47 Highpoint,
North Hill,
Highgate,
LONDON, N.6.
May 3, 1952.
Dear Bennett,
In working with your Index to the “B” sign-groups, I’ve been
figuring out what your complete signary must be. The enclosed piece of paper includes,
as far as I can find on the first check, all the signs which occur in the index.
Some time when you have a moment to spare, I’d be glad to hear from you
whether the list does in fact correspond to yours in order.
I can’t find out whether you include Myres’ *** in your signary. Some
of the occurrences you have corrected to other signs, but I can’t find in
the Index what your readings for 785.3, 787.2 are (Myres *****).
I’m not quite sure what the position is with ** and **. The trouble with
them seems to be that ** and ** at Pylos are so alike that they may be variants,
whereas *** and *** at Knossos are quite dissimilar signs. But I agree that two
places on the signary should be ample to dispose of the 4 of them.
Don’t take too much notice of the numbers in the first column. I was thinking
about the referencing of the signs, and trying to get something which was quite
distinct from the tablet numbers or previous signary references (or my AB-AC ones
which I’ve abandoned); and the letters have crept in with the numbers because
I feel they make the reference easier to remember. However, I expect you have
your own reference system (consecutive numbers with some distinctive prefix?),
and I’d be glad to have it some time, so that I can conform to it. It is
a nuisance that we have to have yet another system of numbering and ordering after
the ones of Evans, Myres, Carratelli, Hrozny etc., but yours is obviously the
one that works, and I think we should push it so strongly that the others
are abandoned and forgotten. If you can revise my draft diagram to conform to
yours, I’d like to include copies of it with some future work note.
Yours,
Michael Ventris