This book tells the very interesting story of how the Bronze Age Cretan script Linear B was decoded. The conventional story is that the decoding was by Michael Ventris, but this book focuses attention on another scholar, Alice Kober,
who it makes clear did the necessary groundwork (despite numerous obstacles) that made Ventris' final accomplishment possible. She did not receive her share of the credit primarily because she died of cancer shortly before he made the final connections, and thus she did not get there first.
It's an interesting story, beginning with the archaeologist who discovered Knossos (the palace complex) on Crete, and extending through the deciphering of Linear B, and with it a much clearer understanding of who the "Minoans" really were.
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