Evans' classification of scripts === The British archaeologist Arthur Evans, keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, was presented by Greville Chester in 1886 with a sealstone from Crete engraved with a writing he took to be Mycenaean.
Heinrich Schliemann had encountered signs similar to these, but had never identified the signs clearly as writing, relating in his major work on Mycenae that "of combinations of signs resembling inscriptions I have hitherto only found three or four ...." In 1893 Evans purchased more sealstones in Athens, verifying from the antiquarian dealers that the stones came from Crete.
In 1894 he embarked for Crete in search of the script.
Subsequently, he found more stones being worn by Cretan women as amulets called γαλόπετρες "milk-stones", coming from the various ruins. Starting in 1894, Evans published his theories that the signs evidenced various phases in the development of a writing system in The Journal of Hellenic Studies, the first article being "Primitive Pictographs and a Prae-Phoenician Script from Crete".
He established the Cretan Exploration Fund, with only his own money at first, and by 1896 the fund had purchased one-fourth of Kephala Hill, on which the ruins were located, with first option to buy the rest.
In January 1897, the Christian population of Crete staged its final insurrection against the Ottoman Empire.
He did not explicitly define these terms, causing some confusion among subsequent writers concerning what he meant, but in 1898 he wrote "These linear forms indeed consist of simple geometrical figures which unlike the more complicated pictorial class were little susceptible to modification," and "That the linear or quasi-alphabetic signs ...
The last Ottoman troops were ferried off the island by the British fleet on December 5, 1898.
In 1899, the Constitution of a new Cretan Republic went into effect.
Once Arthur had received permission to excavate from the local authorities, excavation on the hill began on 23 March 1900. According to Evans' report to the British School at Athens for that year, on April 5, the excavators discovered the first large cache ever of Linear B tablets among the remains of a wooden box in a disused terracotta bathtub.
Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1900, notes that Evans took up Stillman's theme that the palace was the labyrinth of mythology in which the half-bovine son of King Minos lurked.
Evans reasserts the ideographic idea: "a certain number are unquestionably ideographic or determinative." The years after 1900 were consumed by excavations at Knossos and the discovery and study by Evans of tablets, with a projected comprehensive work on Cretan scripts to be called Scripta Minoa.
A year before the publication of volume I, he began to drop hints that he now believed the linear script was two scripts, to be presented in the forthcoming book. In Scripta Minoa I, which appeared in 1909, he explained that the discovery of the Phaistos Disc in July 1908 had caused him to pull the book from the presses so that he could include the disk by permission, as it had not yet been published.
A year before the publication of volume I, he began to drop hints that he now believed the linear script was two scripts, to be presented in the forthcoming book. In Scripta Minoa I, which appeared in 1909, he explained that the discovery of the Phaistos Disc in July 1908 had caused him to pull the book from the presses so that he could include the disk by permission, as it had not yet been published.
Australian classicist Florence Stawell published an interpretation of the Phaistos Disc in the April 1911 issue of The Burlington Magazine.
His Minoan translations into academic French, though, proved to be considerably subjective, and incorrect. From the 1930s to 1950s there was correspondence between, and papers published by, various international academic figures.
She followed this with the book A Clue to the Cretan Scripts, published in 1931.
His greatest work, Palace of Minos, came out in 1935.
His book The Pylos Tablets became a crucial resource for Michael Ventris, who later described it as "a wonderful piece of work". === Michael Ventris' identification as Greek === In 1935, the British School at Athens was celebrating its fiftieth anniversary with an exhibition at Burlington House, London.
This view stood until Carl Blegen excavated the site of ancient Pylos in 1939 and uncovered tablets inscribed in Linear B.
In 1939, Carl Blegen had uncovered the Pylos Tablets; pressure was mounting to finish Scripta Minoa II.
In 1940, the 18-year-old Ventris had an article Introducing the Minoan Language published in the American Journal of Archaeology. After wartime service as a navigator with RAF Bomber Command, and a post-war year in Occupied Germany, he returned to civilian life, and completed qualification as an architect.
He died in 1941, soon after Nazi forces invaded Crete. The Knossos tablets had remained in the museum at Irakleion, Crete, where many of them now were missing.
Gordon attempted to prove a close link between the Basque language and Linear B, without lasting success. In 1949, Bedřich Hrozný published Les Inscriptions Crétoises, Essai de déchiffrement, a proposed decipherment of the Cretan scripts.
His Minoan translations into academic French, though, proved to be considerably subjective, and incorrect. From the 1930s to 1950s there was correspondence between, and papers published by, various international academic figures.
Working alongside fellow academic Alice Kober, by 1950 Bennett had deciphered the metrical system, based on his intensive study of Linear B tablets unearthed at Pylos.
Despite having no university qualification, Ventris continued with his amateur interest in Linear B, corresponding with known scholars, who usually but not always replied. Michael Ventris and John Chadwick performed the bulk of the decipherment of Linear B between 1951 and 1953.
With the decipherment of Linear B by Michael Ventris in 1952, serious questions about Evans' date began to be considered.
The second volume came out in 1952 with Evans cited as author and Myres as editor, just before the discovery that Linear B writes an early form of Greek.
Despite having no university qualification, Ventris continued with his amateur interest in Linear B, corresponding with known scholars, who usually but not always replied. Michael Ventris and John Chadwick performed the bulk of the decipherment of Linear B between 1951 and 1953.
The representations and naming of these signs have been standardized by a series of international colloquia starting with the first in Paris in 1956.
After the third meeting in 1961 at the Wingspread Conference Center in Racine, Wisconsin, a standard proposed primarily by Emmett L.
Bennett, Jr., became known as the Wingspread Convention, which was adopted by a new organization, the Comité International Permanent des Études Mycéniennes (CIPEM), affiliated in 1970 by the fifth colloquium with UNESCO.
Linear B: A 1984 survey.
Colloquia continue: the 13th occurred in 2010 in Paris. Many of the signs are identical or similar to those in Linear A; however, Linear A encodes an as-yet unknown language, and it is uncertain whether similar signs had the same phonetic values. ===Syllabic signs=== The grid developed during decipherment by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick of phonetic values for syllabic signs is shown below.
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