Minoan Linear B: A Reply

Abstract

The tragic death of Dr. Michael Ventris in September 1956 has thrust upon me the task of answering the criticisms made by Professor A. J. Beattie of his decipherment of the Minoan Linear B script [JHS lxxvi (1956) pp. 1–17]. Reasons of time and space preclude more than a summary reply; but fortunately almost all his points are covered by our discussion in Documents in Mycenaean Greek (Cambridge University Press, 1956), to which the reader is referred. I judge it necessary, however, to correct some wrong impressions and comment on some of Professor Beattie's methods.The account of the decipherment is tendentious and distorted. The need for brevity prevented a fuller account in Evidence [JHS lxxiii (1953), pp. 84–103]; a more detailed version appears in Documents; but the whole story as it unfolded month by month can still be traced in the duplicated work-notes which Dr. Ventris circulated during the period 1950–52. It should be enough to say that the crucial step of applying phonetic values to the grid was based upon the reasonable hypothesis that certain words found only at Knossos represented the names of important Cretan towns. At that stage the language was still unidentified; it was as the result of the values obtained from the place-names that Dr. Ventris was forced to the conclusion that the language was Greek. This led to the recognition of Greek declensions in the Linear B inflexions, not the other way about.