Lucien van Beek. In two volumes. Leiden, Boston.
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^Lujรกn, Eugรฉnio R. "Los temas en -s en micรฉnico". In: Donum Mycenologicum: Mycenaean Studies in Honour of Francisco Aura Jorro. Edited by Alberto Bernabรฉ and Eugenio R. Lujรกn. Bibliothรจque des cahiers de L'Institut de Linguistique de Louvain Vol. 131. Louvain-la-Neuve; Walpole, MA: Peeters. 2014. p. 68.
^Lejeune, Michel. "Une prรฉsentation du Mycรฉnien". In: Revue des รtudes Anciennes. Tome 69, 1967, nยฐ 3โ4. p. 281. [DOI:
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^Bernabรฉ, Alberto; Lujรกn, Eugenio R. Introducciรณn al Griego Micรฉnico: Gramรกtica, selecciรณn de textos y glosario. Monografรญas de Filologรญa Grega Vol. 30. Zaragoza: Prensas de la Universidad de Zaragoza. 2020. p. 234.
^Chadwick, John (1966).
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