The Man Who Deciphered Linear B The Story Of Michael Ventris

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The Man Who Deciphered Linear B: The Story of Michael Ventris

Andrew Robinson
The Man Who Deciphered Linear B The Story of Michael Ventris Book PDF

Author : Andrew Robinson
Publisher : Thames & Hudson
Page : 168 pages
File Size : 46,7 Mb
Release : 2012-04-01
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780500770771

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The Man Who Deciphered Linear B: The Story of Michael Ventris by Andrew Robinson Pdf

“Highly readable . . . a fitting tribute to the quiet outsider who taught the professionals their business and increased our knowledge of the human past.”—Archaeology Odyssey More than a century ago, in 1900, one of the great archaeological finds of all time was made in Crete. Arthur Evans discovered what he believed was the palace of King Minos, with its notorious labyrinth, home of the Minotaur. As a result, Evans became obsessed with one of the epic intellectual stories of the modern era: the search for the meaning of Linear B, the mysterious script found on clay tablets in the ruined palace. Evans died without achieving his objective, and it was left to the enigmatic Michael Ventris to crack the code in 1952. This is the first book to tell not just the story of Linear B but also that of the young man who deciphered it. Based on hundreds of unpublished letters, interviews with survivors, and other primary sources, Andrew Robinson’s riveting account takes the reader through the life of this intriguing and contradictory man. Stage by stage, we see how Ventris finally achieved the breakthrough that revealed Linear B as the earliest comprehensible European writing system.

The Decipherment of Linear B

John Chadwick
The Decipherment of Linear B Book PDF

Author : John Chadwick
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 182 pages
File Size : 44,8 Mb
Release : 1990-09-13
Category : Foreign Language Study
ISBN : 0521398304

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The Decipherment of Linear B by John Chadwick Pdf

The story of Michael Ventris and his decipherment of the Mycenaean Linear B script.

The Riddle of the Labyrinth

Margalit Fox
The Riddle of the Labyrinth Book PDF

Author : Margalit Fox
Publisher : Harper Collins
Page : 248 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 2013-05-14
Category : History
ISBN : 9780062228888

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The Riddle of the Labyrinth by Margalit Fox Pdf

In the tradition of Simon Winchester and Dava Sobel, The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code tells one of the most intriguing stories in the history of language, masterfully blending history, linguistics, and cryptology with an elegantly wrought narrative. When famed archaeologist Arthur Evans unearthed the ruins of a sophisticated Bronze Age civilization that flowered on Crete 1,000 years before Greece’s Classical Age, he discovered a cache of ancient tablets, Europe’s earliest written records. For half a century, the meaning of the inscriptions, and even the language in which they were written, would remain a mystery. Award-winning New York Times journalist Margalit Fox's riveting real-life intellectual detective story travels from the Bronze Age Aegean—the era of Odysseus, Agamemnon, and Helen—to the turn of the 20th century and the work of charismatic English archeologist Arthur Evans, to the colorful personal stories of the decipherers. These include Michael Ventris, the brilliant amateur who deciphered the script but met with a sudden, mysterious death that may have been a direct consequence of the deipherment; and Alice Kober, the unsung heroine of the story whose painstaking work allowed Ventris to crack the code.

The Last Man Who Knew Everything

Andrew Robinson
The Last Man Who Knew Everything Book PDF

Author : Andrew Robinson
Publisher : Open Book Publishers
Page : 180 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2023-05-09
Category : History
ISBN : 9781805110217

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The Last Man Who Knew Everything by Andrew Robinson Pdf

No one has given the polymath Thomas Young (1773–1829) the all-round examination he so richly deserves—until now. Celebrated biographer Andrew Robinson portrays a man who solved mystery after mystery in the face of ridicule and rejection, and never sought fame. As a physicist, Young challenged the theories of Isaac Newton and proved that light is a wave. As a physician, he showed how the eye focuses and proposed the three-colour theory of vision, only confirmed a century and a half later. As an Egyptologist, he made crucial contributions to deciphering the Rosetta Stone. It is hard to grasp how much Young knew. This biography is the fascinating story of a driven yet modest hero who cared less about what others thought of him than for the joys of an unbridled pursuit of knowledge—with a new foreword by Martin Rees and a new postscript discussing polymathy in the two centuries since the time of Young. It returns this neglected genius to his proper position in the pantheon of great scientific thinkers.

The Mycenaean World

John Chadwick
The Mycenaean World Book PDF

Author : John Chadwick
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 226 pages
File Size : 41,6 Mb
Release : 1976-03-25
Category : History
ISBN : 0521290376

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The Mycenaean World by John Chadwick Pdf

John Chadwick summarizes the results of research into Mycenaean Greece.

Athena Sings

M. Owen Lee
Athena Sings Book PDF

Author : M. Owen Lee
Publisher : University of Toronto Press
Page : 124 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 2003-01-01
Category : Music
ISBN : 0802085806

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Athena Sings by M. Owen Lee Pdf

Richard Wagner's knowledge of and passion for Greek drama was so profound that for Friedrich Nietzsche, Wagner was Aeschylus come alive again. Surprisingly little has been written about the pervasive influence of classical Greece on the quintessentially German master. In this elegant and masterfully argued book, renowned opera critic Father Owen Lee describes for the contemporary reader what it might have been like to witness a dramatic performance of Aeschylus in the theatre of Dionysus in Athens in the fifth century B.C. – something that Wagner himself undertook to do on several occasions, imagining a performance of The Oresteia in his mind, reading it aloud to his friends, providing his own commentary, and relating the Greek classic drama to his own romantic view. Father Lee also uses Wagner's writings on Greece and entries from his wife's diaries to cast new light on Tristan und Isolde, Die Meistersinger, Parsifal, and especially the mighty Ring cycle, where Wagner made extensive use of Greek elements to give structural unity and dramatic credibility to his Nordic and Germanic myths. No opera fan, argues Father Lee, can really understand Wagner saving Brünhilde without knowing the Athena who, in Greek drama, first brought justice to Athens. Written with a clarity and depth of knowledge that have characterized all Father Lee's books on the classics of Greece and Rome and made his six other volumes of opera bestsellers, Athena Sings traces the profound influence – an influence few music lovers are aware of – that Greek theatre and culture had on the most German of composers and his revolutionary musical dramas.

Aegean Linear Script(s)

Ester Salgarella
Aegean Linear Script s Book PDF

Author : Ester Salgarella
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 437 pages
File Size : 50,9 Mb
Release : 2020-10
Category : Foreign Language Study
ISBN : 9781108479387

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Aegean Linear Script(s) by Ester Salgarella Pdf

Interdisciplinary examination of the transmission process of Linear A to Linear B script.

Lost Languages

Andrew Robinson
Lost Languages Book PDF

Author : Andrew Robinson
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 43,8 Mb
Release : 2009
Category : Extinct languages
ISBN : 050028816X

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Lost Languages by Andrew Robinson Pdf

Undeciphered scripts have long tantalized the public, whether it's the possibility of hearing the voices of ancient peoples or the puzzle solver's taste for the challenges posed by breaking codes. Here, Andrew Robinson investigates the most famous examples, beginning with the stories of three great decipherments: Egyptian hieroglyphs, Maya glyphs, and the Minoan Linear B clay tablets. He then covers the important scripts that have yet to be cracked, such as the Etruscan alphabet and Rongorongo from Easter Island.

Writing and Script: A Very Short Introduction

Andrew Robinson
Writing and Script A Very Short Introduction Book PDF

Author : Andrew Robinson
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 177 pages
File Size : 55,6 Mb
Release : 2009-08-27
Category : History
ISBN : 9780199567782

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Writing and Script: A Very Short Introduction by Andrew Robinson Pdf

"Starting with the origins of writing five thousand years ago, with cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphs, Andrew Robinson explains how these early forms of writing developed into hundreds of scripts including the Roman alphabet and the Chinese characters. He reveals how the modern writing system we take for granted - including airport signage and electronic text messaging - resemble ancient scripts much more closely than we think." --Book Jacket.

India: A Short History

Andrew Robinson
India A Short History Book PDF

Author : Andrew Robinson
Publisher : Thames & Hudson
Page : 248 pages
File Size : 51,6 Mb
Release : 2014-05-20
Category : History
ISBN : 9780500771952

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India: A Short History by Andrew Robinson Pdf

India’s unfolding story, from the ancient Hindu dynasties to the coming of Islam, from the Mughal Empire to the present day India has always been a land of great contradictions. To Alexander the Great, the country was a place of clever naked philosophers and massive armies mounted on elephants – which eventually forced his army to retreat. To ancient Rome, it was a source of luxuries, mainly spices and textiles, paid for in gold—hence the enormous numbers of Roman gold coins excavated in India. At the height of the Mughal empire in 1700, India boasted 24 percent of the world economy—a share virtually equal to Europe’s 25 percent. But then its economy declined. Colonial India was known for its extremes of wealth and poverty, epitomized by the Taj Mahal and famines, maharajas and untouchables, and also for its spirituality: many-armed Hindu gods and Buddhist philosophy, Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore. India: A Short History places as much emphasis on individuals, ideas and cultures as on the rise and fall of kingdoms, political parties and economies. Anyone curious about a great civilization, and its future, will find this an ideal introduction, at times controversial, written by an author who has been strongly engaged with India for more than three decades.

Sudden Genius?

Andrew Robinson
Sudden Genius Book PDF

Author : Andrew Robinson
Publisher : OUP Oxford
Page : 416 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 2010-09-16
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780191624926

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Sudden Genius? by Andrew Robinson Pdf

The highly admired scientist Linus Pauling, a double Nobel laureate in chemistry and peace, was once asked by a student. 'Dr Pauling, how do you have so many good ideas?' Pauling thought for a moment and replied: 'Well, David, I have a lot of ideas and throw away the bad ones.' Where do ideas come from? Why do some people have many more of them than others? How do you distinguish the good ideas from the bad? Most intriguing of all, perhaps, why do the best ideas sometimes strike in a flash of 'sudden genius'? These questions are the subject of this book. Andrew Robinson explores the exceptional creativity in both scientists and artists by following the trail that led ten individuals from childhood to the achievement of a famous creative breakthrough as an adult, in archaeology, architecture, art, biology, chemistry, cinema, music, literature, photography, and physics. Broken into three parts, the book begins with the scientific study of creativity, covering talent, genius, intelligence, memory, dreams, the unconscious, savant syndrome, synaesthesia, and mental illness. The second part tells the stories of five breakthroughs by scientists and five by artists, ranging from Curie's discovery of radium and Einstein's theory of special relativity to Mozart's composing of The Marriage of Figaro and Virginia Woolf's writing of Mrs Dalloway. Robinson concludes by considering what highly creative people who achieve breakthroughs have in common; whether breakthroughs in science and art follow patterns; and whether they always involve imaginative leaps and even 'genius'.

Glyph-Breaker

Steven R. Fischer
Glyph Breaker Book PDF

Author : Steven R. Fischer
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
Page : 258 pages
File Size : 42,6 Mb
Release : 2012-12-06
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781461222989

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Glyph-Breaker by Steven R. Fischer Pdf

After successfully deciphering the Rongorongo script of Easter Island, Steven Roger Fischer gained a unique place in the pantheon of glyphbreakers: he is the only person to have deciphered not one but two ancient scripts. Both of these scripts yield clues of great historical importance. Fischers previous decipherment, of a Cretan artefact called the Phaistos Disk, provided the key to the ancient Minoan language and showed it to be closely related to Mycenaean Greek. Fischer's decipherment of Rongorongo shows that it was not merely a mnemonic device for recalling memorised texts, but was actually read and used for creative composition. This is the exciting story of these two decipherments, by the man who now must rank as the greatest glyphbreaker of all time.

Earth-Shattering Events: Earthquakes, Nations, and Civilization

Andrew Robinson
Earth Shattering Events Earthquakes Nations and Civilization Book PDF

Author : Andrew Robinson
Publisher : Thames & Hudson
Page : 256 pages
File Size : 46,7 Mb
Release : 2016-10-11
Category : History
ISBN : 9780500773703

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Earth-Shattering Events: Earthquakes, Nations, and Civilization by Andrew Robinson Pdf

"A truly welcome and refreshing study that puts earthquake impact on history into a proper perspective." --Amos Nur, Emeritus Professor of Geophysics, Stanford University, California, and author of Apocalypse: Earthquakes, Archaeology, and the Wrath of God Since antiquity, on every continent, human beings in search of attractive landscapes and economic prosperity have made a Faustian bargain with the risk of devastation by an earthquake. Today, around half of the world’s largest cities – as many as sixty – lie in areas of major seismic activity. Many, such as Lisbon, Naples, San Francisco, Teheran, and Tokyo, have been severely damaged or destroyed by earthquakes in the past. But throughout history, starting with ancient Jericho, Rome, and Sparta, cities have proved to be extraordinarily resilient: only one, Port Royal in the Caribbean, was abandoned after an earthquake. Earth-Shattering Events seeks to understand exactly how humans and earthquakes have interacted, not only in the short term but also in the long perspective of history. In some cases, physical devastation has been followed by decline. But in others, the political and economic reverberations of earthquake disasters have presented opportunities for renewal. After its wholesale destruction in 1906, San Francisco went on to flourish, eventually giving birth to the high-tech industrial area on the San Andreas fault known as Silicon Valley. An earthquake in Caracas in 1812 triggered the creation of new nations in the liberation of South America from Spanish rule. Another in Tangshan in 1976 catalysed the transformation of China into the world’s second largest economy. The growth of the scientific study of earthquakes is woven into this far-reaching history. It began with a series of earthquakes in England in 1750. Today, seismologists can monitor the vibration of the planet second by second and the movement of tectonic plates millimeter by millimeter. Yet, even in the 21st century, great earthquakes are still essentially "acts of God," striking with much less warning than volcanoes, floods, hurricanes, and even tornadoes and tsunamis.

Cracking the Egyptian Code

Andrew Robinson
Cracking the Egyptian Code Book PDF

Author : Andrew Robinson
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 272 pages
File Size : 53,6 Mb
Release : 2012-05-01
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780199942909

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Cracking the Egyptian Code by Andrew Robinson Pdf

In 1799 Napoleon's army uncovered an ancient stele in the Nile delta. Its inscription, recorded in three distinct scripts--ancient Greek, Coptic, and hieroglyphic--would provide scholars with the first clues to unlocking the secrets of Egyptian hieroglyphs, a language lost for nearly two millennia. More than twenty years later a remarkably gifted Frenchman named Jean-Francois Champollion successfully deciphered the hieroglyphs on the stele, now commonly known as the Rosetta Stone, sparking a revolution in our knowledge of ancient Egypt. Cracking the Egyptian Code is the first biography in English of Champollion, widely regarded as the founder of Egyptology. Andrew Robinson meticulously reconstructs how Champollion cracked the code of the hieroglyphic script, describing how Champollion started with Egyptian obelisks in Rome and papyri in European collections, sailed the Nile for a year, studied the tombs in the Valley of the Kings (a name he first coined), and carefully compared the three scripts on the Rosetta Stone to penetrate the mystery of the hieroglyphic text. Robinson also brings to life the rivalry between Champollion and the English scientist Thomas Young, who claimed credit for launching the decipherment, which Champollion hotly denied. There is much more to Champollion's life than the Rosetta Stone and Robinson gives equal weight to the many roles he played in his tragically brief life, from a teenage professor in Revolutionary France to a supporter of Napoleon (whom he met), an exile, and a curator at the Louvre. Extensively illustrated in color and black-and-white pictures, Cracking the Egyptian Code will appeal to a wide readership interested in Egypt, decipherment and code-breaking, and Napoleon and the French Revolution.

A Companion to the Ancient Greek Language

Egbert J. Bakker
A Companion to the Ancient Greek Language Book PDF

Author : Egbert J. Bakker
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 141 pages
File Size : 54,9 Mb
Release : 2014-01-28
Category : Foreign Language Study
ISBN : 9781118782910

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A Companion to the Ancient Greek Language by Egbert J. Bakker Pdf

A comprehensive account of the language of Ancient Greek civilization in a single volume, with contributions from leading international scholars covering the historical, geographical, sociolinguistic, and literary perspectives of the language. A collection of 36 original essays by a team of international scholars Treats the survival and transmission of Ancient Greek Includes discussions on phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics