Faculty of Classics - University of Cambridge

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Mycenaean Epigraphy Group

The Mycenaean Epigraphy Group is located within the Faculty of Classics at the University of Cambridge.

Its origins lie with John Chadwick, who published the decipherment of Linear B together with Michael Ventris in 1953. After the seminal research meeting at Gif-sur-Yvett in 1956 a wonderfully international spirit of communication was opened up among scholars working on the decipherment. This led to Mycenologists world-wide drawing together to form CIPEM, under the auspices of UNESCO. One undertaking of the committee was that research centres should exist in various different countries which would hold literature and archives essential for working on Linear B, and would encourage scholarship on the material. The Mycenaean Epigraphy Group was established as the research centre for the United Kingdom.

The Mycencaean Epigraphy Room was founded in the 1960s in university offices in Laundress Lane, overlooking the Mill Pond. In those days the Faculty of Classics was located in buildings on a 100-year lease from Peterhouse (now the college's Library), just around the corner. The building housed a lecture theatre and the famous cast collection of the Museum of Classical Archaeology (commonly known as “the Ark”). When the Faculty moved to its present location, on the Sidgwick site, Mycenaean Epigraphy moved to a purpose-built room in the new building.

Many of the scholars now prominent in Mycenaeology throughout the world were trained at the Laundress Lane and Sidgwick sites, or have come as visiting scholars. The Mycenaean Epigraphy Group remains a vibrant research centre today and its unique collections offer a Mecca for those working on Linear B and other related scripts.

Research collections

Apart from the Ventris-Chadwick correspondence, the Mycenaean Epigraphy Room holds a unique collection of books, offprints, scholia, photographs, squeezes, casts and other material of essential importance for research on Linear B and other Aegean Bronze Age scripts.

The photographs were made in the 1950s and 1960s and were the first complete set ever assembled. They remain one of the few complete collections in the world. The images are of excellent quality, and some preserve details no longer observable on the original tablets, so that the photographic collection now constitutes in some cases a primary record.

The casts were made by Sir Arthur Evans (at his behest) and are believed to have his handwriting in pencil on their backs.

The library books represent one of the most complete collections of relevant publications in the world. Many were the bequest of John Chadwick and were his own personal copies; his annotations in these are often of interest. Scholars at Cambridge also have access to the outstanding holdings of library of the Faculty of Classics.

The offprints collection is unique, since John Chadwick received contributions from virtually every scholar in the world writing on the subject for some five decades. (We encourage scholars to continue contributing in this way to the collection—offprints are still gratefully received.)

The Ventris-Chadwick archives contain all of the original letters written by Ventris and Chadwick, from the moment of their first being put in touch with each other by Sir John Myres, to just weeks before Ventris’s death. The letters are crucial for understanding the history of the decipherment, and contain a great wealth of information which is still of great value and has never been published. The files also contain letters to Chadwick and Ventris from many of the major scholars of the world, plus numerous original drawings by Ventris, including the originals for Documents in Mycenaean Greek.

Note:

The Mycenaean Epigraphy Group at Cambridge has a long tradition of Linear B scholarship, reaching back to the decipherment of the script in 1952 and its publication by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick in 1953. Cambridge has the single most important Linear B reference collection and archives in the world and remains a major research centre. Both undergraduate and graduate courses dedicated exclusively to the study of Linear B are offered annually.

These pages seek to make information about Linear B and other Aegean Bronze Age scripts available to a wider audience. There is a history of the decipherment, illustrated with records from the Group’s unique archival holdings, general information about Linear B and access to fonts. Information about courses at Cambridge is being supplemented with on-line teaching materials generated by the Group. Some may be of use to those teaching Linear B who are not specialists in the subject, and teachers are warmly invited to access this material.

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the publication of the decipherment, the Group held an exhibition of the Ventris-Chadwick correspondence at the Fitzwilliam Museum (Sept.-Dec. 2003). Some of the correspondence is being put on-line and can be accessed through the decipherment link.