John Chadwick

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John Chadwick (born May 21, 1920 in East Sheen , Richmond upon Thames , † November 24, 1998 in Royston ) was a British classical philologist , mycenaeologist and cryptologist .

Chadwick was at St Paul's School and at Corpus Christi College of Cambridge University trained. During the Second World War he took on secret service duties in the Royal Navy . In 1944 he was to Bletchley Park staggered where he Japanese learned and coded messages from representatives of the Japanese Navy in Stockholm and Berlin deciphered . After the war he returned to Cambridge, completed his studies in classical philology and was the fourth and last Perceval Maitland Laurence Reader in Classics from 1969 until his retirement in 1984 . In 1967 he became a member ( fellow ) of the British Academy .

Together with Michael Ventris, he deciphered the syllabary Linear B , an early Mycenaean Greek script, in 1952 based on preliminary work by Alice Kober and Emmett Leslie Bennett . In the further decoding of the written documents, mostly clay tablets, he was supported by his student Lydia Baumbach .

Awards

Fonts (selection)

  • with Michael Ventris: Evidence for Greek Dialect in the Mycenaean Archives . In: The Journal of Hellenic Studies 73, 1953, 84-103.
  • with Michael Ventris: Documents in Mycenaean Greek. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1956, ISBN 0-521-08558-6 ; second edition 1974.
  • with Emmett Leslie Bennett , Michael Ventris: The Knossos Tablets. A revised transliteration of all the texts in Mycenaean Greek recoverable from Evans' excavations of 1900-1904 based on independent examination. London 1956 (Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, Supplementary Papers, 2) - Review by: Leonard Robert Palmer, in: Gnomon 29, 1957, 113–117.
    • with Emmett Leslie Bennett, Michael Ventris: The Knossos Tablets. A revised transliteration of all the texts in Mycenaean Greek recoverable from Evans' excavations of 1900-1904 based on independent examination. Second edition with corrections and additions by John Chadwick with the assistance of Fred W. Householder Jr. London 1959 (Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, Supplement no. 7) - Review by: Joshua Whatmough, in: Classical Philology 57, 1962 , 244-246.
    • with John Tyrell Killen : The Knossos Tablets: A Transliteration of All the Texts in Linear B Script Found at Knossos, Crete, Based Upon a New Collation of Photographs and Originals. University of London, Institute of Classical Studies, London, 3rd edition 1964 (Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, supplement no.15).
    • with John Tyrell Killen, Jean-Pierre Olivier : The Knossos Tablets: A Transliteration. Cambridge UP, Cambridge, 4th edition 1971. - (The fifth edition was published in 1989 by John Tyrell Killen and Jean Pierre Olivier.)
  • The Decipherment of Linear B. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1958, ISBN 0-521-39830-4 (paperback); second edition 1990, excerpts online .
  • The Mycenaean World. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1976, ISBN 0-521-29037-6 .
  • (Eds., With Louis Godart , John Tyrell Killen , Jean-Pierre Olivier, Anna Sacconi , Jannis Athanasiu Sakellarakis ): Corpus of Mycenaean Inscriptions from Knossos. 4 Vols., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1987–1999, Extracts Vol. 1 online , Extracts Vol. 2 online , Bibliographical references Vol. 3 , Extracts Vol. 4 online .

literature

  • John Tyrell Killen, Anna Morpurgo Davies : John Chadwick 1920–1998. In: Proceedings of the British Academy 115, 2002, 133-165.
  • John Tyrell Killen, José L. Melena , Jean-Pierre Olivier (Eds.): Studies in Mycenaean and classical Greek presented to John Chadwick. Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, Salamanca 1987 (Minos, 20-22).

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Chadwick, John
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British classical philologist
DATE OF BIRTH May 21, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH East Sheen , Richmond upon Thames
DATE OF DEATH November 24, 1998
Place of death Royston