Michael Ventris

Michael George Francis Ventris, OBE (12 July 1922 – 6 September 1956) was an English architect, classicist and philologist who deciphered Linear B, the ancient Mycenaean Greek script. A student of languages, Ventris had pursued the decipherment as a personal vocation since his adolescence. After creating a new field of study, Ventris died in an automobile accident a few weeks before the publication, with John Chadwick, of Documents in Mycenaean Greek.