Michael Ventris

Michael Ventris (1922–1956) was a British architect and linguist who deciphered Linear B, demonstrating that it recorded an early form of Greek.

Linear B: A syllabic script used to write Mycenaean Greek in Bronze Age Greece. Ventris’s decipherment established that this script recorded an early form of Greek.
Knossos: A major Bronze Age palace complex on Crete, excavated by Arthur Evans. Its tablet finds supplied much of the Linear B material Ventris sought to understand.
John Chadwick: A British classicist and philologist who collaborated with Ventris on Linear B. He supplied expertise in Greek linguistics and helped validate the decipherment.
Mycenaean civilization: A Bronze Age Greek civilization centered on palace societies from about 1600 to 1100 BCE. Linear B connected its administrative records to the history of the Greek-speaking world.
Linear B decipherment: The identification of Linear B as a script for Mycenaean Greek, completed in 1952. This was the achievement built from Ventris’s linguistic and statistical deductions.
Arthur Evans: The archaeologist who excavated Knossos and named the scripts Linear A and Linear B. His discoveries created the corpus of inscriptions that framed Ventris’s problem.
Emmett L. Bennett Jr.: An American classicist who established much of the signary and numbering system for Linear B. His careful tablet editions gave Ventris reliable material to analyze.
Linear B tablets: Clay administrative records written in Linear B at Bronze Age palace centers. Their contents revealed names, goods, and institutions in Mycenaean Greek.
Mycenaean Greek: The earliest attested form of Greek, recorded chiefly on Bronze Age Linear B tablets. It was the language Ventris identified beneath the script’s syllabic signs.
Pylos tablets: Linear B clay tablets excavated at the Mycenaean palace of Pylos in Greece. Their place names and administrative records helped test Ventris’s Greek hypothesis.

Linked from 6 pages