John Chadwick
Date of Birth :
21 May 1920
Place of Birth :
East Sheen
Country :
United Kingdom
Field of Expertise :
Linguistist and Classical scholar
Educational background :
After the war he was on the staff of the Oxford Classical Dictionary before beginning a Classics lectureship at Cambridge in 1952. That year he began working with Ventris on the progressive decipherment of Linear B, the two writing Documents in Mycenean Greek in 1956 following a controversial first paper three years earlier. Chadwick's philological ideas were applied to Ventris' initial theory that Linear B was an early form of Greek rather than another Mediterranean language.
Acheivements / Contributions :
After Ventris' death Chadwick became the figurehead of the Linear B work, writing the accessible popular book The Decipherment of Linear B in 1958 and revising Documents in Mycenean Greek in 1978.
He retired in 1984, by which time he had become the fourth (and last) Perceval Maitland Laurence Reader in Classics at Cambridge. He continued his scholarship until his death, being an active member of several international societies and writing numerous popular and academic articles.
Bibliography :
The Decipherment of Linear B (Canto),The Mycenaean World,The Chadwick System .
