By the spring of 1952 Ventris had a grid (Building the Grid) with rows and columns but very few sounds. He needed a way in: a few words whose sounds he could guess with confidence. He found them in a pattern he had noticed. Some words appeared only on the Knossos tablets, never at Pylos.
Key idea
| Signs | Read | Place |
|---|---|---|
| 𐀒𐀜𐀰 | ko-no-so | Knossos, the palace itself |
| 𐀀𐀖𐀛𐀰 | a-mi-ni-so | Amnisos, the port of Knossos |
| 𐀶𐀪𐀰 | tu-ri-so | Tylissos, a town west of Knossos |
Why place names?
Place names are a decipherer's best friend. They often survive changes of language and rule, so a name used in the Bronze Age may still be known centuries later. Knossos, Amnisos and Tylissos are all named by later Greek writers. And a word that appears only in the records of one region is likely to name something in that region.
From names to a language
The test came next. Ventris put the new values through his grid, so each guessed value fixed others in its row and column. Then he read other words. Some came out as Greek: ko-wo and ko-wa (boy and girl), ka-ko (bronze), po-ro (foal, beside young horses). He had expected a language like Etruscan, and at first he doubted his own result.
Why it works
Common mistake
Worked example: Values from a name
- Knossos, written in open syllables, is ko-no-so: the k and n are split by an empty vowel, the double s is written once, the final s is dropped.
- So the signs are ko, no and so.
Answer: ko, no, so
Worked example: Pass it on
- Signs in one row share a consonant.
Answer: They all begin with s: sa, se, si, su.