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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2013
Documents in the script known as ‘Minoan Linear B’ were unearthed at Knossos in Crete over fifty years ago. About the same time a few examples of the same script were found at Thebes and other places inmainland Greece. But it was not till 1939 that tablets like those from Knossos came to light in Mainland Greece, near the Messenian Pylos, and not till after the Second World War that they appeared at Mycenae itself.
Before the Pylian discoveries, European scholars had made several attempts to read the script; but their conclusions neither persuaded classical scholars nor wakened public interest. In this matter the discoverer of the Knossian documents, Sir Arthur Evans, seems to have imposed his own restraint on others. The acquisition of what may well be the household accounts of King Nestor created a new enthusiasm for the problem; as soon as the war ended, journals on both sides of the Atlantic began to print essays by various writers who hoped to decipher parts of the script. Mr. Michael Ventris was among these writers; and from the outset his methods were bolder and more resolute than those of the others. By 1951 his tentative decipherment of the Linear B script was being circulated privately; by 1952 he was explaining it in lectures addressed to learned societies; and a year later, in collaboration with Mr. John Chadwick, he published a full account of his solution in the Journal of Hellenic Studies (LXXIII (1953), pp. 84–103).
Mr. Ventris' claims are as follows: (1) The language of all the Linear B writings is Greek, and that of a pre-Dorian kind allied to classical Arcadian and Cyprian. (2) The script is in the main a syllabary, akin to the classical Cyprian syllabary. (3) By studying the way in which the syllabic signs are used (their frequency, position in the word, combination of one sign with another, etc.), and by inferring the content of the documents from certain signs which are not syllabic but ideographic, it is possible to discover the phonetic value of most of the syllabic signs. Mr. Ventris describes how he carried out the work of decipherment and produces phonetic values for most of the signs and also rules of orthography; and finally, he shows how his conclusions can be applied to various documents from Knossos and Pylos.
1 The symbols T and A will be used from time to time in the argument that follows to represent, respectively, any consonant and any vowel. They may also be used in conjunction with letters; e.g. Ta = a syllable consisting of any consonant plus the vowel a.
2 Mr. Ventris uses the obelisk-sign to mark ‘suggested spellings, meanings, and compounds which are not paralleled in classical Greek, or implicit in the accepted etymology’. He uses a question-mark ‘where serious difficulties stand in the way of the meaning or spelling proposed’.
3 Mr. Ventris says: ‘coincidence seems insufficient to account for … e-te-wo-ke-re-we-i-jo, which on values and orthography determined beforehand (and out of 200 billion possible permutations of syllables in an eight-sign word) so exactly yields the patronymic 
’. But given 200 billion variations, anything may happen. Those who take the trouble to decipher the rest of the tablet Sn. 01 will find the context far less impressive than Mr. Ventris indicates.
4 The ideogram bears only a superficial resemblance to a footstool in Mycenaean art. The words accompanying ta-ra-nu are turned by Mr. Ventris into fanciful descriptions of foot stools, which do not endure close scrutiny. The series of texts in which ta-ra-nu occurs contains several ideograms of vessels, none of furniture.
5 The three offending words are ka-ra-ko for qa-ra-ko (βληχών, γληχών), ka-da-mi-ta for ka-ra-mi-ta (καλαμίνθη), and ma-ra-tu-wo for ma-ra-to (μάραθος). These amount to a third of the list, and are sufficient to discredit the rest. Also in this text are the expressions ka-na-ko e-ru-ta-ra and ka-na-ko re-u-ka, sc. 
and κ. λευκά. These have been identified with the κνῆκος, Carthamus tinctorius, and κ. ἀγρία, C. leucocaulos, of post-classical Greek. Note, however, (i) that the epithets ἐρυθρά, λευκή are not applied to κνῆκος by Greek authors; (ii) that C. tinctorius has yellow or yellow-brown flowers, and C. leucocaulos yellow (not white) flowers in a hood or cup of whitish sepals; (iii) that C. tinctorius produces by a complicated process a red dye, C. leucocaulos produces no dye at all; and (iv) that neither they nor any other Carthamus can be reckoned as condiment or medicament.
6 Although Mr. Ventris has concentrated attention on the ti-ri-, qe-to-ro elements, and on the -Towe ending, it is well consider also the following table of words. There is an apparent relationship between these words in Linear B, but it does not correspond to anything, real or apparent, in Greek.
7 The tragic death of Mr. Ventris in a motoring accident was announced as the Journal was going to press. The author and editors wish to express their sorrow at this grievous loss to scholarship, and their hope that the new enthusiasm for Minoan studies his work has aroused will continue to bear fruit.
