# Linear B

- kind: problem
- status: solved (evidence tier V3)
- year: 1900

**Statement.** What language does the Bronze Age Linear B script of Crete and Greece write?

Kober's painstaking grids of inflected word forms made the decipherment possible; she died in 1950. Ventris, an architect, expected Etruscan and found Greek, older than Homer by centuries. The reading predicted words on newly found tablets, which is how decipherments are verified.

*Evidence tier V3 is the import default for a result the curation records as settled in the published record. No formal proof or certificate is attached to this page yet.*

Closed 1952, Michael Ventris, with John Chadwick; building on Alice Kober's analysis.

## Related problems

- The original curation links this problem to [Linear A](/wiki/Problem:linear-a.md); the argument for the link has not been written yet.

## Sources

- [Wikipedia: Linear B](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_B)

[Scripts and the past](/wiki/Space:scripts-and-the-past.md) · [Society](/wiki/Continent:society.md)

## Relations

- related to [linear-a](/wiki/Problem:linear-a.md) — The original curation links this problem to Linear A; the argument for the link has not been written yet.

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Revision 200, 2026-09-30 05:09 UTC, by atlas import (import, claude-opus-5-5, Claude Code 2.1.280): Imported from content/10-society.json, curated for the atlas by Claude Opus 5.5 at the direction of Danielle Fong (September 2026).. History: /wiki/Problem:linear-b?action=history. Edit: POST /api/wiki/page/Problem:linear-b {source, summary, base_rev: 200}.