[[1]] Michael George Francis Ventris (July 12, 1922–September 6, 1956) was an English architect and classical scholar, who along with John Chadwick was responsible for the decipherment of Linear B. July 12 is the 193rd day (194th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 172 days remaining. ... 1922 (MCMXXII) was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... September 6 is the 249th day of the year (250th in leap years). ... 1956 (MCMLVI) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Royal motto (French): Dieu et mon droit (Translated: God and my right) Englands location within the UK Official language English de facto Capital London de facto Largest city London Area – Total Ranked 1st UK 130,395 km² Population – Total (mid-2004) – Total (2001 Census) – Density Ranked 1st UK 50. ... John Chadwick (21 May 1920 - 24 November 1998) was a British linguist and classical scholar most famous for his role in deciphering Linear B along with Michael Ventris. ... Decipherment is the analysis of documents written in ancient languages, where the language is unknown, or knowledge of the language has been lost. ... Linear B script sample Linear B is a script that was used for writing Mycenaean, an early form of the Greek language. ...

Michael Ventris was educated in Switzerland and at Stowe School, housed in a magnificent 18th century country house. His mother Dorothea "Dora" Ventris lived in Berthold Lubetkin's Highpoint modernist apartments in Highgate. He could speak six European languages in addition to Latin and classical Greek. He enrolled at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in 1940 and graduated in 1948, after interrupting his training for service as a navigator in the Royal Air Force. A few years after deciphering Linear B in 1951-1953, Ventris died in a car crash aged 34. Stowe School is a well known British public school in Stowe, Buckinghamshire. ... (17th century - 18th century - 19th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 18th century refers to the century that lasted from 1701 through 1800. ... The south or garden front of Stowe from Jones Views of the Seats of Noblemen and Gentlemen (1819). ... Berthold Lubetkin (1901-1990) was a Russian emigré architect who pioneered modernist design in Britain in the 1930s. ... View of Highgate, John Constable, 1st quarter of 19th century. ... The Architectural Association (also known as AA School of Architecture) is the oldest independent school of architecture in the UK. It was founded by two dissatisfied young architects (Robert Kerr, 19, and Charles Grey, 24) in 1847 to provide a self-directed, independent education at a time when there was... 1940 (MCMXL) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1948 (MCMXLVIII) is a leap year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). ... The Royal Air Force (often abbreviated to RAF) is the air force branch of the British Armed Forces. ... 1951 (MCMLI) was a common year starting on Monday; see its calendar. ... 1953 (MCMLIII) is a common year starting on Thursday. ...

Linear B

At the beginning of the 20th century, archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans began excavating Knossos, an ancient city located on the island of Crete. In doing so he uncovered a great many clay tablets inscribed with a previously unknown script. Some were older and were named Linear A. The bulk were of more recent vintage, however, and were dubbed Linear B. Evans spent the next several decades trying to decipher both to no avail. (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999 in the... Archaeology, archeology or archæology (from the Greek words αρχαίος = ancient and λόγος = word/speech/discourse) is the study of human cultures through the recovery, documentation and analysis of material remains and environmental data, including architecture, artifacts, biofacts, human remains, and landscapes. ... Sir Arthur John Evans (July 8, 1851 – July 11, 1941) was an English archaeologist. ... Knossos Knossos (35°18′N 25°10′E; alternative spellings Knossus, Cnossus, Gnossus, Greek Κνωσσός; see also List of traditional Greek place names) is the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete, probably the ceremonial and political center of the Minoan culture. ... Greece and Crete Crete (Greek Κρήτη / Kriti, in Turkish: Girit) is the largest of the Greek islands and the fifth largest in the Mediterranean Sea. ... Linear A etched on tablets found in Akrotiri, Santorini. ...

Part of the difficulty stemmed from Evans himself -- he had strong opinions about the nature of Cretan civilization, and was convinced that Linear B was used to write a hypothetical language he named "Minoan". A powerful political force in the academic world, Evans succeeded in cutting off any investigation into the possibility that the language being written on the tablets was Greek, despite some hints that this was the case. Map of Minoan Crete The Minoans were a pre-Hellenic Bronze Age civilization in Crete in the Aegean Sea, prior to Helladic or Mycenaean culture (i. ...

Ventris' initial theory was that Etruscan and 'Minoan' were related and that this might provide a key to decipherment and although this proved incorrect, it was a link he continued to explore until the early 1950s. Etruscan was a language spoken and written in the ancient region of Etruria (current Tuscany) and in parts of what are now Lombardy, Veneto, and Emilia-Romagna (where the Etruscans were displaced by Gauls), in Italy. ...

Shortly after Evans died, it was noted by Alice Kober that certain words in Linear B inscriptions had changing word endings -- perhaps declensions in the manner of Latin or Greek. Using this clue, Michael Ventris constructed a series of grids associating the symbols on the tablets with consonants and vowels. While which consonants and vowels they were remained mysterious, Ventris learned enough about the structure of the underlying language to begin guessing. Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. ...

Some Linear B tablets had been discovered on the Greek mainland, and there was reason to believe that some of the chains of symbols he had encountered on the Cretan tablets were names. Noting that certain names only appeared in the Cretan texts, he made the inspired guess that those names applied to cities on the island. This proved to be correct. Armed with the symbols he could decipher from this, Ventris soon unlocked much text, and determined that the underlying language of Linear B was in fact Greek. This overturned Evans' theories of Minoan history, by establishing that Cretan civilization, at least in the later periods associated with the Linear B tablets, had been been part of Mycenean Greece. Mycenae (ancient Greek: , IPA, , in modern Greek: Μυκήνες, , U.S. English: ; see also List of traditional Greek place names), is an archaeological site in Greece, located about 90km south-west of Athens, in the north-eastern Peloponnese. ...

Publications

• [[|Ventris, Michael and Chadwick, John, ]],  () ( 1956). ""  [ Documents in Mycenaean Greek], , , , : Second edition (1974). Cambridge UP. ISBN 0521085586..
• [[|Hatzinikolaou Leonidas, ]],  () ( 2002). ""  [ O thaumatourgos psithyros tou Ermi (The miraculous whisper of Hermes)], , , , : Ellinika Grammata. ISBN 960-406-082-1.. Fiction on the untimely demise of M. Ventris during his effort to decipher Linear A as Hellenic Language
• [[|Ventris, Michael, ]],  () ( 1988). ""  [ Work notes on Minoan language research and other unedited papers], , , , : Edizioni dell'Ateneo 1988 Roma. ..

John Chadwick (21 May 1920 - 24 November 1998) was a British linguist and classical scholar most famous for his role in deciphering Linear B along with Michael Ventris. ... The headquarters of the Cambridge University Press, in Trumpington Street, Cambridge. ...

See also

• Linear B
• Mycenaean Greece
• Decipherment

Linear B script sample Linear B is a script that was used for writing Mycenaean, an early form of the Greek language. ... Mycenaean Greece, the last phase of Bronze Age Greece, is the Late Helladic Bronze Age civilization of ancient Greece. ... Decipherment is the analysis of documents written in ancient languages, where the language is unknown, or knowledge of the language has been lost. ...

References

• [[|Chadwick, John, ]],  () ( 1958). ""  [ The Decipherment of Linear B], , , , : Second edition (1990). Cambridge UP. ISBN 0521398304..
• [[|Robinson, Andrew, ]],  () ( 2002). ""  [ The Man Who Deciphered Linear B: The Story of Michael Ventris], , , , : Thames & Hudson Ltd. ISBN 0500510776..
• Simon Tetlow, Ben Harris, David Roques and A. G. Meredith - Michael Ventris Remembered (Stowe School, 1984)

John Chadwick (21 May 1920 - 24 November 1998) was a British linguist and classical scholar most famous for his role in deciphering Linear B along with Michael Ventris. ... The headquarters of the Cambridge University Press, in Trumpington Street, Cambridge. ... Andrew Robinson as Elim Garak Andrew Jordt Robinson (born February 14, 1942) is an American actor best known for his role as the serial-killer Scorpio in Dirty Harry and his recurring role on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. ...

External links

• Digitized letters of Michael Ventris at PASP.
• Character of Ventris
• A Very English Genius: How Michael Ventris Cracked Linear B - BBC documentary film broadcast 17 August 2005