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Knossos and Linear B

The deciphering of a Minoan script called Linear B

The Minoan clay tablets found by Sir Arthur Evans in 1900 were still a mystery when a teenage Michael Ventris was taken on a school trip to the British Museum in 1936 by his classics master.

Obsessed, Ventris - who joined the RAF straight from school - even took research material with him on missions during the war.

Then, in 1946, Alice Kober, an overworked, underpaid classics professor at Brooklyn College in New York made an important breakthrough...

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14 minutes

麻豆官网首页入口 World Service Archive

This programme was restored as part of the World Service archive project