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In the 15 years since the decipherment of the so-called ‘Linear B’ script as Greek, I have often been asked what was the most important resulting gain in our knowledge of ancient Greece. I have always put first the final and conclusive proof that the Mycenaeans, the people who produced a brilliant civilization in Greece between the 16th and 12th centuries BC, were Greeks. Previously there had always been room for argument, and although most people accepted this as a fact, it was always just possible to assert that the Mycenaeans were a non-Greek people, whose deeds and legends had been appropriated by the Greeks as their own.
page 271 note * E.g. [1]. His attempts at criticizing the texts of editions of the Knossos tablets [2] have been shown up as largely worthless; see [3]. His preconceptions about the script have led him into epigraphic errors. That his views have hardly changed is evident from an interview published in the Greek newspaper Vima of 24.5.66. Grumach died in October 1967, after this article was written.
