In 1900, while excavating on Crete, the charismatic Victorian archaeologist Arthur Evans unearthed inscribed clay tablets amid the ruins of a lavish Bronze Age palace. Written by palace scribes circa 1450 b.c., the script they displayed — featuring outline drawings of swords, chariots, and horses’ heads, as well as other tiny pictograms — resembled no alphabet ever seen. Evans named the script … Linear B, and from the start it posed a deep mystery. No one knew what language Linear B recorded, much less what the curious inscriptions meant. If the tablets could be deciphered, they would open a portal onto a refined, wealthy, and literate society that had flourished in Greek lands three thousand years earlier, a full millennium before the glories of the Classical Age.
The Riddle of the Labyrinth is the true story of the quest to solve one of the most mesmerizing riddles in history — Linear B — and of the three brilliant, obsessed, and ultimately doomed investigators whose combined work would eventually crack the code. There was Evans, who had discovered the script but could never unravel it; Alice Kober, the fiery American scholar whose vital work on Linear B never got the recognition it deserved; and Michael Ventris, the haunted English architect who would solve the riddle triumphantly at the age of thirty only to die four years later under circumstances that remain the subject of speculation even now.
For half a century some of the world’s foremost scholars tried to coax the tablets to yield their secrets. Then, in 1952, the script was deciphered seemingly in a single stroke — not by a scholar but by Ventris, an impassioned amateur whose obsession with the tablets had begun in childhood. The decipherment brought him worldwide acclaim. But it also cost him his architectural career, his ties to his family, and quite possibly his life.
That is the narrative of the decipherment as it has been known thus far. But a major actor in the drama has long been missing: Alice Kober, a classicist at Brooklyn College. Though largely forgotten today, she came within a hair’s breadth of deciphering Linear B before her own untimely death in 1950. As The Riddle of the Labyrinth reveals, it was Kober who built the foundation on which Ventris’s decipherment stood, an achievement that until now has been all but lost to history. Drawing on a newly opened archive of Kober’s papers, Margalit Fox restores this unsung heroine to her rightful place at last.
Above all, this book is a detective story in the tradition of Dava Sobel and Simon Winchester. As Fox narrates the lives of Evans, Kober, and Ventris, she takes readers step-by-step through the forensic process involved in cracking a secret code from the past. Following the three investigators as they hunt down, analyze, and interpret a series of linguistic clues hidden within the script itself, The Riddle of the Labyrinth offers the first complete account of one of the most fascinating conundrums of all time.
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Talk about obsessive! The principles in this book dedicated their lives and careers on deciphering ancient text that had been, for decades, unreadable. With some cooperation and some scheming they did it! While almost all the credit goes to one person ( I won’t give it away!) it was a collaborative, if sometimes contentious, effort! I would recommend this for those who enjoy puzzles and intrigue at the same time!
I am no linguist, but this book is so well written with such excellent explanations for each step of the unfolding puzzle that it carried me through a fascinating story. It takes real skill to make such an intricate specialized world come to life. Kudos!
Exposed me to something I was totally unaware of. Fascinating how one decodes ancient writings.
How any times would you expect a book about translating a lost language to be riveting? No? Try this one. There was no “Rosetta Stone” to help decipher the language of the Minoans. The process was delayed by the wrongful theories of the original finder, and by the obstinacy of those holding the originals to allow them to be seen. You can get the full story in this book. Happy reading.
Fascinating reading for anyone interested in deciphering languages. I loved it!
Great story. Well told
The author does a truly amazing job of weaving together the stories of the people involved in the decipherment of Linear B. The story is well-written and keeps the reader’s attention. But, most of all, this book provides tremendous examples of how to conduct an investigation – of anything (as well as how NOT to conduct an investigation). As a career criminal investigator, I was impressed with the potential lessons learned within the pages of this book.
OK, so I love math and puzzles, and I’ve studied classics (Latin), and I’ve been to the Palace of Knossos. Maybe I was just in the sweet spot for this book! But I found the intellectual history of the decoding of Linear B fascinating, and the portrayals of the three main people involved both sad and inspiring – sad because in each case, their obsession left some other part of their life unfulfilled, but inspiring because they were brilliant and committed to solving an extremely tough problem.
Fascinating account of the attempts to decipher of the Minoan Linear B script. Archaeology books usually just cited Michael Ventris as the hero of the story, but failed to mention Alice Kober, an American woman who spent years of intense work building the foundation that allowed Ventris to finally solve the puzzle and grab all the credit. She probably would have finished it herself had she not died prematurely. I really liked how the author takes the reader through the ways decipherers go about their work. And they are a level of anal-retentive you just don’t see every day!
Subject was interesting, but you had to wade through a lot of unnecessary words to get to it. Was kind of like attending a college lecture with a professor who likes the sound of his own voice
A fascinating, interesting read. My first of this author, and I look forward to others. Highly recommend.
Very inspirational and informative
A wonderful exposition of obscure but fascinating history with lots of details that make it all come alive.
The book gives a broad description the solving of the translation of Linear A and Linear B.r The above descriptors are not applicable to this book
An ingenious interweaving of three biographies of the people responsible for the decipherment of Linear B. Of especial note is the light shone on the woman who contributed greatly to the solution to this 50 year old riddle but whose name, Alice Kober, has been all but lost to history. The author beautifully and clearly elucidates the reasons why this script presented a challenge so difficult that the best minds in the world could not solve it for half a century. The progress toward a solution is presented step by step so that even a reader with little or no background in linguistics or code breaking can appreciate and enjoy this amazing story. Those who enjoy puzzles in code breaking will have several chances to try their own hand at it.
Margalit Fox describes the decipherment of Linear B in such lucid detail that any reader can follow the steps and participate in the thrill of discovery.
This was a fascinating account of the uncovering of a previously unknown language and script and the people who dedicated decades to their quest.