Linear B, Knossos & Mycenae

The purpose of this blog is to illustrate the magnificent civilizations of Knossos, Late Minoan III (ca. 1450 BCE) & Mycenae (ca. 1350 BCE), and to offer indepth insights into the Minoan Linear A syllabary and the Mycenaean Linear B syllabary, which was imported from Mycenae & used at the Palace of Knossos in the Late Minoan III Period, along with the Arcado-Cypriot Linear C syllbary (ca. 1100-400 BCE). Unlike its predecessor, Minoan Linear A, which right up until the end of 2025  had trammelled all attempts at decipherment, was then and only then finally successfully deciphered as Anatolian proto-Greek by Richard Vallance Janke (1945 – ):

Mycenaean Linear B was the first script ever to be deciphered as the earliest extant Greek dialect we know of. Linear B was deciphered by the British architect and genius, Michael Ventris (1922-1956), with the assistance of John Chadwick (1920-1998), between 1951 and 1953.

There are four (4) main sections to this Blog:

1. The Palace of Knossos, Late Minoan III (ca. 1450 BCE), with an introduction to Minoan Linear A:

2. The Citadel of Mycenae, Late Helladic (ca. 1350 BCE), with an introduction to Mycenaean Linear B:

both of  which (1. & 2.) I visited in May 2012, and where I took 100s of photos, some of which are found on the blog.

3. Indepth study and analysis of the Minoan Linear A syllabary and its small cache of about 1,400 inscriptions, the vast majority of them mere fragments.

3. Indepth study and analysis of Linear B syllabary and its 3,000 + inscriptions.

UPDATE: Richard Vallance Janke, February 2026