Dear Bennett,

                     When Wace was passing through Cambridge, he was kind enough to show us (John Chadwick , Professor Page and myself) photos of the new Mycenae tablets, and he let us have copies of a dozen of these, with the promise of the rest from the US. We understand that Wace is going to ask you to publish the tablets in America in the same sort of format as the Pylos Tablets, and that you both therefore would like nothing to be published in the way of drawings or discussion until your definitive publication is out. I have, however, with his permission, done tracings of the tablets for the people mentioned above, and for Myres and George Huxley at Oxford, and added a short commentary on the lines that Chadwick and I are working at the moment.

                     I enclose a copy of these, which may be of interest. We're not trying to anticipate your own work in any way, but it may be useful to have two lots of minds on the problem.

                    Our article for JHS is more or less finished. It's been very largely re-written since the MS which I sent you, with the intention of developing the argument by more easily grasped stages. Here and there we've added new words or arguments: some things have dropped out as being unworkable. I had a long letter from Björck of Uppsale, to whom Furumark had shown the MS, which was full of useful comment. The most fruitful was the suggestion (which Chadwick had then made two days later independently) that ta-ra-si-ja on the JN tablets, if it's to be read talasia, isn't "hard work" etc, but talasia = talanton "that which is weighed out to one as one's share or allotment". There's a striking parallel in the development to the meaning talasia "wool spinning" in the history of the latin word PENSUM.

                    Wace was a little disappointed that we were unable to find (except possibly on 101) any explicit references to OIL to fit his change of name from The House of the Stirrup Vases to "The House of the Oil Merchant”. It'll be interesting to see what views you have on the ideogram *145: there's a faint suspicion of WOOL in my mind at the moment. (in more ways than one!)

                    Another ideogram question which I would like to compare notes with you about is that of the livestock series. My belief is that the series is to be read:

  *105       horse          *105
  *109       bull/cow     *227
*106       sheep -------->
    *107       goat   ---->*107?
*108       pig                   

The Myres/Evans argument about the 2nd being a cursive variety of

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the "horse" doesn't seem to me to hold water when both at Knossos and at Pylos the carefully drawn horse's head occurs separately. Then, on the Pylos livestock tablets the amounts of *106 and *107 are pretty well equal, which would be peculiar, perhaps, if they were COWS and SHEEP. The ideogram *109, when carefully done, looks to me extremely as if it had forward-curving horns.

                   An ideogram-spelling tie-up is on tablet 160, where a-pi-po-re-we a-pi-po-re-we amphiphorewes qualifies *209 (vas), while in the next line i-po-no i-po-no ipnoi "cooking pots ?" goes with *213 (vas). pa-we-a suggests pharwea "cloths" for *159, (not phawea "lights" as suggested before!). See Mycenae 127, & commentary.

Yours sincerely,

Michael Ventris

P.S. Your letter of the 25th arrived just as this letter was going to post. Thank you for your very helpful comments. I think most of the suggestions are as a matter of fact taken care of in the new draft which I have just finished typing out: I have tried to make our position vis-à-vis Cypriot clearer, and to bring in the "l-syllable l-sign" argument in a more logical place.

             Nilsson's argument is probably worth mentioning in passing (even as an impossible alternative). He last made 1950, and the reference can be dated: but he hasn't to my knowledge recanted yet.

             The addition if -i? to -a? and -o? stems isn't really erratic, I now feel, but probably represents -ais and -ois (ie: dative plurals). Cf pa-i-to phaistos.

             Your general feelings about the 'decipherment' are really about as favourable as I could have hoped . I do a good deal of wavering myself; but on the whole I have hopes that you'll come round in the end! It israther difficult to puzzle out aplausible transliteration within the rules of orthography; but I think we've stated the rules definitely enough not to be accused of cheating in their application, even though the rules themselves may seem at first sight a bit wilful. It would be useful to have a Greek dictionary in which the words were arranged in their Common Greek etymologies, with all a's and labio-velars and digammas thrown in. As it is, one does a lot of hunting about. But occasionally one comes up with something which reassures one that the whole thing isn't a self-imposed hoax: particularly so for me, because my knowledge of Greek is rusty, and I jeep finding the spelling is right where my own grammar is wrong.

             A possible example of this is in another 'perfect participle' which your index located for me yesterday: te-tu-ko-wo-a on 871.2. If te-tu-ko-wo-a is = teteukhota, then at first glance one has 3 vital objections:

1. ) The ending -oa in place of -ota. But this turns out to be the form postulated by the etymologists (*wosa), the -t- being a Greek innovation.
   
2. ) The participle in active form where one would expect the sense to be passive. But I find in Odyssey 12.423: epitonos...boos rinoio tetekchos.
   
3. ) The short vowel -u- instead of -eu- in the participle. I find on checking up that the short vowel is in fact the primitive form (tetukhuia) being quoted by Schwyzer, I believe), the long vowel form having crept in (possibly after loss of the digamma). If this is all coincidence, it's quite a jolly game all the same!

Another example is the last 2 words of line 3 of Jn09, which were omitted from the translation at the end of the article. It seemed reasonable that pa-ta-jo-i-qe e-ke-si-qe a3-ka-sa-ma should also be the object of the verb, parallel to the ka-ko na-wi-jo (khalkon nawion ?), but I floundered about until I was struck by the possibility ...-aiois kwe engkhessi kwe aiksmans "points for the somethings (not Spartans??) and spears". The interlocking in sense between the Homeric engkhos and aiksme is emphasised by all the dictionaries. But that -ks- was completely baffling till I looked up aiksme in Boisacq and found the etymology <*aiksma-. I'm rather shocked by your news of SM III. I think I will take your advice & keep clear of it, though it seems an awful waste of the old man's time and reputation and of good paper.

Yours sincerely,

Michael Ventris