The Decipherment of Linear B

John Chadwick tells the story of Michael Ventris’ work on deciphering the script Linear B and uncovering that they underlying language was an early form of Greek. Chadwick also uses the opportunity to honor Ventris, who died only a few years after publishing his work.

Ventris’ approach was, seemingly, much more methodological than the previous approaches at deciphering Linear B. Given the descriptions of Ventris’, he was undoubtedly incredibly gifted and skilled, but his deductive reasoning was inspiring. Instead of attempting to make grand conclusions about Linear B, he instead attacked the smallest pieces of information he could be certain about, such as the behavior of word gender and plurality.

As someone who enjoys reading about ancient cultures and languages, this book offered plenty in the last few chapters, which tried to draw out observations based upon the newly available translations.

Due to the typesetting restrictions, Linear B signs are only used sparingly and a numerical code is used instead. A modern, digital typesetting would add a lot in allowing for the Linear B script to be rendered fully. However, the numerical codes also offer an important abstraction, since they are free from interpretation, are unambigious and undoubtedly easier to read.