According to tablets, in palatial warehouses, Minoans were keeping various kinds of farm produce. Among them, two kinds of products are very important : dry products and liquids.

Grain and flour of cereals seem to play a major role in the inventories. The name of barley is easy to recognize through Indo-Iranian. The other cereals : wheat, rye, rank second in the stocklists and in particular wheat is named by different species, uncluding hard wheat (at Arkhanes, Haghia Triada and Zakros), emmer wheat (at Haghia Triada, Knossos, Palaikastro, Phaistos, Tylissos, Zakros), soft wheat (at Haghia Triada, Khania, Mallia).

It's an accepted fact that common and wild barley were naturally growing on Crete. In the vocabulary, the word à-wo (KNzb5) or je-wo (HT94b), à-we-(ja) in the genitive (PH28a), is the accurate equivalent of Indo-Iranian *jewo, 'barley', Sanskrit yava, m., Persian j*aw, j*au, 'barley'.

Some other words most probably mean 'wheat' : à-dhi (or a-di, a-dhi, ja-di), the most frequent ; za-i-s*e, 'hard wheat' ; je-i, 'soft wheat'. The first noun is to be related to PIE *ados, 'cereal', but in Crete it is not barley because of the tablet HT37 on which the two species are distinguished. We can also mention Skr. adya, 'food', ad, atti, 'to eat'.

Harvest is translated by ku-re-zai, like Skr. krsi.The tablet HT26 from Haghia Triada seems to present the distribution of a harvest, divided into 21 sections which probably are the villages of the Messara plain, where 21 tholos tombs date back to Early Minoan II/Middle Minoan I.

In Linear A, the noun ra-gw or r*a-wo is quite frequent and means 'olive oil', 'fat', as Persian rûg*an, 'oil', 'olive oil', rôg*an, 'butter', and Classic Persian raug*an, 'oil'. Considering the quantities recorded on the tablets, it is possible to notice that the main production of olive oil and wine comes from the East and the West of Crete, and that the central areas are the major providers of cereals.

(Hubert La Marle - Abstract of a seminar held at Rethymnon in the University of Crete, on 23rd of April, 1999)

Note : the HTML code prevents us from a precise transcription of Linear A phonemes. I chose here to write à for a long a (or aspirate a), s* for an emphatic voiceless sibilant and j* for an affricative voiced palatal.

(Olive trees beside Kouremenos Bay in the East of Crete, near Palaikastro - H. La Marle)

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