Late Bronze Age Greece was a partly literate place. The Minoans had used a hieroglyphic script and a type of writing we call Linear A, which remain undeciphered, but the Mycenaeans, or at least the authorities associated with some of the palaces, wrote on clay tablets in Greek using the Linear B script. These Linear B tablets, accidentally preserved in fires, were first translated by Michael Ventris in 1952 and then published as a corpus in co-operation with John Chadwick.1 Tablets continue to be found even now, extending our knowledge of Mycenaean Greece. None of them record history, literature or poetry, nor are there any lists of kings, but the information they do contain is nevertheless precious.