Kafkania Pebble - Forgery

Forgery

The inscription is probably a modern forgery. There are many arguments indicating this:

• Inscriptions on pebbles are otherwise unknown in Mycenaean and Minoan epigraphy.
• The "rays" surrounding the axe are unparallelled in Myceanaean and 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 this inscription is apparently boustrephedon.
• The writing style appears to be anachronistic.
• It is unlikely on historical grounds that Linear B writing existed in the northwest Peloponnese at this period.
• 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.