The Riddle of the Labyrinth

The Riddle of the Labyrinth: the quest to crack an ancient code

by Margalit Fox

Harper Collins, 2013

In 1900, archeologist Arthur Evans discovered a series of tablets on the island of Crete. The tablets dated from 1450 BCE, almost 700 years before the Greek alphabet was developed. The tablets were written in an unknown script and in an unknown language, referred to as Linear B. The Riddle of the Labyrinth tells the story of how Linear B was decoded, and the contributions of the three major players, Arthur Evans, Alice Kober and Michael Ventris. The process took 53 years. The work was done before computers were available to private citizens and when paper was in such sort supply that Kober had to cut her own index cards from church flyers and greeting cards. 

From reading this book, I learned that languages may be logographic where each character depicts an idea (Chinese), or syllabic where each symbol refers to a syllable (Japanese kana script) or phonetic where each character stands for a sound. “By some estimates, only 15 percent of the roughly six thousand languages spoken around the globe have written forms.” 

I recommend this book for anyone who is interested in codes, the development of language or history.

Take a Liking to a Viking

I admit I like Vikings. Their behavior was often unacceptable by today’s standards, but still, they have a certain romantic appeal. Plus, Vikings are the local high school’s mascot, and my maternal grandparents were Danish.

I’ve been reading the Saxon Tales by Bernard Cornwell and picked up some Viking trivia.

Horned helmets: I already knew the horns were a myth. No warrior involved in hand-to-hand combat would wear a hat with handles that could be grabbed by the enemy.

Longboats: The fanciful beasts carved on the prows could be removed when the ship was used for trading. Many of these trade missions were reconnaissance designed to identify the richest villages to plunder later.

Vikings: Back in the day, these folks were known as Danes or Norsemen. The word viking was a verb. To go viking was to go plundering, pillaging and burning.

Sheep Are Not Little Cows

The first half of my graduate education was spent in a laboratory on the top floor of the Animal Sciences Building at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. One day, I overheard a scientist say, “Sheep are not little cows.” Later, I asked my advisor if there was a deeper meaning to this apparently obvious statement. He explained that cattle are expensive to feed and house, even in America’s Dairyland, so some scientists study sheep and try to apply the results to cattle. But sheep differ from cattle in significant ways.

Teens differ from adults in significant ways. Although we persist in referring to teens as young adults, no writer in this genre should be lulled into complacency by that misnomer.

I almost always enjoy the mysteries of a well-known writer whose name I won’t mention. He is the author of over 60 books and more than 50 have been bestsellers. Recently he has written a couple books for the YA market. My first reaction was, “Can’t you stick to your own playground?” Breaking into the YA market is tough enough without competition like that. I tried to read his first YA novel, but couldn’t make much headway. I recently checked out the second and again had to put it down.

Why?

The teens in these books seem like adults who haven’t finished growing, filling out or going to high school. They have teenage bodies, but not teenage voices.

On the other hand, when I learned this author has a new mystery for adults, I raced to my library’s webpage to reserve it. The local library system bought 36 copies. All are checked out, and 20 holds have been placed ahead of me.