The Riddle of the Labyrinth (54 page)

158
which begin that March
: The first letter between them in the AEK Papers, PASP archive is MV to AEK, March 26, 1948, MV Papers, PASP.
“I'm extremely glad to have them”
: MV to AEK, May 23, 1948, MV Papers, PASP.
William T. M. Forbes
: His first known letter is WTMF to AEK, Oct. 19, 1945, AEK Papers, PASP.
the Minoan language was a form of Polynesian
: See, e.g., WTMF to AEK, Oct. 31, 1945, AEK Papers, PASP.
“But now back to the Lepidoptera for a time”
: WTMF to AEK, May 1, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.

159
“No!” “Right!!”
: Kober's margin notes in, respectively, WTMF to AEK, Oct. 19, 1945, and April 2, 1946; AEK Papers, PASP.
“I should be very interested to hear”
: MV to AEK, March 26, 1948, MV Papers, PASP.
a belief he had first made public
: M.G.F. Ventris, “Introducing the Minoan Language,”
American Journal of Archaeology
44:4 (1940), 494–520.

160
“At the moment I'm engaged”
: MV to AEK, n.d., but demonstrably before May 23, 1948, MV Papers, PASP.
“Rivalry has no place in true scholarship”
: AEK to ELB, Feb. 12, 1949, ELB Papers, PASP.

      
“Please send me FAST”
: JFD to AEK, Dec. 3, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.

161
“I am indeed astonished”
: Franklin Edgerton to AEK, Dec. 5, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.
“Everybody tells me this job”
: AEK to JFD, Dec. 6, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.

162
Sir John Myres wanted her to help lobby
: See, e.g., AEK to JLM, Oct. 21, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.
“First Class. Ouch!”
: AEK to JFD, April 24, 1948, AEK Papers, PASP.
“Six months is ample time”
: AEK to JFD, Sept. 18, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.
Myres would outlive her
: Myres died on March 6, 1954.

163
“The basic distinction between fact and theory”
: Kober (1948b), 82.

164
Its use in archaeological decipherment dates
: Pope (1975), 163.
“was the idea of constructing such a grid”
: Ibid.; italics added.

166
“People often say”
: Ibid., 102.

167
“Let us face the facts”
: Ibid., 102–3.
a “slight setback”
: JFD to AEK, Dec. 19, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP, for quotation; AEK to JFD, Dec. 21, 1947, for its having been a special-delivery letter.
“You are no. 2”
: JFD to AEK, Dec. 19, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.

168
“Don't you think a lot of the opposition”
: AEK to JFD, Dec. 21, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.
“The fact that you are a woman”
: JFD to AEK, Dec. 24, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.
“weak, lazy, and impressionable”
: Ibid.

169
“I am not being unduly bitter”
: Ibid.
the genus professoricus
[sic]: The correct form is “genus professoricum.”

      
“I am limiting my activities”
: JFD to AEK, Feb. 14, 1948, AEK Papers, PASP.
“I have bad news”
: JFD to AEK, May 4, 1948, AEK Papers, PASP.
“Well, it was fun while it lasted”
: AEK to JFD, May 6, 1948, AEK Papers, PASP.
Penn wanted to go ahead
: JFD to AEK, June 2, 1948, AEK Papers, PASP.
she was named a research associate
: Mrs. William S. Godfrey, Penn University Museum secretary, to AEK, July 8, 1948, AEK Papers, PASP.

170
a “mutual aid society”
: AEK to JFD, July 1, 1948, AEK Papers, PASP.
“If it works as we hope”
: AEK to HAM, July 17, 1948, AEK Papers, PASP.
At the top of the guest list
: AEK to JFD, July 1, 1948, AEK Papers, PASP.
The two men had begun corresponding
: Robinson (2002), 44.

171
Even his everyday handwriting
: Postcard from MV to JLM, Jan. 19, 1954, MV Papers, PASP.
“Mr. Ventris would have no trouble”
: AEK to JLM, July 8, 1948. Quoted in Thomas G. Palaima, Elizabeth I. Pope, and F. Kent Reilly III,
Unlocking the Secrets of Ancient Writing: The Parallel Lives of Michael Ventris and Linda Schele and the Decipherment of Mycenaean and Mayan Writing
, exhibition catalogue, Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, University of Texas (Austin: Program in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory, 2000).

172
a long voyage through Greece, Cyprus, and Turkey
: JFD to AEK, Aug. 13, 1948, AEK Papers, PASP.
to scout sites for future excavations
: “J. F. Daniel 3d Dies; Archaeologist, 38,”
New York Times
, Dec. 19, 1948, 76.

      
he was due to set sail for Athens
: Ibid.
“Until it is,” she wrote
: AEK to HAM, July 17, 1948, AEK Papers, PASP.
Kober found Myres even frailer
: AEK to JFD, Aug. 9, 1948, AEK Papers, PASP.
“Lady Myres keeps him in bed”
: AEK to JFD, Aug. 24, 1948, AEK Papers, PASP.
“is in perfect chaos”
: Ibid.
“I only hope he accepts my corrections”
: Ibid.
Kober understood that Myres was living
: AEK to JS, Feb. 11, 1948, AEK Papers, PASP.

173
“I've had enough trouble”
: AEK to JFD, Aug. 4, 1948, AEK Papers, PASP.
“Two deans . . . still wish”
: JFD to AEK, Aug. 31, 1948, AEK Papers, PASP.

174
“He wants to use my classification”
: AEK to JFD, Aug. 4, 1948, AEK Papers, PASP.
“I am really very much in awe”
: AEK to JLM, Dec. 17, 1946, AEK Papers, PASP.
“still thinks . . . that there are no cases”
: AEK to JS, Oct. 3, 1948, AEK Papers, PASP.
“Somewhat against my better judgement”
: AEK to ELB, Oct. 3, 1948, ELB Papers, PASP.

175
On September 18
: AEK to JLM, Sept. 26, 1948, AEK Papers, PASP.
“I've been home almost a month now”
: AEK to JLM, Oct. 14, 1948, AEK Papers, PASP.
All this left her barely an hour a day
: AEK to ELB, Oct. 13, 1948, ELB Papers, PASP.
“Wishing you the best of luck”
: JDF to AEK, Sept. 7, 1948, AEK Papers, PASP.
On December 18, 1948
:
New York Times
, Dec. 19, 1948.

CHAPTER EIGHT: “HURRY UP AND DECIPHER THE THING!”

177
“The news came as a terrible shock”
: AEK to JLM, Dec. 26, 1948, AEK Papers, PASP.
“I did not write more about Daniel”
: AEK to JS, March 19, 1949, AEK Papers, PASP.

178
“I'm neck-deep in Sir John's manuscript”
: AEK to ELB, Nov. 22, 1948, ELB Papers, PASP; italics added.
A sample of John Myres's handwriting from 1948
: JLM to MV, March 7, 1948, MV Papers, PASP.

179
“He showed slides”
: AEK to JFD, May 15, 1942, AEK Papers, PASP.
The symbols
and
,
for instance
: ELB to AEK, April 19, 1948, ELB Papers, PASP.
appeared at Knossos but not at Pylos
: AEK postcard to ELB, May 15, 1949, ELB Papers, PASP.
“Dr. Bennett . . . is a very agreeable young man”
: AEK to JS, June 22, 1948, AEK Papers, PASP.

180
Bennett, who had done his doctoral dissertation
: Emmett L. Bennett Jr., “The Minoan Linear Script from Pylos,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 1947.
“Bennett suggested I get his dissertation”
: AEK to JFD, June 3, 1948, AEK Papers, PASP.
“There can be no doubt now”
: AEK to ELB, June 3, 1948, ELB Papers, PASP.

181
“
If
there is a possibility”
: AEK to ELB, June 7, 1948, ELB Papers, PASP.
“Happy, happy day!”
: AEK to ELB, Nov. 22, 1948, ELB Papers, PASP.
“If Bennett is willing”
: AEK to JLM, Oct. 29, 1948, AEK Papers, PASP.
“a large, well-tabled room”
: ELB to AEK, May 10, 1949, ELB Papers, PASP.

182
“the last time I did it”
: ELB to AEK, June 14, 1949, ELB Papers, PASP.
“There are a few signs that must be added”
: AEK to ELB, June 22, 1948, ELB Papers, PASP.

183
In 1949, Kober came out with a noteworthy article
: Alice E. Kober, “?‘Total' in Minoan (Linear Class B),”
Archiv Orientálni
17 (1949), 386–98.

186
“I shall probably give the problem a rest”
: MV to AEK, Feb. 22, 1949, MV Papers, PASP.
“I just finished my last set of examinations”
: AEK to ELB, June 22, 1948, ELB Papers, PASP.
“About my errors. I must apologize”
: Ibid.
“I am ashamed at the number of errors”
: AEK to JS, Feb. 21, 1949, AEK Papers, PA
“This year has been a nightmare”
: AEK to JLM, May 2, 1949, AEK Papers, PASP.
an uncompromising regimen of dieting
: E. Adelaide Hahn (1950), 443.

187
“If you have the time”
: ELB to AEK, Aug. 12, 1949, ELB Papers, PASP.
with things like packaged soup
: AEK to JLM, June 8, 1948, AEK Papers, PASP.
the nearest post office was more than a mile away
: AEK to JS, Nov. 8, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP; AEK to JLM, June 15, 1949, AEK Papers, PASP.
“because he makes so many little errors”
: AEK to JS, Nov. 19, 1948, AEK Papers, PASP. Original in German; my translation.

188
“I never know when proofs are coming”
: AEK to ELB, June 30, 1949, ELB Papers, PASP.
“School is just finishing”
: AEK to JLM, June 15, 1949, AEK Papers, PASP.

      
“Sorry that at times”
: AEK to JLM, Oct. 24, 1948, AEK Papers, PASP.
“I want to get back to my own job”
: AEK to JLM, Nov. 7, 1948, AEK Papers, PASP.

189
“What I would like to do right now”
: AEK to JLM, Nov. 10, 1948, AEK Papers, PASP.
“Now, my reason for this letter”
: AEK to JLM, Nov. 28, 1948, AEK Papers, PASP.

190
In early July 1949
: AEK to JS, AEK Papers, PASP.
On July 27, she was ordered to the hospital
: AEK to JLM Aug. 30, 1949, AEK Papers, PASP.
“I'm sorry,” she told Bennett
: Ibid.
“I managed to acquire something”
: AEK to JLM, Nov. 7, 1949, AEK Papers, PASP.

191
it was whispered among the women in the family
: Patricia Graf, personal communication.
It has also been suggested
: Hahn (1950).
In a short letter from late August
: AEK to JS, Aug. 31, 1949, AEK Papers PASP.
“It is too bad”
: AEK to JLM, Aug. 30, 1949, AEK Papers, PASP.

192
a second, six-week hospital stay
: AEK to ELB, Oct. 29, 1949, ELB Papers, PASP.
“Professor Blegen at last relented”
: AEK to HAM, Oct. 29, 1949, AEK Papers, PASP.
“I hope I am now”
: AEK to ELB, Oct. 29, 1949, ELB Papers, PASP.
By return mail
: ELB to AEK, Nov. 1, 1949, ELB Papers, PASP.
Kober was officially on sick leave
: AEK to JLM, Nov. 7, 1949, AEK Papers, PASP.
“My health is, unfortunately”
: Ibid.

      
“I haven't done anything about going to Greece”
: Ibid.

195
Brooklyn College promoted her
: Harry D. Gideonse to AEK, Jan. 19, 1950, AEK Papers, PASP.
Writing to Myres that month
: AEK to JLM, Feb. 18, 1950, AEK Papers, PASP.
In a brief, scrawled letter to Sundwall
: AEK to JS, March 4, 1950, AEK Papers, PASP.

196
That day, in a postcard to Bennett
: AEK postcard to ELB, March 4, 1950, ELB Papers, PASP.
“still busy checking”
: AEK postcard to ELB, April 4, 1950, ELB Papers, PASP.
That spring, a long article by Kober
: This is Kober (1950).
her last publication
: A bibliography of Kober's work appears in Sterling Dow, “Minoan Writing,”
American Journal of Archaeology
, 58:2 (1954), 83–84.
“In the ultimate analysis”
: Kober (1950), 293–95; italics added.

197
Kober wrote an astonishing letter to Myres
: AEK to JLM, April 17, 1950, AEK Papers, PASP.

199
On the morning of May 16, 1950
: AEK death certificate (No. 156-50 310216, New York City Department of Health); “Prof. Alice Kober of Brooklyn Staff,” obituary,
New York Times
, May 17, 1950, 29.