Our 100th. POST! Linear B Tablet 641-1952

Yes, this is our 100th. POST! Linear B Tablet 641-1952, and a very significant post this is, considering that this tablet was the very first Linear B tablet ever translated into English by none other than Michael Ventris himself, after the archeologist, Carl Blegen, working at the site of ancient Pylos, informed Ventris that when he applied Ventris’ final grid to this tablet, he discovered to his amazement that the first word spelled, “tiripode”, as we can see here (CLICK to enlarge):

which he instantly realized was in all probability Greek, the one language no one as yet believed  Linear B represented… with the exception of Michael Ventris himself, who having given up on Etruscan and other possibilities, was beginning to suspect that indeed Linear B had to represent Greek, in spite of all his instincts crying out that it was not.  All of this happened in early June 1952. Of course, Blegen’s translation of the first word on Pylos Tablet 641-1952, burst open the floodgates, so that by July 2, 1952, Ventris had completely deciphered the tablet.  And the rest is history…. but to say the least, earth-shattering history, which was to push back Greek civilization a further 700 years! …. from ca. 800 BCE (which had previously been considered  the terminus post quem of the earliest Greek civilization utilizing writing (the primitive Greek alphabet as such) to 1,500 BCE, at the height of the Mycenaean-Minoan thalassocracy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalassocracy

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