In 1900 the English archaeologist Arthur Evans made a stunning discovery of Bronze Age ruins at Knossos, in Crete. He concluded that he had found the palace of King Minos, who, in Greek mythology, owned a labyrinth housing the half-man, half-bull Minotaur. Among the treasures were a set of clay tablets containing written records dating to around 1450 BC, some 700 years before the Greek alphabet existed. Margalit Fox's book recounts how this unknown script, Linear B, was decoded. In 1952 the London architect Michael Ventris finally made sense of the inscriptions, but Fox maintains that the Brooklyn classics lecturer Alice Kober paved the way for him. Kober worked on the puzzle for half her life, until her premature death, in 1950, and this captivating account shines new light on an unsung heroine.
