THE FIRST CORRECT DECIPHERING OF LINEAR B

VENTRIS, MICHAEL (+) JOHN CHADWICK.

Documents in Mycenaean Greek. Three Hundred Selected Tablets from Knossos, Pylos and Mycenae with Commentary and Vocabulary.

Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1956. 4to. In publisher's red full cloth with gilt lettering to spine. Hinges loose and cloth to lower part of hinges with tear. Lbrary stamp to verso of title page. Internally fine and clean. XXX, (2), 452 pp.

First edition of Ventris and Chadwick's exceedingly important work which constitutes the very first practical translation of Linear B (a syllabic script that was used for writing Mycenaean Greek - the earliest form of the Greek language) and certainly the earliest thorough discussion of Linear B translation. The decipherment of Linear B was not only of great interest to scholars and researchers, but also profoundly influenced European cultural history and affected how to define 'The Cradle of Europe': It demonstrated a Greek-speaking Minoan-Mycenaean culture on Crete, and presented Greek in writing some 600 years earlier than what was thought at the time.

Linear B was initially deciphered by Ventris and Chadwick between 1951 and 1953. They published they first theories is 1952 in a short paper, a work which is still surrounded by much controversy; the present work is the first to contain what is generally accepted as the first thoroughly satisfying deciphering of Linear B.

In a BBC radio program in 1952 Ventris concluded that the tablets (the ones translated in the present work) were Greek, and that there finally seemed to be a logical explanation to the mysterious signs: "One of the most interested listeners to the broad cast was a young Cambridge philologist specializing in Greek, John Chadwick. At the time, the Ventris theory was just the latest in a long line of supposed "solution", every one of which had failed. But Chadwick, who had himself failed to read the tablets on the assumption that they were Greek, was interested. On July 9, Chadwick wrote to [Ventris], congratulating him on the solution. They formed a close association and together wrote a report of the decipherment [Their 1952-paper]. It gave a decidedly confusing explanation of the decipherment. And it did not gather up all the loose ends." (Kahn, The Code Breakers, P. 933.).

"At the time [in the early 50ies] the Linear B tablets from Knossos in the island of Crete were considered to be the earliest documents in the Greek language. Now the ancient Greeks have been claimed by Hellenists from the late 18th century onwards to be the founders of European civilization, all other peoples with an Indo-European linguistic heritage being excluded for some reason or another. In the description mankind's history, the absence or presence of the art of writing is even used for making the rather haphazard distinction between prehistory and history. So one can very well imagine why the island of Crete in offering hospitality to the first writing Greeks was proclaimed [...] the cradle of Europe." (Binsbergen, Black Athena Comes of Age, Pp. 102-3.).

Order-nr.: 47729