Map of the Bronze Age Aegean.
Linear B tablets from Knossos.
Arthur Evans at Knossos, 1901.
Three linear signs.
Cretan hieroglyphic engravings.
The “Man” tablet from Knossos.
Two Linear A tablets.
Three-thousand-year-old scribal doodles.
A “tablet” with primitive symbols.
A curious sculpture.
Detail of a Rongorongo tablet from Easter Island.
The Cherokee syllabary.
Boustrophedon writing.
Map of Crete.
Linear B tablets counting sheep, goats, cattle, and swine.
Youlbury.
The “Horse” fragment, concealing a crucial clue.
Alice Kober, 1946.
A page from Kober’s decipherment notebook.
Kober’s cigarette-carton files, with her handmade “index” cards.
Six “Chariot” tablets.
Map of the Greek mainland.
Michael Ventris’s remarkable handwriting.
John Myres’s nightmarish handwriting.
The “Man” tablet.
Michael Ventris, 1953.
Ventris’s first grid.
The syllabic signs of Linear B.
The Cypriot syllabary.
The “Horse” fragment, deciphered.
Ventris’s third grid.
The “Tripod” tablet.