The team first studied the rules that the signs followed on the clay tablets and other accounting documents. Two problems had so far complicated the decipherment of Linear A fractions. First, all documents containing sums of fractional values with a registered total were damaged or difficult to interpret, and second, they contradicted uses of certain signs, which suggest the system changed over time. Thus, the starting premise had to rely on documents concentrated to a specific period (ca. 1600-1450 BCE), when the numerical system was in coherent use across Crete. To investigate the possible values of each fractional sign, the...