Civilization / Humanities & Culture

Linear B Deciphered

Ventris shows in 1952 that Linear B tablets from Knossos and Pylos record an early form of Greek, pushing written Greek back to about 1400 BC.

Michael Ventris, an architect, built on Alice Kober's analysis and tested the Greek hypothesis, supported by the philologist John Chadwick. The tablets are palace inventories, not literature, but they prove Greek-speaking palace societies centuries before Homer.