The Decipherment of Linear B (Canto) [Paperback]

John Chadwick (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0521398304 | ISBN-13: 978-0521398305 | Publication Date: November 30, 1990 | Edition: 2

The languages of the ancient world and the mysterious scripts, long undeciphered, in which they were encoded have represented one of the most intriguing problems of classical archaeology in modern times. This celebrated account of the decipherment of Linear B in the 1950s by Michael Ventris was written by his close collaborator in the momentous discovery. In revealing the secrets of Linear B it offers a valuable survey of late Minoan and Myceanean archaeology, uncovering fascinating details of the religion and economic history of an ancient civilisation.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'In this present short book - lucid, concise and admirable - Chadwick tells us something of Ventris and his mind, and of the problems involved in the decipherment of Minoan-Mycenaean scripts. It is written for the layman and very well written. It is not only an account of a startling piece of philological and archaeological research, but a simple, moving human story.' The Spectator

Book Description

Fascinating details of the religious and economic history of an ancient pre-Hellenic civilization are revealed in this celebrated account of the decipherment of Linear B from Mycenaean Greek in the 1950s.

Product Details

• Paperback: 180 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press; 2 edition (November 30, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521398304
• ISBN-13: 978-0521398305
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #448,041 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A detective story, December 11, 2001

By 

"urn" (Wheaton (near Chicago), IL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Decipherment of Linear B (Canto) (Paperback)

When he excavated the Minoan city of Knossos in 1900, Arthur Evans found clay tablets containing an unknown language which he named Linear B (he also found variants he named 'hieroglyphic', Linear A, and Linear C). Evans himself began the decipherment process. He discovered that the tablets were palace records and deciphered their numbering system. Since there were about 90 different symbols, he noted, correctly, that the symbols represented syllables rather than alphabetic characters (too many symbols) or ideograms (too few symbols). Beyond these observations, little progress was made until, in 1952, half a century after Linear B was discovered, Michael Ventris announced that he had discovered the means to translate it.
John Chadwick tells the story of Linear B. Not to denigrate the achievement of Champollion's success with Egyption heiroglyphs, Linear B had no Rosetta Stone. It had to be understood soley from the internal evidence of the tablets. The book describes early "solutions" that were guesswork based on untenable analogies or theories. Ventris proceeded differently. The reader becomes amazed at his abilities (he memorized complete texts of symbols before understanding what they meant), his insights, and his thoroughly analytical methodology. The book tells in loving detail the steps leading to the solution. You almost feel you are taking those steps yourself and a sense of excitement grows as you see pieces falling into place. He builds a grid of vowels and consonants and painstakingly fills the symbols into their places. He finds words, and you share in the process of discovering they are an early form of Homeric Greek used in Mycenaen times at the end of the Bronze Age.
Beyond the decipherment, the book tells what we have learned from the tablets about life, economy, trade, agriculture, and armies of Mycenaen Greece.
This book is not only for people interested in the Greek language and history, it is also a fascinating detective story of the solution of an incredibly complex puzzle.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding History!, February 17, 2000

By 

B. Philip Hatley - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Decipherment of Linear B (Canto) (Paperback)

This book is one which has an extremely interesting description of the methods used in and the results of deciphering clay tablets which contained what was finally determined to be ancient Greek. I have gone back to reread large parts of it several times, because it is concisely packed with so much information about the development of the Greek language. It contains facts which tell much about Greek history. Did you ever wonder why, compared with other ancient cultures, there are very few Greek Linear B tablets from which to glean information? This scarcity of source material is one of the reasons that Linear B was so hard to translate. This book has the simple but very significant answer, along with glimpses into other cultural traits of the times. It is not a thick book, but what John Chadwick has written speaks volumes. Well worth reading for someone interested in the Greek language and culture.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good summary of the decipherment story, July 27, 2004

By 

gccircle (Pleasanton, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Decipherment of Linear B (Canto) (Paperback)

I really liked this book as an outline of the method used to decipher the Linear B script found at Crete and a few locations on mainland Greece. The author is very well qualified to comment on the decipherment given that he was a key collaborator with Michael Ventris. I found the level of detail to be just right to show the outstanding scholarship achieved by Ventris who was a professional architect, not a Greek Classics college professor; but not so much detail as to detract from the readability of the story.