John Chadwick - Böcker

H.G. Liddell and R. Scott's Greek-English Lexicon (revised and augmented by H.S. Jones in 1940) has been the essential tool of advanced Greek scholars for 150 years; in order to update it a new Supplement has been published (OUP 1996) replacing that of 1968. In this provocative reconsideration both of its lexicographical principles and of individual articles, John Chadwick examines the need for further revision and expansion of the volume through a re-examination of the classical Greek vocabulary. A series of notes are presented, making important and stimulating contributions to the study of classical Greek lexicography, and offering many new interpretations of passages from familiar authors based upon a lexicographical approach. Essential reading for all scholars of classical Greek.

A plain text in transliteration of the Linear B tablets from Knossos. Since the first publication of these tablets in 1952, various scholars worked to improve the texts. The results of their researches were published in successive editions of The Knossos Tablets: A Transliteration. This 1971 fourth edition completely replaced the third of 1964. It contains the texts of many fragments previously discarded as unreadable, and several hundred improved texts resulting from joins between fragments. In addition, the original of every tablet has been closely scrutinised and numerous improvements in the readings have been made. The system of classification has been modified, and many more tablets are now assigned to series, and for the first time there was an attempt to reconstruct the original filing system of the archive. The scribal hand is noted where it can be identified. The book is indispensable for all scholars who wish to work directly on this material.

In 1952 the decipherment of the Linear B script suddenly revealed the Greekness of Mycenaean Greece. Now, after new discoveries and more than 20 years of intensive work, scholars are able to interpret the written documents and reconstruct from them a vivid picture of life in this remote period, in a way which is impossible from archaeology alone. John Chadwick, who assisted Ventris in the original decipherment, has played a major part in these advances. He now summarizes the results of research and in so doing opens the door to a new world, Mycenaean Greece seen through the eyes of its inhabitants. The tablets may be only, as he describes them, 'the account books of anonymous clerks', but from these prosaic documents he shows how we can infer a bronze industry, foreign slave-women, or even human sacrifice. Not least important is the comparison of the newly available data with the Homeric account, much to the detriment of Homer's credibility as a witness.

The fourth in the series of international colloquia on Mycenaean Studies which began in 1956 was held in Cambridge, UK, in April 1965. It was attended by most of the leading scholars concerned in the edition an interpretation of the linear B tablets. Originally published in 1966, this book is a record of the papers presented and discussed. They cover a wide range of subjects from epigraphy to more general questions of interpretation, and will be of interest to all who study Mycenaean Greece, Homer or the history of the Greek language.

In their 1953 book, Documents in Mycenaean Greek, Michael Ventris (1922-56) and John Chadwick (1920-98) demonstrated that the previously mysterious script Linear B was, in fact, a syllabic form of written Greek, thereby revolutionizing ancient history and linguistics. In this second edition, originally published in 1973, Chadwick examines how the study of the subject has expanded since 1953 and includes some of the material discovered since the initial publication. This book continues to be a valuable part of Classical scholarship and will be of interest to Classicists of every discipline.

The languages of the ancient world and the mysterious scripts, long undeciphered, in which they were encoded have represented one of the most intriguing problems of classical archaeology in modern times. This celebrated account of the decipherment of Linear B in the 1950s by Michael Ventris was written by his close collaborator in the momentous discovery. In revealing the secrets of Linear B it offers a valuable survey of late Minoan and Mycenaean archaeology, uncovering fascinating details of the religion and economic history of an ancient civilisation.