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What did Linear B tablets prove about the Mycenaeans and the Greek language?

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Neo-Assyrian clay tablet from the 7th century BC inscribed with dense cuneiform writing, known as the Flood Tablet from the Epic of Gilgamesh, displayed in the British Museum. — epigraphy The Flood Tablet, 11th cuneiform tablet in a series relating the Gilgamesh epic, from Nineveh, 7th century bce; in the British Museum, London.

The decipherment of Linear B by Michael Ventris in 1952 provided definitive proof that the Mycenaeans were Greek-speaking people. This discovery established that the Mycenaean civilization on the Greek mainland during the 2nd millennium BCE used the oldest known form of the Greek language.1234

Furthermore, the tablets confirmed that Knossos in Crete was a Greek-speaking stronghold by approximately 1400 BCE. Linguistically, these texts are invaluable as they preserve archaic Greek dialect forms, some of which persisted into the oral tradition of Homeric epic poetry.24

Beyond language, the tablets—which functioned as administrative inventories for royal palaces—revealed that many deities central to Classical Greece existed in name and kind during the Mycenaean era. These records also provided critical insights into Mycenaean social order, land distribution, and bureaucratic accounting methods, offering a detailed look at a civilization otherwise known only through archaeology.2