Michael Ventris Blue Plaque

About This Blue Plaque

Michael Ventris was a brilliant British architect and classical scholar who is best known for his groundbreaking decipherment of Linear B, an ancient script used by the Mycenaean Greeks. Born in 1922, Ventris showed exceptional linguistic talents from a young age, mastering several languages by his early teens.

After serving in the Royal Air Force during World War II, Ventris studied architecture at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London. He also pursued his passion for ancient scripts, particularly Linear B, which had puzzled scholars for decades. In 1952, Ventris made a major breakthrough, discovering that Linear B represented an early form of Greek. This revelation provided invaluable insights into the Mycenaean civilization and its influence on later Greek culture.

Ventris lived at 19 North End in Hampstead, a picturesque area in the Borough of Camden known for its intellectual and artistic residents. Sadly, his life was cut short by a car accident in 1956, at the age of just 34. Despite his untimely death, Ventris’s legacy lives on through his groundbreaking work on Linear B, which revolutionized our understanding of ancient Greek history. The blue plaque at his former residence, erected in 1990, serves as a fitting tribute to this remarkable scholar and his enduring contributions to the fields of linguistics and archaeology.