The Linear B decipherment controversy re-examined

"Michael Ventris’s decipherment of the pre-historic Linear B tablets discovered in Greece and Crete provided one of the most dramatic moments in recent historical research. The controversy provoked by his work has to a large degree polarized scholarly opinion between wholehearted acclamation and complete rejection, making rational analysis difficult. Professor Levin believes that only an objective and methodical study of all the relevant details can produce an adequate evaluation of the discovery. On this principle, he sifts the evidence for the phonetic value of individual Linear B characters, first as Ventris did it, then as it can now be done with more material than he had. This discloses that Ventris’s procedure was eclectic and more intuitive than scientific; yet a strict critique verifies his transcription of about a third of the characters.^ While this verification is a matter of degree—some are beyond reasonable doubt; others are only fairly probable—the remaining two-thirds of the characters elude testing and can be neither proved nor disproved. Bits of genuine Greek emerge from the tablets, but much less than Ventris and his supporters claim. The meaning of most Linear B