false 384072 1 The decipherment of Linear B by Michael Ventris some fifty years ago is the equivalent in the humanities of Crick and Watson's discovery of the structure of DNA. Today it belongs in the same rare class as Champollion's decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs in the nineteenth century. The earliest European writing system that we can understand, Linear B dates from the middle of the second millennium BC. It was rediscovered by Sir Arthur Evans, the archaeologist who excavated clay tablets bearing this ancient script at Knossos in Crete in 1900. Obsessed with cracking Linear B, Evans kept the tablets to himself for some forty years but made little progress. After his death, other scholars tackled the decipherment, but it wasn't until 1952 that the secret was penetrated. Linear B was not an unknown language such as Minoan or Etruscan but actually an archaic dialect of Greek, more than five hundred years older than the Greek of Homer. Michael Ventris's later collaborator, the Cambridge classicist John Chadwick, told the story in his famous book, <I>The Decipherment of Linear B</I> (1958). But what of the man behind the decoding? Here Chadwick's book is exceptionally reticent, because in truth he hardly knew Ventris. Based upon hundreds of unpublished letters and other sources, including Chadwick's papers, Andrew Robinson's biography is the first book to tell the story of both the decipherment of Linear B and the man who broke the code. His research reveals a most intriguing person: a dazzling polyglot with an unorthodox upbringing and socialist tendencies who was also extremely private and lacking in confidence, and who died in a mysterious car crash in 1956 at the age of thirty-four. Ventris trained successfully as an architect, and his design methods shaped his decipherment work. But it was his hobby, Linear B, that would make him immortal. 20 b/w illustrations. 373828 8 6 2002 The Man Who Deciphered Linear B: The Story of Michael Ventris total:10|5:4|3:5|2:1| 10 37 23 2 3 0 false false Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Fri Aug 03 06:36:36 -0700 2007 Fri Aug 03 06:48:10 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun Apr 13 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun Apr 13 13:03:54 -0700 2008 Sun Apr 13 13:06:05 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Fri Oct 30 08:41:48 -0700 2009 Fri Oct 30 08:41:51 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Mon Aug 03 22:50:11 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 03 22:56:10 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Fri Jul 03 14:31:45 -0700 2009 Fri Jul 03 14:31:45 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sat May 16 09:55:12 -0700 2009 Sat May 16 09:55:15 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Thu Apr 16 22:58:23 -0700 2009 Thu Apr 16 22:58:23 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Tue Dec 02 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Tue Dec 02 17:43:22 -0800 2008 Tue Dec 02 17:43:33 -0800 2008 0 0 false false Mon Nov 24 03:59:21 -0800 2008 Mon Nov 24 14:06:12 -0800 2008 0 0 false false Tue Sep 09 00:01:01 -0700 2008 Tue Sep 09 00:01:01 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Thu Jun 26 11:20:06 -0700 2008 Thu Jun 26 11:20:06 -0700 2008 3 0 false false Sat May 17 12:44:37 -0700 2008 Sat May 17 12:44:37 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Mon Apr 28 08:26:11 -0700 2008 Mon Apr 28 08:26:11 -0700 2008 5 0 false false Sun Apr 20 10:25:33 -0700 2008 Sun Apr 20 10:25:33 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Wed Apr 02 11:55:12 -0700 2008 Wed Apr 02 11:55:16 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Tue Feb 19 01:01:55 -0800 2008 Tue Feb 19 01:01:55 -0800 2008 3 0 false false Sun Jan 13 09:02:08 -0800 2008 Sun Jan 13 09:02:08 -0800 2008 0 0 false false Wed Nov 21 11:58:52 -0800 2007 Wed Nov 21 11:58:52 -0800 2007 5 0 false false Sat Nov 10 12:26:44 -0800 2007 Sat Nov 10 12:26:44 -0800 2007 2 0 false false Fri Sep 28 06:45:34 -0700 2007 Fri Sep 28 06:45:34 -0700 2007 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=384072