Linear B tablets attesting Zeus (di-we / di-wo), Knossos and Pylos
Administrative offering records in Linear B that contain the earliest written attestation of any *Dyḗus reflex as a worshipped theonym: di-we / di-wo (dative and genitive of Zeus, /Diwei/, /Diwos/) receives offerings at Knossos and Pylos, alongside a female counterpart di-u-ja and a month name and sanctuary di-wi-jo(-jo) ("of Zeus"). Because these are dated by destruction layers (archaeologically anchored), they give the sky-father motif its hard class-2 floor: a millennium-plus before Homer's formulaic "Zeû páter."
KN Fp 1 (Knossos): oil offerings listed for di-ka-ta-jo di-we ("Diktaian Zeus") — the god, already with a Cretan cult epithet, c. 1400 BCE (Ventris & Chadwick 1973, doc. 200 series discussion).
PY Tn 316 (Pylos): gold vessels and human(?) attendants dedicated to a series of deities including di-we and di-u-ja in the month of plowing — Zeus inside a working Bronze Age pantheon, not a literary character.
The stem di-w- transparently continues PIE dyēu-/diw- by regular Greek development; the tablets thus anchor the linguistic* reconstruction to a dated document.
Linear B religious tablets are laconic bookkeeping; they attest the name and cult, not myth or the "father" epithet (that first appears with alphabetic Homer, c. 750–700 BCE). Some identifications of divine names in Linear B are debated, but di-we/di-wo = Zeus is among the universally accepted ones. Dates are tied to destruction-layer archaeology (Knossos dating itself has a long controversy, ±50 years).
sky-father