The present research was conducted. with the aim of better understanding of Linear B texts through the help of the Near Eastern parallels. The method chosen was the comparison between individual texts and groups of texts and not between the 'models' reconstructed for this or that society. Several restrictions for such a comparison were set up. The comparison itself was limited to the problems of manpower (lists of personnel, ration lists, land-surveys). The best parallels for Mycenaean records of work-teams (male and female) were found among the Sumerian documents from the period of the Third Dynasty of Ur, for the quotas of conscripts from specific villages - in Ugarit, and for the texts dealing with the land tenure and the organisation of the cultic personnel - among the Hittite cuneiform texts and Luwian hieroglyphic Kululu lead strips. The attempt was made to reconstruct the structure of the productive population in Mycenaean Greece and to find its place among other societies of the Ancient World.