What light do the Linear B tablets throw on slave women?
We know from recent advances in translating linear B that both male and female slaves were part of Mycenaean society, perhaps equating to serfs in Anglo-Norman society. The words for these people can be reconstructed as doeros, doera; they ranked lower than the warrior class (heqetai). While the male slaves were probably employed mostly in agricultural work producing food, the females seem to be more closely associated with the economy, which focused on wool. Female slaves span and wove the wool into yarn and garments. Tablets from Pylos list women slave workers who receive rations of wheat and figs; some of the women are domestics such as bath-pourers, but the majority are workers in the textile industry producing woollen and linen cloth of various kinds.
