Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T08:53:35.808Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

THE VENTRIS–CHADWICK CORRESPONDENCE AND THE DECIPHERMENT OF LINEAR B: A DENIER, A DISSENTER AND A DUBIOUS CONCLUSION

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 September 2019

R. J. E. Thompson
R. J. E. Thompson*
Affiliation:
Selwyn College, Cambridge, UK
*
*rjet1@cam.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The correspondence between Michael Ventris and John Chadwick, housed in the Mycenaean Epigraphy Room in the Faculty of Classics, Cambridge, provides valuable insights into the decipherment of Linear B and the collaboration between the two men which produced first ‘Evidence for Greek dialect in the Mycenaean archives’ (Ventris and Chadwick (1953)) and then Documents in Mycenaean Greek (Ventris and Chadwick (1956)). The letters also reveal interesting information about the relationship between Ventris and Chadwick and other scholars of the day. This article examines their relationship with Arthur Beattie, who never accepted the decipherment, and Leonard R. Palmer, who disagreed fundamentally with many of their interpretations of the texts. A file of correspondence containing letters from 1956, discovered only after the publication of Andrew Robinson's biography of Ventris (Robinson (2002)), casts doubt on the conclusion that, perhaps in part owing to difficulties with Palmer, Ventris had lost interest in Linear B immediately before his death.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Cambridge Classical Journal , Volume 65 , December 2019 , pp. 173 - 199
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2019. Published by Cambridge University Press 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

I should like to thank Dr Anna Judson and the managers of the Chadwick Fund, whose labour on the one hand and generosity on the other in 2012 made it possible for the bulk of the work on the correspondence from which this paper emerged to be conducted on Crete; to our host in Plakias, Stavros Androulidakis; and to the officers of the Cambridge Philological Society, at whose invitation I first presented it. I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer who caught a number of infelicities. The remaining faults are my own.

References

Works cited

Beattie, A. J. (1956) ‘Mr. Ventris’ decipherment of the Minoan Linear B script’, The Journal of Hellenic Studies 76, 1–17.Google Scholar
Beattie, A. J. (1958) ‘A plain guide to the Ventris decipherment of the Mycenaean Linear B script’, Mitteilungen Des Instituts Für Orientforschung 6, 33–104.Google Scholar
Beattie, A. J. (1959a) ‘Die Entzifferung der mykenischen Schrift’, Saeculum 10, 370–3.Google Scholar
Beattie, A. J. (1959b) ‘The controversy of Linear B. i: Are the Mycenaean tablets Greek?’, Glasgow Herald, 27 May 1959, 6.Google Scholar
Beattie, A. J. (1959c) ‘The Linear B controversy. ii: Comparison with the Piltdown hoax’, Glasgow Herald, 29 May 1959, 8.Google Scholar
Bendall, L. M. (2005) Review of Robinson, A., The man who deciphered Linear B: the story of Michael Ventris (London, 2002), JHS 125, 203–5.Google Scholar
Bennett, E. L. Jr. (1951) The Pylos tablets: a preliminary transcription, Princeton.Google Scholar
Bennett, E. L. Jr. (1953) ‘The Mycenae tablets’, PAPHS 9.4, 422–70.Google Scholar
Bennett, E. L. Jr. (1955) The Pylos Tablets: texts of the isncriptions found 1939–54, Princeton.Google Scholar
Bennett, E. L. Jr. and Chadwick, J. (1958) ‘The Mycenae tablets ii’, TAPhS 48.1, 1–122.Google Scholar
Bennett, E. L. Jr., Chadwick, J. and Ventris, M. (1956) The Knossos tablets: a revised transliteration of all the texts in Mycenaean Greek recoverable from Evans' excavations of 1900–1904. Volume ii, London.Google Scholar
Blegen, C. (1959) ‘A necessary corrective to Beattie's article in MIO, vi, 33–104’, Mitteilungen des Instituts für Orientforschung vii, 180–3.Google Scholar
Browning, R. (1955) Knossos: the Linear ‘B’ texts from Knossos, London.Google Scholar
Chadwick, J. (1954) ‘Mycenaean: a newly discovered Greek dialect’, TPhS 53.1, 1–17.Google Scholar
Chantraine, P., Blanc, A., de Lamberterie, C. and Perpillou, J. L. (1999) Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque: histoire des mots, Paris.Google Scholar
Davison, J. A. (1960) ‘The decipherment of Linear B: the present position’, Phoenix 14.1, 14–26.Google Scholar
Doria, M. (1968) ‘Strumentali, ablativi e dativi plurali in Miceneo: alcuni precisazioni’, Atti e memorie del 1o Congresso Internazionale di Micenologia. Roma 27 Settembre – 3 Ottobre 1967, Rome, 764–80.Google Scholar
Henle, J. E. (1955) ‘Have we criteria for judging a decipherment of Minoan?’, AJA 59.2, 171.Google Scholar
Killen, J. T. (1979) ‘The Knossos Ld(1) tablets’, in. Risch, E. and Mühlestein, H. (eds.), Colloquium Mycenaeum. Actes du sixième colloque international sur les textes mycéniens et égéens tenu à Chaumont sur Neuchâtel du 7 à 13 septembre 1975, Neuchâtel: 151–81.Google Scholar
Milani, C. (1958) ‘I segni a, a2, a3 (=ai?)’, Aevum 32.2, 101–38.Google Scholar
Olivier, J.-P. (1967) ‘Le damokoro: un fonctionnaire mycénien’, Minos 8: 118–22.Google Scholar
Palmer, L. R. (1954a) ‘Mycenaean Greek texts from Pylos’, TPhS 53.1, 18–53.Google Scholar
Palmer, L. R. (1954b) Review of Ventris, M. G. F. and Chadwick, J., ‘Evidence for Greek dialect in the Mycenaean archives.’ (Journal of Hellenic Studies 73 (1953): 84–103). Gnomon 26(2): 65–67.Google Scholar
Palmer, L. R. (1955a) Achaeans and Indo-Europeans, inaugural lecture, 4 November 1954, Oxford.Google Scholar
Palmer, L. R. (1955b) ‘Observations on the linear “B” tablets from Mycenae’, BICS 2, 36–45.Google Scholar
Palmer, L. R. (1957a) ‘A Mycenaean tomb inventory’, Minos 5, 58–92.Google Scholar
Palmer, L. R. (1957b) Review of M. G. F. Ventris and J. Chadwick, Documents in Mycenaean Greek (Cambridge, 1956), Gnomon 29.8, 561–81.Google Scholar
Robinson, A. (2002) The man who deciphered Linear B: the story of Michael Ventris, London.Google Scholar
Treweek, A. P. (1957) ‘Chain reaction or house of cards? An examination of the validity of the Ventris decipherment’, BICS 4, 10–26.Google Scholar
Ventris, M. G. F. (1940) ‘Introducing the Minoan language’, AJA 44.4, 494–520.Google Scholar
Ventris, M. G. F. (1952a) The Cretan tablets, radio broadcast transmitted on 1 July 1952 on the BBC Third Programme.Google Scholar
Ventris, M. G. F. (1952b) ‘Deciphering Europe's earliest scripts’, The Listener, 10 July 1952, 57–8.Google Scholar
Ventris, M. G. F. and Chadwick, J. (1953) ‘Evidence for Greek dialect in the Mycenaean archives’, JHS 73, 84–103.Google Scholar
Ventris, M. G. F. and Chadwick, J. (1956) Documents in Mycenaean Greek, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Ventris, M. and Sacconi, A. (1988) Work notes on Minoan language research and other unedited papers, Rome.Google Scholar
Wace, A. J. B. and Stubbings, F. H. (1962) A Companion to Homer, London.Google Scholar