Mycénien pu-te-ri-ja et le couple ki-ti-me-na - ke-ke-me-na

The two words ki-ti-me-na and ke-ke-me-na, which in the linear B texts from Pylos designate two kinds of land, have given rise to various interpretations. Some people think they had the opposite meanings of 'private' and 'public'. Others see them as technical terms indicating the use of land, 'tilled' and 'fallow'. Others have put forward the suggestion that they were a couple of words based on the idea of 'dwelling' specialized in a legal sense. This paper try to provide some evidence in support of the last hypothesis. To this aim the Uf(3) tablets from Knossos are analysed, where ke-ke-me-na alternate with the term pu-te-ri-ja. In particular, it is argued that the probable meaning of pu-te-ri-ja is 'land of a planter', a notion which seems to support the hypothesis that the opposition between ki-ti-me-na and ke-ke-me-na was at the same time a demographic and a legal one.