In the early 1900s on the island of Crete, British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans uncovered nearly 3,000 tablets inscribed with strange symbols. He thought these symbols represented the language spoken by Europe’s oldest civilization. Their meaning would elude scholars for 50 years.
V začetku 20. stoletja je na Kreti britanski arheolog Sir Arthur Evans odkril skoraj tri tisoč plošč, popisanih s čudnimi simboli. Mislil je, da simboli predstavljajo jezik najstarejše evropske civilizacije. A njihov pravi pomen so strokovnjaki iskali 50 let.
Evans discovered these tablets amid the colorful frescoes and maze-like hallways of the palace of Knossos. He called the civilization Minoan— after the mythical Cretan ruler, King Minos. He thought the script, dubbed Linear B, represented the Minoan language, and scholars all over the world came up with their own theories. Was it the lost language of the Etruscans? Or perhaps it represented an early form of Basque?
Evan je te plošče odkril med živopisanimi freskami ter labirintom podobnimi hodniki palače v Knososu. Civilizacijo je poimenoval minojska, po mitološkem vladarju Krete, kralju Minosu. Po njegovem je ta “linearna pisava B” predstavljala minojski jezik, strokovnjaki z vsega sveta pa so imeli vsak svojo teorijo. Je bil to izgubljeni jezik Etruščanov? Ali pa zgodnja različica jezika Baskov?
The mystery intensified because Evans guarded the tablets closely–– only 200 of the inscriptions were published during his lifetime–– but he couldn’t decipher the script. However, he did make two accurate observations: the tablets were administrative records, and the script was a syllabary, where each symbol represented both a consonant and a vowel, mixed with characters that each represented a whole word.
Skrivnost je bila toliko večja, ker je Evans plošče skrbno skrival - do njegove smrti so objavili samo 200 zapisov - toda ni mogel razvozlati pisave. Je pa ugotovil dve stvari: plošče so bile uradniški spisi, pisava pa je zlogovna, kjer vsak simbol predstavlja soglasnik in samoglasnik, nekateri znaki pa predstavljajo celotno besedo.
Evans worked on Linear B for three decades before a scholar from Brooklyn, New York, named Alice Kober set out to solve the mystery. Kober was a professor of Classics at Brooklyn College when few women held such positions. To help in her quest, she taught herself many languages–– knowledge she knew she would need to decipher Linear B. For the next two decades, she analyzed the symbols.
Evans je na linearni pisavi B delal trideset let, dokler ni newyorška znanstvenica Alice Kober razvozlala njene skrivnosti. Koberjeva je predavala klasiko na kolidžu v Brooklynu, v času, ko je bilo na takih položajih malo žensk. Za to nalogo se je naučila veliko jezikov, vedoč, da jih bo potrebovala za razvozlanje linearne pisave B. Dve desetletji je analizirala simbole.
Working from the few available inscriptions, she recorded how often each symbol appeared. Then she recorded how frequently each symbol appeared next to another. She stored her findings on scrap paper in cigarette cartons because writing supplies were scarce during the Second World War.
Na podlagi redkih zapisov, ki so bili na voljo, je zabeležila, kako pogosto se vsak simbol pojavi. Zabeležila je tudi, kako pogosto se vsak simbol pojavi poleg drugih. Ugotovitve, zapisane na odpadni papir, je spravila v škatlice cigaret, saj je bilo med drugo svetovno vojno na voljo malo opreme za pisanje.
By analyzing these frequencies, she discovered that Linear B relied on word endings to give its sentences grammar. From this she began to build a chart of the relations between the signs, coming closer than anyone before to deciphering Linear B. But she died, probably of cancer, in 1950 at the age of 43.
Z analizo pogostosti teh pojavov je odkrila, da linearni pisavi B slovnico določajo končnice besed. Na tej podlagi je zgradila tabelo odnosov med znaki in se bolj kot vsi drugi približala razvozlanju linearne pisave B. Toda leta 1950 je umrla, stara 43 let, verjetno zaradi raka.
While Kober was analyzing the Knossos tablets, an architect named Michael Ventris was also working to crack Linear B. He had become obsessed with Linear B as a schoolboy after hearing Evans speak. He even worked on deciphering the script while serving in World War II.
Medtem ko je Koberjeva analizirala plošče s Knososa, je linearno pisavo B skušal razvozlati tudi arhitekt Michael Ventris. Pisava ga je obsedla že kot šolarja, ko je enkrat poslušal Evansovo predavanje. Pisavo je skušal razvozlati celo kot vojak med drugo svetovno vojno.
After the war, Ventris built on Kober’s grid using a newly published cache of Linear B inscriptions excavated from a different archeological site called Pylos, on mainland Greece. His real breakthrough came when he compared the tablets from Pylos with those from Knossos and saw that certain words appeared on tablets from one site but not the other. He wondered if those words represented the names of places specific to each location.
Po vojni je Ventris nadgradil tabelo Koberjeve s pomočjo na novo objavljenih zapisov linearne pisave B, ki so jih našli v Pilosu, arheološkem najdišču v celinski Grčiji. A pravi preboj je dosegel, ko je primerjal plošče s Pilosa s tistimi s Knososa. Videl je, da se določene besede pojavijo samo na ploščah z enega najdišča. Zanimalo ga je, ali te besede predstavljajo imena krajev, povezanih z določeno lokacijo.
He knew that over centuries, place names tend to remain constant, and decided to compare Linear B to an ancient syllabary from the island of Cyprus. The Cypriot script was used hundreds of years after Linear B, but some of the symbols were similar— he wondered if the sounds would be similar, too. When Ventris plugged some of the sounds of the Cypriot syllabary into the Linear B inscriptions, he came up with the word Knossos, the name of the city where Evans had discovered his tablets. In a domino effect, Ventris unraveled Linear B, with each word revealing more clearly that the language of Linear B was not Minoan, but Greek.
Vedel je, da imena krajev skozi stoletja ostajajo enaka, in se odločil, da bo linearno pisavo B primerjal z antičnim silabarijem s Cipra. Ciprska pisava je bila v rabi na stotine let po linearni pisavi B, a nekateri simboli so si bili podobni. Zanimalo ga je, ali bi si bili tudi zvoki podobni. Ko je Ventris nekatere zvoke ciprskega silabarija uporabil na zapisih linearne pisave B, je našel besedo Knosos, ime mesta, kjer je Evans odkril svoje plošče. Sledila je verižna reakcija in Ventris je razvozlal pisavo: vsaka beseda je bolj jasno pokazala, da jezik linearne pisave B ni bil minojski, pač pa grški.
Ventris died in a car crash four years later, at the age of 34. But his discovery rewrote a chapter of history. Evans had insisted that the Minoans conquered the mainland Greeks, and that was why examples of Linear B were found on the mainland. But the discovery that Linear B represented Greek, and not Minoan, showed that the opposite had happened: mainland Greeks invaded Crete and adopted the Minoan script for their own language.
Ventris je štiri leta kasneje, pri 34 letih, umrl v prometni nesreči. A njegovo odkritje je na novo napisalo celotno poglavje zgodovine. Evans je trdil, da so Minojci osvojili celinsko Grčijo in da so zato na celini našli primere linearne pisave B. A odkritje, da linearna pisava B zapisuje grščino, ne minojščine, je dokazala ravno obratno: celinski Grki so zavzeli Kreto in prevzeli minojsko pisavo za svoj jezik.
But the story isn’t over yet. The actual language of the Minoans, represented by another script called Linear A, has yet to be deciphered. It remains a mystery— at least for now.
Toda zgodba s tem ni končana. Dejanski jezik Minojcev, ki ga predstavlja linearna pisava A, bo treba šele razvozlati. To ostaja skrivnost - vsaj za zdaj.