 In circa 1600 BC , the Mycenaean Greeks borrowed from the Minoan civilization its syllabic writing system ( i.e. Linear A ) and developed their own syllabic script known as Linear B. The Linear B script was utilized by the Mycenaean palaces in Greece for administrative purposes where economic transactions were recorded on clay tablets and some pottery in the Mycenaean dialect of the Greek language . The Linear B tablets were first discovered in Crete by English archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans in circa 1900 and later deciphered by English architect and cryptographer Michael Ventris in 1952 . Ventris 's discovery of an archaic Greek dialect in the Linear B tablets demonstrated that Mycenaean Greek was " the oldest known Greek dialect , elements of which survived in Homer ’ s language as a result of a long oral tradition of epic poetry . " 
