Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code and the Uncovering of a Lost Civilisation - Couverture souple

Fox, Margalit

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 1781251320 ISBN 13 : 9781781251324

Editeur : Profile Books Ltd, 2013

Synopsis

Riddle of the Labyrinth For the first time, the full story of the race to decipher the world's greatest puzzle. Full description

A propos du livre

Quatrième de couverture

In 1900, while excavating on Crete, the charismatic Victorian archaeologist Arthur Evans unearthed inscribed clay tablets amid the ruins of a lavish Bronze Age palace. Written by palace scribes circa 1450 b.c., the script they displayed—featuring outline drawings of swords, chariots, and horses' heads, as well as other tiny pictograms—resembled no alphabet ever seen. Evans named the script Linear B, and from the start it posed a deep mystery. No one knew what language Linear B recorded, much less what the curious inscriptions meant. If the tablets could be deciphered, they would open a portal onto a refined, wealthy, and literate society that had flourished in Greek lands three thousand years earlier, a full millennium before the glories of the Classical Age.

The Riddle of the Labyrinth is the true story of the quest to solve one of the most mesmerizing riddles in history—Linear B—and of the three brilliant, obsessed, and ultimately doomed investigators whose combined work would eventually crack the code. There was Evans, who had discovered the script but could never unravel it; Alice Kober, the fiery American scholar whose vital work on Linear B never got the recognition it deserved; and Michael Ventris, the haunted English architect who would solve the riddle triumphantly at the age of thirty only to die four years later under circumstances that remain the subject of speculation even now.

For half a century some of the world's foremost scholars tried to coax the tablets to yield their secrets. Then, in 1952, the script was deciphered seemingly in a single stroke—not by a scholar but by Ventris, an impassioned amateur whose obsession with the tablets had begun in childhood. The decipherment brought him worldwide acclaim. But it also cost him his architectural career, his ties to his family, and quite possibly his life. 

That is the narrative of the decipherment as it has been known thus far. But a major actor in the drama has long been missing: Alice Kober, a classicist at Brooklyn College. Though largely forgotten today, she came within a hair's breadth of deciphering Linear B before her own untimely death in 1950. As The Riddle of the Labyrinth reveals, it was Kober who built the foundation on which Ventris's decipherment stood, an achievement that until now has been all but lost to history. Drawing on a newly opened archive of Kober's papers, Margalit Fox restores this unsung heroine to her rightful place at last.

Above all, this book is a detective story in the tradition of Dava Sobel and Simon Winchester. As Fox narrates the lives of Evans, Kober, and Ventris, she takes readers step-by-step through the forensic process involved in cracking a secret code from the past. Following the three investigators as they hunt down, analyze, and interpret a series of linguistic clues hidden within the script itself, The Riddle of the Labyrinth offers the first complete account of one of the most fascinating conundrums of all time. 

Revue de presse

'Fox spins a fascinating yarn centered around an unlikely heroine: a devoted academic spinster who died before accomplishing her life's mission of cracking an ancient script. ... Fox's deft explanations of the script-solving process complete with supplemental photos and illustrations of the text allow readers to share in the mental detective work of cracking the lost language.' Publishers Weekly

'Fox is a talented storyteller, and she creates an atmosphere of almost nail-biting suspense: We know the code was eventually cracked, but while we're reading the book we're on the edge of our seats. This one deserves shelf space along such classics of the genre as Simon Singh's The Code Book.' Booklist (Starred Review)

'Fox recreates the emergence of one of history's most vexing puzzles and then puts readers alongside the remarkable figures who, brilliantly, obsessively, and even tragically, devoted their lives to solving it. Forget The Da Vinci Code. This is the real thing.' Toby Lester, author of Da Vinci's Ghost

'Margalit Fox describes the decipherment of Linear B in such lucid detail that any reader can follow the steps and participate in the thrill of discovery.' --Stephen Mitchell, translator of Gilgamesh and the Iliad

'Truly mesmerising. It's also a lovely testament to language and the history of linguistics' --Sunday Herald

'The details of how the tablets were deciphered are complicated, and it's a credit to Fox's clear, confident writing that following them isn't too painful. As with any good detective story, there's a driving narrative behind the puzzle, peopled by solitary sleuths who allow marital problems or bills to stack up as they devote themselves to the hunt ... her enthusiasm is compelling when talking about the raw inventive brainpower of the code-breakers, their unswerving passion, and the magical way that a set of lines and curves in clay can be transformed into something with meaning' Observer

'The author's triumph lies in her presentation of this complex subject, narrated with the pace and excitement of a detective' --Country Life

'A fascinating and very readable account of the life and work of the three scholars whose separate efforts over the course of a century eventually led to the cracking of Linear B. This group biography elegantly illustrates how progress in historical scholarship is made possible by the work of many hands, not just those of a single genius' --History Today

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Profile Books Ltd
• Date d'édition: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1781251320
• ISBN 13: 9781781251324
• Reliure: Broché
• Langue: anglais
• Nombre de pages: 352