Michael Ventris

Michael George Francis Ventris, OBE (/ˈvɛntrɪs/; 12 July 1922 – 6 September 1956) was an English linguist and architect who, along with John Chadwick and Alice Kober, deciphered Linear B,^[1] a previously unknown ancient script discovered at Knossos by Arthur Evans. A student of languages, Ventris had pursued the decipherment as a vocation since his adolescence. After creating a new field of study, Ventris died in an automobile accident a few weeks before the publication of his definitive work, Documents in Mycenaean Greek.

Biography

Early life

Ventris was born into a traditional army family. His father, Edward Francis Vereker Ventris,^[2] reached the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Indian Army;^[3] however, his career was suddenly brought to an end, as he contracted tuberculosis and retired. His grandfather, Francis Ventris, was a major-general who ended his career as Commander of British Forces in China. During his time in England, Edward Ventris met and married Anna Dorothea Janasz (Dora), the daughter of a wealthy jewish immigrant landholder from Poland. Michael Ventris was their only child.

Health became an issue early on in Ventris's life, as he developed at a young age chronic bronchial asthma. The family then moved to Switzerland for eight years, seeking a clean and healthy environment for their child. A number of health clinics and spas catered to the physical well-being of Ventris, constantly observing his well-being. Ventris started school in Gstaad, where classes were taught in French and German. He soon was fluent in both languages and showing proficiency for Swiss German.^[4] He was capable of learning a language within a matter of weeks, which allowed him to acquire fluency in a dozen languages. His mother, of Polish descent, often spoke to him in her own tongue, in which he was fluent by the age of eight. At this time, he was reading Adolf Erman's Die Hieroglyphen in German.

Stowe today

In 1931, the Ventris family returned home. Michael's father's physical condition was worsening as he got older. From 1931 to 1935 Ventris was sent to Bickley Hill School in Stowe. His parents, unable to continue living together, divorced in 1935, when he was 13. At this time, he secured a scholarship to Stowe School for Boys Stowe School, quartered in an 18th-century stately home. At Stowe he learned some Latin and classical Greek.^[4] He did not do outstanding work there - by then he was spending most of his spare time learning as much as he could about Linear B, some of his study time being spent under the covers at night with a flashlight. When he was not away at school, Ventris lived with his mother, before 1935 in coastal hotels, after 1935 (when they were built) in the avant garde Berthold Lubetkin's Highpoint modernist apartments in Highgate. His mother's acquaintances, who frequented the house, included many sculptors, painters, and writers of the day. The money for her sophisticated lifestyle came from the Polish estates.

Young adult

Ventris's father died in 1938 when Ventris was 16 years old. Dora became administrator of the estate. Hard times, however, lay ahead. After the German invasion of Poland in 1939 the family holdings in that country were gone, and all income from there ceased. In 1940 Dora's father died. The family became destitute. Ventris lost his mother to clinical depression and an overdose of barbiturates. He never spoke of her, assuming instead an ebullient and energetic manner in whatever he decided to do, a trait which won him numerous friends. At the same time they noted that he had a dark and mysterious side as well, associated with feelings that he was a fraud, and not a true genius. A friend of the family, Russian sculptor Naum Gabo, took Ventris under his wing. Ventris later said that Gabo was the most family he had ever had. It may have been at Gabo's house that he began the study of Russian. He had resolved on architecture for a career. He enrolled at the Architectural Association School of Architecture. There he met and married Lois, who preferred to be called Betty. Her social background was similar to what Ventris's had been: her family was well-to-do, she had travelled in Europe, and she was interested in architecture, in addition to which she was popular and was considered very beautiful.

Halifax in flight, 1942

Ventris did not complete his architecture studies, being conscripted in 1942. He chose the Royal Air Force (RAF). His preference was for navigator rather than pilot, and he completed the extensive training in the UK and Canada, to qualify early in 1944 and be commissioned.^[5] While training, he studied Russian intensively for several weeks, the purpose of which, if any, is not clear. He took part in the bombing of Germany, as aircrew on the Handley Page Halifax with No. 76 Squadron RAF, initially at RAF Breighton and then at RAF Holme-on-Spalding Moor.^[5][6] After the conclusion of the war he served out the rest of his term on the ground in Germany, for which he was chosen because of his knowledge of Russian. His duties are unclear. His friends all assumed he was completing intelligence assignments, interpreting his denials as part of a legal gag. No such assignments have turned up, however, even after these many decades since his service. There is also no evidence that he was ever part of any code-breaking unit, as was Chadwick, even though the public readily believed this explanation of his genius and success with Linear B.^[7]

Architect and palaeographer

After the war he worked briefly in Sweden, learning enough Swedish to communicate with scholars in it.^[4] Then he came home to complete his architectural education with honors in 1948^[8] and settled down with Lois working as an architect. He designed schools for the Ministry of Education. Then he and his wife designed a home for themselves and their family.^[9] He had two children, a son, Nikki (1942–1984) and a daughter, Tessa (born 1946).^[10] Concurrently he stepped up his effort on Linear B, discovering finally that it was Greek, a revelation to an academic public that had more or less given up on the mysterious script. No one, not even Ventris, suspected that it is the earliest known form of Greek. Ventris was awarded an OBE in 1955 for "services to Mycenaean paleography."^[9] A few years after deciphering Linear B in 1951–1953, Ventris, who lived in Hampstead, died instantly in a late-night collision with a parked truck while driving home, aged 34. It is believed that his death, like his mother's, was suicide.^[11]

An English Heritage blue plaque commemorates Ventris at his home in Hampstead.^[12]

Decipherment

At the beginning of the 20th century, archaeologist Arthur Evans began excavating Knōssos, an ancient city on the island of Crete. In doing so he uncovered a great many clay tablets inscribed with an unknown script. Some were older and were named Linear A. The bulk were of more recent vintage, and were dubbed Linear B. Evans spent the next several decades trying to decipher both, to no avail.

In 1936, Evans hosted an exhibition of Cretan archaeology at Burlington House in London, home of the Royal Academy. It was the jubilee anniversary (50 years) of the British School of Archaeology in Athens, contemporaneous owners and managers of the Knossos site. Evans had given the site to them some years previously. Villa Ariadne, Evans's home there, was now part of the school. Boys from Stowe school were in attendance at one lecture and tour conducted by Evans himself at age 85. Ventris, 14 years old, was present and remembered Evans walking with a stick. The stick was undoubtedly the cane named Prodger which Evans carried all his life to assist him with his short-sightedness and night blindness. Evans held up tablets of the unknown scripts for the audience to see. During the interview period following the lecture, Ventris immediately confirmed that Linear B was as yet undeciphered, and determined to decipher it.^[13]

Ventris's initial theory was that Etruscan and Linear B were related and that this might provide a key to decipherment. Although this proved incorrect, it was a link he continued to explore until the early 1950s.

Shortly after Evans died, Alice Kober noted that certain words in Linear B inscriptions had changing word endings — perhaps declensions in the manner of Latin or Greek. Using this clue, Ventris constructed a series of grids associating the symbols on the tablets with consonants and vowels. While which consonants and vowels these were remained mysterious, Ventris learned enough about the structure of the underlying language to begin guessing.

Some Linear B tablets had been discovered on the Greek mainland, and there was reason to believe that some of the chains of symbols he had encountered on the Cretan tablets were names. Noting that certain names appeared only in the Cretan texts, Ventris made the inspired guess that those names applied to cities on the island. This proved to be correct. Armed with the symbols he could decipher from this, Ventris soon unlocked much text and determined that the underlying language of Linear B was in fact Greek. This overturned Evans's theories of Minoan history by establishing that Cretan civilization, at least in the later periods associated with the Linear B tablets, had been part of Mycenean Greece.

See also

• Linear B
• Mycenaean Greek
• Emmett Bennett
• John Chadwick
• Arthur Evans
• Alice Kober

Notes

Bibliography

By Ventris alone or jointly

• Ventris, Michael (1950). The languages of the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations: mid-century report. London: Michael Ventris. 
• —— (1951). A preliminary analysis of the language contained in the Mycenaean Archives from Pylos in Messenia. 
• ——; Chadwick, John (1953). "Evidence for Greek Dialect in the Mycenaean Archives". The Journal of Hellenic Studies. 73: 84–103. JSTOR 628239. 
• —— (1954). King Nestor's Four-handled Cups: Greek Inventories in the Minoan Script. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill. 
• ——; Chadwick, John (1956A). Documents in Mycenaean Greek. Cambridge: Second edition (1974). Cambridge UP. ISBN 0-521-08558-6. 
• —— (1956B). Mycenaean furniture on the Pylos tablets. Uppsala: Eranos förlag. 
• ——; Sacconi, Anna (1988). Work notes on Minoan language research and other unedited papers. Incunabula Graeca, 90. Roma: Edizioni dell'Ateneo. 

By others

• Chadwick, John (1990) [1958]. The Decipherment of Linear B (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-39830-4. 
• Fox, Margalit (2013). The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code. Ecco. ISBN 978-0062228833. 
• Robinson, Andrew (2002). The Man Who Deciphered Linear B: The Story of Michael Ventris. New York: Thames & Hudson Ltd. ISBN 0-500-51077-6. 
• Palaima, Thomas G (2000). Unlocking the Secrets of Ancient Writing: The Parallel Lives of Michael Ventris and Linda Schele and the Decipherment of Mycenaean and Mayan Writing: Catalogue of an Exhibition in Conjunction with the Eleventh International Mycenological Colloquium (PDF). Austin: University of Texas at Austin. ISBN 0-9649410-4-X. 

External links

• BBC (2005). Michael Ventris Videos. OVGuide. 
• "Michael Ventris Papers" (PDF). Program in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory (PASP), Classics Department, University of Texas at Austin. Retrieved 13 April 2012. 
• Engels, Tom. "Michael Ventris: Decipherer of Linear B". 66South.com. Retrieved 13 April 2012.