First Hieroglyphic Tablet Found at Knossos: Archaeologists Decode Crete
The tablets sat buried for 3,400 years before Arthur Evans unearthed them at Knossos, but nobody could read a single word. Linear B looked nothing like Greek—its angular symbols seemed utterly alien. For half a century, scholars assumed it recorded some lost Minoan language. Then in 1952, a young architect named Michael Ventris cracked it during his lunch breaks and discovered something nobody expected: it was Greek after all. The Mycenaeans had been writing in Greek centuries before Homer, keeping meticulous records of chariot wheels and sheep. Turns out the oldest European writing wasn't poetry or laws—it was accounting.
March 30, 1900
126 years ago
Key Figures & Places
Crete
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Knossos
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hieroglyphic
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clay tablets
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Linear B
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archaeologist
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Egyptian hieroglyphs
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Ottoman Empire
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Crete
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Knossos
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Clay tablet
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Linear B
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Greeks
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Arthur Evans
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Hieróglifo
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