# PA-I-TO (Paito)

> Phaistos (place name)

A Linear A word in the Linear A Lexicon. The reading is a proposal and carries its tier.

- Reading: Paito
- Confidence: Confirmed. The function is fixed inside the corpus (position, arithmetic, commodity signs). The etymology may still be a proposal.
- Root: Φαιστός (Pre-Greek, suffix -ιστ-; Beekes 2014, 39, 164)
- Kind: Toponym
- Language: Semitic
- Signs: PA (pa) · I (i) · TO (to)
- Rank: #14 of the top 100
- First proposed by Cyrus H. Gordon, Evidence for the Minoan Language (1966), §114 n. 48

## Compared forms

- Egyptian: byšt, recarved on the Kom el-Hetan Aegean list of Amenhotep III, identified with Phaistos (Cline and Stannish 2011, 7–9)
- Linear B: pa-i-to, the town, on the Knossos sheep tablets (KN Da 1163, Da 1156, Db 1159 and others)

## Attestations

- [HT 97a](<https://linear-a.ai/texts/HT97a/index.md>): PA-I-TO 6
- [HT 120](<https://linear-a.ai/texts/HT120/index.md>): PA-I-TO 3 ¹⁄₅ — Phaistos (place name)

## Commentary

HT 97a PA-I-TO 6, among the entries under KA-RU · *307+*307 · VIR+KA 82, after KA-NU-TI 25; HT 120 PA-I-TO 3⅕, the last entry, after KI-RE-TA-NA GRA+B 60 and GRA+PA 48. Linear B writes the same pa-i-to for Phaistos, the town of the Knossos tablets (DMic II 68).

## In the onomasticon

- [PA-I-TO](<https://linear-a.ai/names/PA-I-TO/index.md>): Place, Semitic

## References

- Reading: di Mino; Gordon 1966; DMic II; Cline and Stannish 2011; Beekes 2014
- Gordon, Cyrus H. (1966), Evidence for the Minoan Language. Ventnor Publishers,68
- DMic II: Aura Jorro, Francisco, Diccionario Micénico, vol. II (CSIC 1993). 
- Cline, Eric H.; Stannish, Steven M. (2011), Sailing the Great Green Sea? Amenhotep III's "Aegean List" from Kom el-Hetan, Once More. Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections,3:2,6–16
- Beekes, Robert S. P. (2014), Pre-Greek: Phonology, Morphology, Lexicon. Brill Introductions to Indo-European Languages 2,Brill

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Page: https://linear-a.ai/lexicon/PA-I-TO/
Licence: CC BY 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Cite as: di Mino, Tom. 2026. Linear A Lexicon. Plasma AI. https://linear-a.ai/. Data: kaphtor, commit add28e94.