VENTRIS, Michael (1922–1956), and CHADWICK, John (1920–1998)

Evidence for Greek Dialect in the Mycenaean Archives

London: Council of the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies, 1953

[in:] Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 73, pp. 84–103; 287 x 283mm; single issue in printed wraps. Very good condition: spine a little chipped near the top and frayed at the bottom; wraps overhanging the text block and therefore worn as always; fade to a portion of the front cover; internally very good, largely uncut, but the Ventris and Chadwick article is opened.

Essay

The greatest adventure in the history of linguistics. Michael Ventris’ and John Chadwick’s decipherment of Linear B, which they controversially identified as the oldest written form of the Greek language.

Linear B is a semi-pictographic script that was known even to the ancient Greeks themselves – yet neither they nor anyone before Ventris could read a single word of the language. In the late 19th century Arthur Evans was the first to conduct a systematic study of inscriptions, which were found mainly at Mycenaean palatial sites in Pylos (Peloponnese) and Knossos (Crete).

Various theories about Linear B followed, but it wasn’t until the 1940s that Alice Kober was the first to grasp the grammatical structure of the language: she constructed grids, linking similar symbols in groups of threes, and identified the language as inflected, amongst other findings. This lay the groundwork for Ventris – a young architect and erstwhile classicist – to begin his detective work. His first moment of inspiration came when he realised that certain symbols groups only occurred on Cretan inscriptions. Might these be the names of Cretan places? This inspired guess allowed Ventris to decipher much of the language, and he announced his findings in July 1952 in a BBC radio programme. The classicist and Bletchley Park codebreaker John Chadwick heard Ventris’ talk, leading the two to collaborate to solve a riddle almost as old as written language itself. When a tablet with a pictographic cauldron was discovered, with symbols tallying with Ventris’ and Chadwick’s ‘ti-ri-po-de’, it became clear that Linear B was in fact an ancient Mycenaean Greek script.

Here we offer the first published account of Ventris’ and Chadwick’s work – the paper immortalised as ‘the decipherment of Linear B’.

Ventris tragically died young, in a motoring accident, in the same year (1956) as he and Chadwick completed their monumental Documents in Mycenaean Greek. Controversy and doubt initially surrounded their work, but time and further research have proved the decipherment correct. (Linear A, meanwhile, remains undeciphered.)