by Margalit Fox
The pull of an undeciphered ancient script comes not only from the fact that its discoverer cannot read it, but also from the knowledge that once long ago, someone could. As someone who had no previous knowledge of the discovery of Linear B and the eventual deciphering of it, this book was absolute...
The author tells the story in three acts: the discovery of the tablets, the unsung heroine, Alice Kober, striving to crack the code, and the actual code cracker Michael Ventris. There's so much of human nature tied up in this story. You have the discover of the tablets, Arthur Evans, not wanting t...
A very interesting book on how Linear B (one of three ancient scripts found on Crete - the other two, Minoan hieroglyphic and Linear A, remain a mystery, alas) was deciphered. Sir Arthur Evans, who discovered the ancient Minoan civilization at Knossos in 1900, gets three chapters. Alice Kober, an...
According to the book synopsis, The Riddle of the labyrinth is a "mesmerising archaeological detective story, brilliantly told in all its triumphant detail". I couldn't agree more. I'm very impressed by what Margalit Fox was able to do: she wrote about a highly technical topic, making it not only un...
A deskbound adventureHomer's Iliad and Odyssey, thought to be written in the eighth century B.C., are among the oldest written works of Western literature we know. Imagine the excitement, then, when hundreds of clay tablets were discovered on the island of Crete in 1900, and they were dated back to ...
Being a history nerd, I went into The Riddle of the Labyrinth hoping to find a twisty linguistic mystery I might be able to keep in my back pocket for my World History classes. What I was thrilled to find running parallel to that mystery was a lovely biography of the woman who helped solve it.In 190...
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