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Concept
Michael Ventris
Summary
Michael George Francis Ventris, (ˈvɛntrɪs; 12 July 1922 – 6 September 1956) was an English architect, classicist and philologist who deciphered Linear B, the ancient Mycenaean Greek script. A student of languages, Ventris had pursued decipherment as a personal vocation since his adolescence. After creating a new field of study, Ventris died in a car crash a few weeks before the publication of Documents in Mycenaean Greek, written with John Chadwick.
Ventris was born into a traditional army family. His grandfather, Francis Ventris, was a major-general and Commander of British Forces in China. His father, Edward Francis Vereker Ventris, was a lieutenant-colonel in the Indian Army, who retired early due to ill health. Edward Ventris married Anna Dorothea (Dora) Janasz, who was from a wealthy Jewish and Polish paternal background. Michael Ventris was their only child.
The family moved to Switzerland for eight years, seeking a healthy environment for Colonel Ventris. Young Michael started school in Gstaad, where classes were taught in French and German. He soon was fluent in both languages and showing proficiency for Swiss German. He was capable of learning a language within a matter of weeks, which allowed him to acquire fluency in a dozen languages. His mother often spoke Polish to him, and he was fluent by the age of eight. At this time, he was reading Adolf Erman's Die Hieroglyphen in German.
In 1931, the Ventris family returned home. From 1931 to 1935 Ventris was sent to Bickley Hill School in Stowe. His parents divorced in 1935. At this time, he secured a scholarship to Stowe School. At Stowe he learned some Latin and Ancient Greek. He did not do outstanding work there – by then he was spending most of his spare time learning as much as he could about Linear B, some of his study time being spent under the covers at night with a torch. When he was not boarding at school, Ventris lived with his mother, before 1935 in coastal hotels, and then in the avant garde Berthold Lubetkin's Highpoint modernist apartments in Highgate, London.
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