Cracking The Code: The Decipherment Of Linear B

A conference in Cambridge earlier this month marked the 60th anniversary of the decipherment by Michael Ventris of Linear B, a script used for an early form of ancient Greek. His stunning achievement pushed back the frontiers of knowledge about the ancient world.

When during the early 20th century archaeologists excavated some of the most famous sites of Ancient Greece – notably Knossos on the island of Crete and Mycenae and Pylos on the mainland – they found large numbers of clay tablets inscribed with a type of script that baffled them. It was significantly different to any other script known at the time. Moreover, it was immediately clear that there were at least two variants of this type of writing.

Australia’s Greeks Mark 60 Years Since Ventris Broke Linear B

MELBOURNE -To celebrate the 60th anniversary of Michael Ventris’ diciphering of the Bronze Age Aegean Linear B script  – and that it was an early form of Greek – the Greek Orthodox Community of Melbourne and Victoria is holding a celebration on Aug. 12 to honor his groundbreaking work. Ventris passed on his research to the BBC. Linear B validated the Greekness of the Mycenaean civilization.

Ventris’ decipherment was a major breakthrough, supplementing the archaeological investigations of the time by giving scholars access to the textual information recorded in the Linear B tablets about the socio-political, economic and religious facets of life in the Mycenaean world.