Linear B

The script of the Mycenaean palaces, the earliest written Greek, deciphered only in 1952.

Core Principles & Analysis

• Arthur Evans excavated it at Knossos and spent decades failing to read it.
• Michael Ventris, an architect, cracked it in 1952 with John Chadwick — the tablets record Greek.
• Some 1,400 tablets of accounts and inventories survive, baked hard by the palaces' fires.

Specifications & Metrics

• TYPE: Syllabary