Ventris, Michael

Ventris, Michael (George Francis)

(born July 12, 1922, Wheathampstead, Hertfordshire, Eng.—died Sept. 6, 1956, near Hatfield, Hertfordshire) British architect and cryptographer. At age 14 he heard a lecture on the continuing mystery of Linear B script (see Linear A and Linear B) and resolved to decipher it. In 1952 he determined that Linear B was Greek in its oldest known form, dating from c. 1400–1200 BC. He collaborated with John Chadwick (1920–98) on Documents in Mycenaean Greek (1956), published a few weeks after his own death in an auto accident.