Professor John Killen

Professor Killen is one of the world's leading experts in the interpretation of the Linear B tablets. He has written a great many articles which, through their combination of linguistic, archaeological, epigraphical and economic/historical expertise, have made a unique contribution to our understanding of the documents and the Mycenaean economy. He was a pupil of the late John Chadwick (who collaborated with Michael Ventris in the decipherment of Linear B), and has played a leading role in the publication of the Corpus of Mycenaean Inscriptions from Knossos and of the standard edition of the Knossos tablets in transcription.

Outside Mycenaean, Professor Killen's interests range over Indo-European phonology and (classical) Greek inscriptional and literary dialects.