[Victoria]

Originally Posted by Bookpossum

I absolutely agree with you Victoria and with Dazrin about all those “ifs”. I think Fox has gone overboard on the lack of appreciation of Kober’s work, and downplayed that of Ventris.

He was appreciative of her work as described in her articles, and wanted to work in collaboration with her. It seemed to me that she had an academic snootiness about Ventris because he was approaching the problem from a different angle in thinking the language might be Etruscan. In other words, she was the sort of person who thought there was only one way to solve the problem, which was her way.

I think so too. I’m sure it was vexing to receive letters about everyone’s pet theories when she was being so methodical and disciplined. But she was very dismissive of his proposal to consolidate strategies from leading researchers, though the lack of information had hindered her work, and she and Daniel had had very similar plan. Ventris wasn’t an academic, so not worth the time.

Originally Posted by Dazrin

This is a point in history (there are many) where I am lacking my own knowledge. I am trying to piece it together as I go.



I remember the book saying that Homer's works were oral and that the Greeks didn't have a written language for several hundred years after the Linear B tablets were created but I thought that was all based on knowledge and understanding from before Linear B was translated. Did knowing that Linear B is "ancient" Greek to the Ancient Greeks change any of those presumptions?

If Linear B is just a time capsule and doesn't have a waterfall effect on how Greece itself or the surrounding countries developed then it is a little less interesting to me. Still a great story and a great learning opportunity but much less meaningful to the world as we know it now if Linear B completely died out before having an opportunity to transform or be incorporated into another language that did make it and did have more influence in today's world.

This is the type of information I was hoping for too. What does the discovery tell us about the Greeks at this point in history? What assumptions has it changed? How are researchers using the material today? What did it illuminate about late bronze age Europe? That’s the interesting part for me, and I would have enjoyed more information along these lines.

Originally Posted by Bookworm_Girl

One of the items that I found curious is what motivated Fox to write this book and focus so much attention on Alice. I was surprised to learn that she is well-known as an obituary writer for the New York Times. In addition to a master’s degree in journalism, she also earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in linguistics from Stony Brook University. With this background, I can understand how she combined her skills and passion in multiple interests and felt compelled to write this book.

I found this article in the New York Times where she has written a modern obit of Kober. Much of it is repetitive to the book. It’s a good refresher if you have already returned the book to the library like me. However I thought the concluding paragraphs were interesting.

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/12/s...y-no-more.html

Thanks for the link! It does add an interesting light on what motivated Fox personally.