SOUR MILK

 

I wish more people in 1892 had heeded the observation of steel mill owner John Metzlaff. He summed up that entire summer of acrimony and fear mongering over whether English should be the only language used in Wisconsin schools, as  “ridicules”.   As impossible as it might have been to believe at the time, this ultra-conservative capitalist asserted that in “10 or 20 years, almost nobody in Milwaukee would even be speaking German”.  And they weren't.

Wisconsin Republican Secretary of State Jerry Rusk (above) agreed, calling the political campaigning that year a “blundering business”. But the idea that the crises then gripping the state was not really a crises, does not seem to have occurred to many others, which is fairly depressing. Because it is so familiar.

William Dempster Hoard (above)  saw the world as his Methodist minister father had seen it, as the minister “Demp” himself might have become, had he not as a child, argued with his religious instructors over church doctrine.  As Robert Nesbit put it, "Even as a young man Dempster already “knew what he knew, and was not to be deflected,.” 

Instead, Hoard built a small newspaper empire in rural Wisconsin, promoting his ideas about politics and agriculture with that religious fervor he might have better directed toward religion.  In the pages of “Heord's Dairyman” (above)  he invented the modern dairy farm, from the alfalfa forage to silos for storage to breeding that produced bountiful milk and sweet cheese. He counseled his farmer congregation to “Speak to a cow as you would to a lady.” 

Then, at 56, in his 1888 campaign for governor. the Republican “Cow Candidate” preached to the voters his second great secular passion – education. “The child ...has a right to demand of the State”, he said, to be “provided with the ability to read and write the language of this country....I would recommend to require that reading and writing in English be daily taught” As if public schools were going to be taught in any other language. But, such political theology led to Hoard's victory in 1888, winning with a 21,000 vote majority.

But Wisconsin was no longer the homogenized Anglo-America it had been in Hoard's youth, which contained, he a admitted, “no foreign element but the Irish”. By 1890 over 70% of the million and a-half residents of Wisconsin were either foreign born or first generation Americans. Four out of ten Wisconsinites spoke German in their homes and in their Lutheran and Catholic churches and parochial schools. And they were already having an impact on state politics. 

Since 1874 it had been legal for Milwaukee factory workers to enjoy a beer with their Sunday meal. But that attitude tasted sour to the temperance leaning Methodists and Episcopalians across the rolling farm districts which were Governor Hoard's base. It wasn't that the Anglo-Americans descendants were any more bigoted than the the newly arrived German- Swedish-Polish-Irish Americans. But it is human nature to mistrust strangers.

Early in 1890, as Governor Hoard's re-election campaign was just gearing up, he was visited by five Lutheran ministers. The men of the cloth warned "Demp" not to enforce the objectionable portions of Bennett's Law, or he would be a one term governor.  According to his own account, Governor Hoard chose to lecture the petitioners. “If you plant your church across the pathway to human enlightenment,” he warned, “you will lose the respect of the young men in your church.” The offended Lutherans, who believed they WERE on the path to enlightenment, stormed out the Governor's office, determined to do battle. This is what happens when ministers think they are politicians and visa versa.

It was named Bennetts law, after Assemblyman Michael Bennett from the farming village of Dodgeville (above).  But Governor Hoard had written it, and inspired it, and forced it through the legislature with a minimum of debate on 18 April 1889. 

The bill required daily school attendance for all children between seven and fourteen, and it required that all instruction be in English. To meet the first requirement, the law mandated all schools, public and parochial, report attendance records in the public press. And to insure this, the law levied fines on  school officials and parents who failed to ensure their children met both requirements - daily attendance and proficiency in English.

Lutherian clergy saw Bennett's Law as over reaching by the government, and an usurpation of parental rights. And, they pointed out, of the 346 Lutheran and Catholic schools in Wisconsin , just 139 did not teach in English. And in those school that taught in German, most of the students also attended public schools, where English language was already standard.  The alliance of Democrats and Church groups was strengthened when the Republican claim of 40,000 to 50,000 children in the state not attending any school at all was shown to be mere hyperbole. However, the proof did not prevent the bogus number from being repeated as fact in Republican circles. Sound Familiar?

In his stump speech that year, William Hoard proclaimed, “The parents, the pastor, and the church have entered into a conspiracy to darken the understanding of the children, who are denied by cupidity and bigotry the privilege of even the free schools of the state.” He pleaded, "I want the little German boy and girl...to have the same chance in life as my children. Without a knowledge of the English language they can not have this chance.”

A German language newspaper responded, “It is not sufficient for them that we should become Americanized...but they want us to become de-Germanized. And they think that can be accomplished first by destroying German schools.” U. S. Senator, Democrat William Vilas, pandered by asking, “What is the difference if you say 'two and two make four' or 'zwie und zwei machen vier?” 

And then on 1 April, 1890, the Republican incumbent mayor of Milwaukee was handily defeated by a Democratic newcomer, newspaper man and humorist George Peck.   A month later 100 Republican bigwigs met in Madison to supposedly endorse Bennett's Law, and the best Hoard's people could get from them was a "no comment".

At their state convention in August, the Democrats sounded like winners. They nominated Peck to run for Governor, declaring Bennett's law “unwise, unconstitutional, UN-American, and undemocratic.” The Republicans met the same month (and in the same city) and re-nominated Hoard, while promising to modify the law. 

They also raised a red flag over their Milwaukee headquarters bearing the image of a one room schoolhouse. The words on the flag read, “Stand by it”.

Hyperbole became the favored language of public discourse. The Chicago Journal called Hoard a “giant armed for the war against...pestilent foreign-ism.” Hoard warned that those who stood in his way were “like cows in front of a locomotive”.  The Republican Stevens Point Journal suggested that Governor Hoard would rather die than abandon Bennetts Law. 

Democrats called Episcopalian clergymen, liars. A Catholic Bishop claimed from the pulpit that Bennetts law had been secretly written by the anti-religious Freemasons. And a Freemason newspaper seemed to confirm this when it trumpeted, “give us ten years...(and) The Bennett Law will be the keystone of a higher civilization.”

It was, in fact, not. On Tuesday, 4 November, 1890 Hoard's cows came home to roost. His 1888  21,000 vote majority became a 30,000 vote minority, as he lost 43% to 52% to Peck. The Democrats won every seat in the executive branch, and control of both houses of the state legislature by a 2-1 advantage. Wisconsin's federal congressional representation went from 7 Republicans and 2 Democrats, to 8 Democrats and 1 lone Republican. That year Wisconsin voted for a Democratic President for the first time since 1852. And every Republican blamed William Dumpster Hoard (above, left) and his damn cows (above, right).

On 3 February. 1891 the new Democratic Wisconsin legislature repealed Bennett's law.  It was replaced a few months later with an almost identical law, but without the English only requirement. But, as John Metzlaff had predicted. just seven years later the Democrats in Wisconsin passed a law requiring English only be used in even parochial schools, and this time there were no mass protests. 

It seemed as if the citizens of Wisconsin did not so much object to the language requirement, as they did not trust preachers like William Demptser Hoard, to make that decision for them. “Demp” might be able to energize his base, but his inability to respect his opponents lead the Republican party to an electoral disaster. 

“Demp” would have done well to remember his own advice, from the pages of “Hoard's Dairyman”. “Happiness”” he observed, “doesn't depend on what we have, but it does depend on how we feel toward what we have.”

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FUMBLE

 

I think the second most important man in the history of American football was a dictatorial opera-loving control freak, who began each training camp by warning his players that it was “Better to have died as a small boy than to fumble this football.”  John Heisman (above) described his ideal coach as “...severe, arbitrary and little short of a czar” and proceeded to live up to that image. His teams' diets were heavy on raw meat, and devoid of apples.

John Heisman found football a brutal, violent ground game that killed 44 players in 1904.

It was also filled with arcane idiosyncratic rules, such as a team just scored against could chose to either kick or receive.  A touchdown and a field goal were both worth five points 

It was John Heisman who invented the forward pass, the hidden ball play and divided each half into quarters. And it was John Heisman who led the Georgia Technology Institute “Engineers” to the most decisive victory in the history of the game. Of course, he had a little help.

Twenty miles east of the metropolis of Nashville, in the picturesque village of Lebanon, is tiny Cumberland University (above). In the decades around the dawn of the twentieth century its prestigious School of Law graduated more future Congressmen than any other school in the South – impressive, with a student body of less than 1,000. In the more significant aspects of college life, the 1903 Cumberland football team had a championship 7-1 season, and a post season Thanksgiving day 11-11 tie against a Clemson team coached by John Heisman.

In March of 1916 Cumberland signed a contract to play a fall game against Georgia Tech in exchange for at least $500 from the ticket sales. Then, over the howls of disappointed students and alumni, hard economic times forced acting President Dr. Homer Hill to choose academics over football. New student manager George Allen was told to cancel all football contracts. Except John Heisman, now in his second year coaching at Georgia Tech, and who depended on ticket proceeds for a portion of his income, refused to cancel their game. Also, there had been a “misunderstanding” the previous summer over some alleged “professional ringers” in a baseball game between the two schools, and Heisman, who was also the Georgia Tech baseball coach, had insisted on adding a $3,000 penalty to their football contract, which Cumberland had been forced to agree to. So, if a Cumberland football team did not suit up on Saturday, November 7th, the small school would have to pay Georgia Tech today's equivalent of $60,000.

The burden for preventing the bankruptcy of Cumberland University fell to acting coach and law student Ernest “Butch” McQueen. Promised half of the $500 guarantee, he recruited a squad of 20 volunteers (mostly from his Kappa Sigma fraternity) and put them through some trough scrimmages. Gentry Dugat, who had played football once in high school, agreed to join the team only because the overnight trip to Atlanta would be his first ride in a Pullman sleeping car. There had been hopes of recruiting more “ringers” from the Vanderbilt team while changing trains in Nashville, but none could be obtained. In fact, three of the Cumberland volunteers missed the train to Atlanta, cutting the roster available for the game to just 17.

Waiting for the Cumberland Bulldogs on Georgia Tech's three year old Grant Field was a squad of 40 highly motivated dedicated players, who in their season opener a week earlier had demolished Mercer College 61 to zero. Also waiting was Coach John Heisman, who had found a new enemy to motivate himself; sportswriters, whose habit of “totaling up the number of points each team has amassed...and comparing them with one another” annoyed him  To prove their reasoning was specious, Heisman had decided “...to show folks it was no difficult thing to run up a score in one easy game.” And the Cumberland Bulldog stand-ins were going to be the his stand-ins, too .

There were 1,000 fans in the grandstands the students had built to watch Georgia Tech win the coin toss. In what must be viewed as almost his only act of mercy that afternoon, Heisman decided his team would kick off, and defend the north goal line. The festivities began when Jim Preas kicked off for Georgia Tech. “Morris” Grouger caught the ball at the Cumberland 25 yard line and got not much closer to Georgia's goal line. On their first play Cumberland quarterback Leon McDonald handed the ball off to Grouger again, and he made three yards against Georgia's left tackle. On second and seven, McDonald was stopped at the line of scrimmage. The Bulldogs also failed to advance the ball on third down. On Fourth down McDonald punted – sort of. His kick covered less than 20 yards and was caught by Georgia quarterback Jim Preas. Cumberland finally tackled Preas on their own 20 yard line. On Georgia's first play Junior halfback Evertt “Strupp” Strupper went around the left end for the score. Jim Preas kicked the extra point , and that quickly it was Georgia 7 and Cumberland zero.

This time Heisman picked Tommy Spence to kick off. Again it was “Morris” Grouger who caught the ball, this time at the five yard line. And this time he made five yards before he was tackled. With the ball on their ten yard line, McDonald handed off to running back George Murphy who went to the right side, where he was hit and coughed up the ball. It was picked up by "Engineer" Marshall Guill, who ran the ten yards for Georgia's second touchdown. Preas again kicked the extra point; Tech, 14. Cumberland, 0.

What followed was either depressingly predictable or delightfully surprising – depending on which team you were rooting for. Preas kicks off, Grouger received at the 20 and returned ten yards to the Cumberland 30 yard line. On first down quarterback McDonald fumbled behind the line, and it was recovered by “Hip” West for Georgia at the Cumberland 20. Strupper made fifteen yards on the first down, and Jim Preas went the last five for the score. He then kicked the extra point; Georgia Tech, 21, Cumberland, zero. Preas kicked off, and it was received by McDonald at the ten, who made it to the 20 yard line before being tackled.  Morris Gouger tried the left side and was thrown for a 5 yard loss. McDonald tried a pass, but it was incomplete. Out of frustration, McDonald punted on third down, putting it out of bounds on the Cumberland 35. On the first down for Georgia, Buzz Shaver hit the left side of the Cumberland line for twenty five yards. Halfback “Strup” Strupper went the remaining ten yards for the score. Preas kicked the extra point; Georgia, 28, Cumberland, zero.

Desperate to try anything, Cumberland decided to use the obscure rule that allowed them to kick off. How this was supposed to help the Bulldogs is unclear, in part because it did not.  McDonald got a good foot on the ball, and it was received at the Georgia 20 by Buzz Shaver, who ran it back 70 yards to the Cumberland 10 yard line. Strupper could have scored on the next play but he grounded the ball on the one yard line. The Georgia Tech team had decided that guard J.S. "Canty" Alexander should be allowed to score the next touchdown. But “Canty”was worried that his teammates might be setting him up. He admitted 70 years later that on the hand off, “I was so busy watching to make sure they blocked, that the ball hit me in the chest and I fumbled. But I picked it up on the five and pranced across like a debutante.” Preas hit the extra point. The score was now Georgia Tech, 35, Cumberland zero.

Again Cumberland chose to kick off. Walter “Six” Carpenter caught the ball on the Georgia 35 and was stopped after just a five yard return. Things were actually looking up for Cumberland for a moment, and then on the next snap, “Strup” ran it for sixty yards and the score – after Preas conversion, it was now Georgia, 42, Cumberland zero. Again McDonald kicked off . Again Carpenter caught the ball. This time he made a ten yard return to the Georgia thirty-five. Then “Buzz” Shaver got twenty-five yards over the right side, Ralph Puckett made five up the middle, and Spence went thirty-five for the score. Preas hit the extra point; Georgia, 49, Cumberland, zero.

Cumberland gave up the idea of kicking off, and McDonald received at the Cumberland ten. He then tried three passes, before punting. “Strup” Strupper returned the kick thirty-five yards for another touchdown, and Preas kicked the extra point; Georgia 56, Cumberland, zero. Cumberland decided to try kicking off one more time. Tommy Spence returned it ninety yards for a trouch down, and Preas kicked his ninth extra point – Georgia, 63, Cumberland, zero. Georgia let Tommy Spence kick off, and Morris Gouger caught it at the fifteen and returned it to Cumberland twenty-five, before losing five yards on the first play from scrimmage. McDonald then lost more five yards, before trying two passes in a row. Then, mercifully the whistle blew, signifying the end of the first quarter – just three more to go. And Everett “Strupp” Stupper had already scored four touchdowns.

Cumberland started the Second quarter with a very respectable fifty yard punt by McDonald, but Charlie Turner for Georgia returned it forty-five of those yards, back to the Cumberland twenty. On the very next play Jim Senter scored. Preas kicked the extra point; Georgia, 70, Cumberland, zero.

Cumberland actually made nine yards on the next series of downs, but that triumph was overshadowed when McDonald's weary foot could punt the ball just eleven yards. Two plays later Preas ran the ball in from the fifteen. Preas kicked the extra point; Georgia, 77, Cumberland, zero. Preas kicked off, Grouger returned to the Cumberland twenty, McDonald threw an interception to Marsall Guill who scored. Preas kicked the extra point; Georgia 84, Cumberland, zero. Preas kicked off, George Murphy received for Cumberland and was nailed at the ten yard line. Charles “Eddie” Edwards then fumbled for Cumberland and one play later George Griffen scored. Preas kicked the extra point; Georgia, 91, Cumberland, zero.

At some point during the endless horror of that second quarter, members of the Cumberland team contend that they made a major football innovation. Between plays, in an attempt to find a way to survive the overpowering Georgia line, they gathered together, and thus invented the huddle. Maybe – but the half did finally, mercifully end; Georgia Tech, 126, Cumberland, zero.

John Heisman found a way to give a half time pep talk to his Georgia team. “You're doing all right, team,. We're ahead. But you just can't tell what those Cumberland players have up their sleeves. They may spring a surprise. Be alert, men! Hit 'em clean, but hit 'em. Hard!” He also agreed to reduce the torture to just 12 minutes each for the two remaining quarters.

But even the shortened third quarter was no better for Cumberland than the previous two. According to Grantland Rice, who was covering the game for the Atlanta Journal, “Cumberland's greatest individual play of the game occurred when fullback (George) Allen circled right for a six-yard loss.” It was only a slight exaggeration. Cumberland did complete one six yard forward pass, but they never got the ball into Georgia territory. So crushing was the Georgia Tech line, that when yet another Cumberland fumble rolled toward Cumberland Bulldog B.F. “Bird” Paty, he froze. Shouted the man who had lost the ball, “Pick it up!” Paty shouted back, “Pick it up yourself, you dropped it.” Wrote Rice, “As a general rule, the only thing necessary for a touchdown was to give a Tech back the ball and holler, “Here he comes' and “There he goes'”.

The other Atlanta Journal writer in attendance, Morgan Blake, noticed that the Cumberland team “... couldn't run with the ball, they couldn't block and they couldn't tackle. At spasmodic intervals they were able to down a runner, but they were decidedly too light and green to be effective at any stage of the game.” Near the end of the Third Quarter, Georgian quarterback George Gariffin discovered two Cumberland Bulldogs sitting on the Georgia bench. Heisman yelled at them to get back on their own side of the field. One of the interlopers pleaded, “Don't make us go back. We'll have to go into the game.' “

Morris Grough later claimed he had saved the Bulldogs from even more grief. "I called for a quarterback sneak on fourth down late in the final period. We needed 25 yards and were deep in our (own) territory. I made it back to the line of scrimmage and saved us from really ignominious defeat. If we had punted, as we should have, Tech would have blocked the kick, made another touchdown and the score would have been 229-0.” On the last play of the game, Cumberland lost 5 yards. The final result was aw inspiring; Georgia Teach, 222, Cumberland, zero. Georgia's wooden scoreboard barely had enough room for the numbers

The Georgia Tech Engineers gained 1,620 yards, 978 of it during their own 28 offensive plays, the other 642 by their defense on turnovers. They scored a record 32 touchdowns – 10 on first downs and 14 by their defence and specialty teams. They threw not a single forward pass. They gained 220 yards on punt returns – scoring five TD's - and another 220 yards returning kicks – producing 1 TD. The only issue of concern, if you could call it that, was the two “points after” that they missed. Of course that was 2 out of 32 attempts. They also set records for the most points kicked after touchdown by one player -18 by Jim Preas - most points scored in one quarter – 63 - and most individual players scoring touchdowns - 13 . All of those records still stand.

Meanwhile, Cumberland's offense total was a minus 42 yards. They threw 18 times, gaining a total of 14 yards through the air. Their receivers held onto only two of those passes. They were intercepted six times, and gave up 9 fumbles. Their longest play of the game was a ten yard completed pass. It would have been a first down except it came on fourth and 22. In the entire game neither team scored a first down from scrimmage. Cumberland couldn't, Georgia Tech didn't need to. At the end of the game, Coach Heisman handed over the $500 check to Butch McQueen, adding,  “Maybe we can get together again next baseball season.”

Cumberland did not field another football team until 1920. Shortly thereafter they built a new football field,  Kirk Field, to ensure the teams continued existence. And except for a short disappearance during the Great Depression, it worked. In 1929 Georgia Tech made their first appearance at the Rose Bowl, and about the same time they ceased to be the “Engineers” and became the “Yellowjackets”.

Coach John Heisman coached at Georgia Tech for three more years, to 102 wins, 29 losses and 7 ties, a 77% winning percentage, and a national championship in 1917. Heisman and his wife divorced in 1919, and he left Atlanta. He coached at Pennsylvania University, and then Washington and Jefferson College, and ended his coaching career at the Rice Institute. In his later years he was hired as a trainer for the Downtown Athletic Club in Manhattan. After his death in 1936 the club created a yearly award to the top college football player – The Heisman Trophy. John Heisman is also remembered for an American football adage, a piece of advice which has guided American business leaders and politicians for the last century; “When in doubt, punt”

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TOWER OF BABBLE THREE

 

I believe that Michael Ventris dozed off when, well after one in the morning of 6 September, 1956, his car crossed the center line at high speed and slammed head on into a truck pulled over in a “lay-by” on the Barnet Bypass (above)  20 miles from his London home. Seatbelts were still not standard, so the man who broke the "“Linear B code" was killed instantly. The lorry driver insisted the headlamps of his disabled truck were on. And a coroner’s jury even ruled the tragedy an accident. Yet, to this day, there are many who suggest it was a suicide.

There is no question that Michael George Francis Ventris  fit the profile of a person at risk. His upbringing had been coached by the step father to psychoanalysis, Carl Jung (above), who had treated and maybe seduced Michael's mother, Dorothea. He drilled in to her that “Michael was not to be touched by anybody. This was to avoid him having complexes,” she said.  

His genetic father, a gentle and loving man, died of tuberculosis when Michael was a teenager. While still in college Michael married a “rich society beauty”. But when Nazi Germany invaded Poland in 1939, his mother lost the income she had inherited from Michael's domineering grandfather. In July of 1940 Dorothea was found dead in a Welsh seaside hotel, having taken an overdose of the first commercially available barbitruate sleeping pill - Barbitone.

Michael dropped out of college in 1942, and then served three years as a navigator aboard a Royal Air Force bomber - a service which suffered a 44 ½ % death rate. Michael's son would say decades later, “My father was a private person...In fact he seemed rather remote” That isolation from his family led to his divorce. Three years before his death Michael Ventris was hailed as having scaled “the Everest of Greek archeology” by decoding the Minoan texts. But it seems that left him with perhaps the most epic case of post-partum depression in history.

Michael's career as an architect had been built promoting team work, but after reaching the linguistic summit of solving Linear B, there were few colleges interested in hiring him.  At 34 years of age he lacked academic credentials in that field. But I still don't think he intended on hitting that truck.

Those who decipher ancient texts often earn a reputation for instability.  In the 1870's George Smith (above), then an assistant at the British museum, was the first man in 5,000 years to read the story of the Assyrian holy man named Utnapishtim,  who survived a great flood by building a boat for his family and animals. 

Smith was so excited by the discovery of what was clearly an early version of Noah's Ark written in cuneiform Assyrian, that he began rushing about, tearing off his clothing. But despite the legends, he was stopped before he got completely naked, and never made it into the hall. Insanity, is not the greatest danger to archaeologists or linguists.  That threat is just being human.

Arthur Evans (above), the legendary archaeologist who between 1900 and 1906 had uncovered the palace at Knossos, on Crete, and had struggled for forty years to read the 5,000 year old language he uncovered scattered about the place.  Evans had engaged and encouraged the greatest linguists in the world to examine the 3,000 baked clay fragments recording the culture's language. He was certain it represented something new in history, and referred to the culture as Minoan and the language as “Linear B”. But when Evans died in May of 1941, he had managed to deciphered just one word: “total”,. It appeared at the bottom of many of the tablets.

Next the American, Professor Alice Kober  (above) took the lead in the search, and methodically cataloged the 90 plus signs used in “Linear B”, discovering the triple suffixes (as in English “Britain/Briton/British”) which seemed to connect the symbols on the fragments. At first, like Evans, Alice thought the mystery language must be “Minoan”. But near the end of her brief life, Alice decided it could be Etruscan. But when she died in 1950, the problem was still unresolved.

Michael Ventris had been familiar with Linear B all his adult life. When he was 13 (above) this “pleasant and humorous, if solitary boy” had encountered Evans at a museum exhibit, and impudently asked if it were true the language was not yet deciphered.

In 1940, at age 18 he had published his first academic paper on Linear B. In 1948 he got his degree in architecture, but he also met Professor Alice Kober, who was visiting  Oxford University, and later corresponded with her. They did not like each other, but Michael cut off the communication only because he was trying to concentrate on architecture. But then, as his Bauhaus minimalist work was falling out of favor, Michael found himself surrendering again to his obsession with decoding Linear B.

Languages always came easily to him. He was raised for a time in Switzerland, the mountain nation with three official languages. Michael was proficient in Spanish, French, German, Polish, Italian, Greek, Ancient Greek and Latin, and, after just one week of exposure, he was participating in conversations in Swedish. But he was having no luck decoding Linear B. 

Then, one evening, while his wife was preparing for a dinner party, the frustrated architect turned to Alice Kober's triplets, and it occurred to him to apply them phonetically to place names, but not in Etruscan but in ancient Greek. What if, he wondered, the first character in a particular triplet was pronounced as “ko”, the next “no” and the last for 'so”? Could it be that simple, that obvious: Knossos? Just then the guest arrived and Michael had to leave his work.

But while his wife was preparing to serve the desert, Michael Ventris stole back to his study. Abruptly the triplet names of several other sites on ancient Crete fell into place. With a start Michael came to the realization that the language of Linear B was not Minoan, or Etruscan, but Greek. Arthur Evans had been wrong. Alice Kober had been wrong. All the hundreds of linguists who had studied Linear B before him had been wrong. 

The truth was so obvious it might have been uncovered decades earlier, except for Arthur Evan's (above) immediate determination that it could not be Greek. Evan's so dominated the study of Knossos, that his fundamental assumption had even confused Alice Kober. Michael returned to the party and shared the excitement with his guests. He did not tear his clothing. But one of the dinner party guest happened to be a producer for BBC Radio, and the next day she put Michael in front of a microphone to share his excitement with the world.

It should have inspired an earthquake of coverage. But 1 July, 1953, the day Michael Ventris walked into the BBC Radio booth and announced his solution to the Linear B puzzle, was the day after Elizabeth II was crowned Queen of England, and the same day news broke that a month earlier, on 29 May, 1953,  New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Nepalese Sherpa Tenzing Norgay had peaked Mount Everest, the tallest mountain in the world.

It did not help that once Linear B was decoded (above), it related no great epics of heroes and gods. The translations merely recounted the inventory of storage rooms, the numbering of everything from livestock, to drinking vessels and furniture, to grain and grapes. It was the tax receipts. But...

"... Because of finger and palm prints and writing styles left by the authors, we now know there were only 100 scribes writing at Knossos, and another 32 at Pylos. These numbers are so low they suggest a religious order restricting access to the knowledge of writing. The priests scribes kept a running total (the first word deciphered by Evans in the 1920's) in the soft clay, wetting it to add and subtract from the inventories. The tablets and their counts would not be fired, and the numbers set in stone, until the palaces containing them burned down, in the Bronze Age Apocalypse of Minoan culture, some time after 1375 B.C..

Two weeks before his terminal accident, Michael Ventris wrote a letter to the editor of the Architect's Journal, the publication of the Architectural Association. Michael was leaving the field, explaining, “I’ve come to the conclusion that...you’d be justified in writing me off...All I can ask you is to temper your justified anger with a little compassion.” It was almost as if Michael had assumed the role of Utnapishtim, and was appealing to his god for understanding. 

Two weeks later Micheal Ventrs was dead. And his achievement and his passing are both proof that for the last 5,000 years and probably the next 5,000, all humans are on the same journey. It is not our achievements or our failures, or our insights or our false assumptions that bind us together, not our gods, or our nations, nor even our dreams, our nightmares or aspirations. It is the journey itself.

And that is why the study of Archeology, and Linguistics and psychology, are all important only because they provide perspective about the journey. Utmapsihtim, and King Minos, Arthur Evans and Edmund Hillary, Queen Elizabeth II, Dorothea Ventris, Karl Jung, Alice Kober – they are all fellow travelers, heading to the same destination - oblivion. Best celebrate the trip.

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