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Dear Bennett,
           Thank you very much for your letter, I'm enclosing a rough translation of the press cuttings from Sweden which I did for Chadwick. The rather extravagant tone of some of them derives from Furumark, and is rather embarrassing at this stage: in my own remarks to Expressen and to Dagens Nyheter I tried to show the whole thing was still very much of an experiment, but even there they didn't convey sufficient of that in the printed interview. My comment at the end of the account of your interview with Svenska Dagbladet conveys the personal impression I got that the reporter had got your position in the research a bit wrong: but it may not have read that way to everyone, I hope. The Times never printed the interview because they felt they had better hold it over after I said it was a bit premature for me to write an article for them. -Could I have them back by & by?
           I'm sorry that you don't expect to see the Pylos photos for a few months yet. Chadwick, I think, has written to you (without prompting from me) on the assumption that you might have a few spares of them already for the confidential study. I was puzzled to see in Sundwall's interview that he was already getting photos of the Pylos stuff: from Athens direct?
           But it's good that you will have the Mycenae Tablets out so promptly, even if they aren't enormously rewarding.
           I feel that we ought really to suspend judgment on *145. There's little enough to go on for "wool", I admit, but on internal evidence there seems to be even less for "oil" or "olives", however much it would please Wace. I was speaking to Sinclair Hood the other day, who was out at Mycenae with Wace, and he confirms the impression that the oil storage structure appears to be only a part of a large establishment which may contain, even if in miniature, the context of a considerable range of the equivalent Pylos and Knossos tablets. There seem to be at least 3 series in Wace's finds.
          I had meanwhile figured that 101.5 was pi-we-ri-si; even though the resulting Piwerisi, if the identity of the "Pierian ladies" is similar to the classical one, would be rather absurd!
          The only thing that crossed my mind for the obscure sign of 101.2/2 was a reversed ra2. Your suggestion may be right, but without having seen the photo of Aa15 it's difficult to comment usefully.
          I'm not altogether happy yet about 118.1. On looking through the forms for ne at Mycenae, I see the points in favour of your identification. Although the right-hand arm on 102.4/1 has its proper curve, the left-hand curve is doubled: ne; and on 110.2 the right-hand arm has become atrophied, the doubling of the left-hand one being left as a small stroke which I ignored in my drawing: ne so that ne on 118.1 can be made out with some plausibility. The right-hand arm is very decisively straight, however, still.
          I can't find any trace on the photo (presumably the same as yours, though possibly a muzzier print) of the division after ne, whereas there is definitely a vertical line after so. The furthest I'd go would be to-so ne-qo-zo. Though, looking again at Huxley's drawing, he seems to have a vertical line after ne.
         I won't deny that to-so-ne would be personally rather awkward. tossôn, tosson? It's probably too early to use any idea we may have of the grammar to help improve readings, but certainly –ne doesn't elsewhere seem to occur in the -"o" declension, if this word is from to-so, to-so-jo.
         I heard from Wace the other day, promising photos of the remaining Mycenae tablets in due course. I only have very sketchy drawings of them done at Mycenae by George Huxley of Oxford. I noticed that 121.2 appeared to be ka-ke-wi on one tablet (121.2), which if it comes from ka-ke-u

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must be a somewhat different case ending from the -we found as the "dative" of this declension at Pylos and Knossos. I also thought I could make out ne-wo (129.2?) newos? ka-na-pe-wi, which would be the corresponding case from ka-na-pe-u, our "fuller" (also pe-re-ke-we on 130? And “somebody’s souls” on 120.2?). I should be interested to know if anything like these forms actually occurs.

         I will send some Work Notes to Professor Lotspeich, as you ask, even though they are getting a bit old-hat. Does he still pursue his decipherment; and was he in possession of the whole Pylos material in '47?
        Chadwick has gone today to Magdalen, Oxford, to lecture on the problem of decipherment, and on some of the evidence for trades, social classes, etc, which would be derived from the tablets if our transliteration worked.
        Huxley tells me that Myres is now, as far as he can see, convinced the Linear B tablets are in Greek. But considering some of his judgment in the past, this is perhaps nothing very much to go on.

Best wishes for Christmas and the New Year,
Michael Ventris