47 Highpoint, North Hill Highgate, LONDON, N6. 7th July, 1948. Dear Miss Kober, Here is the full scheme for the alphabetic transcription which I mentioned the other day. I think I've included all the forms that can be regarded as regular syllabic signs of Linear B - at least I hope so*- while leaving open the question of whether some recognisably dis- tinct forms are in fact variants of the same letter. I meant to include Daniel's Cypro-Minoan comparisons, but I found the only copy of AJA available to me has gone to the binders, so I've had to leave it blank for the time being. The order of signs is the same as Myres'. The syllables are made up by combining the letters a e i o u w y with the remaining consonants of the English alpha- bet, a total of 7 x 19, or 133 separate combinations. a-, e- and, i- cover Myres' AB series, o- covers Myres' signs peculiar to B. The heavy black squares identify B letters on whose A equivalent both Myres and Caratelli agree, and I suggest that in an eventual transcription for Linear A these syllables could safely be used for A as well. That leaves the syllables u- y- and w- for the signs peculiar to A. Then I suggest the ideographs might be indi- cated for the moment by their Evans numbers, thus: B74 etc, until one might compile a list of ideographs thus: X2 etc, numbered either in the order in which they appear in the published order of inscrr, or in some functional order such as that of Hrozny' s list of ideographs. The inscription Pylos No 213 would then appear something like this:- ilomif. ihizofan. agacazon ojen. ihacixik. ekohic. ihigehav. ilacon. agofif. ijod B88 8 ilabek. akohenok. ilacon. agofif. ijod B88 -- ilabek. izex-A. ilacon. agofif. ijod B88 20 ilabek. apajicatebonon. ilafijilon. ilacon. agofif. ijod B88 6 ilabek. izen. ilacon. agof. ijod B88 40 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Perhaps the transcription can only have a limited, personal application, but I think I'll send it round a little for com- ment, and perhaps it forms quite a useful table of signs and reference to other numerations. I must say I hanker slightly after seeing the normalised publication of Knossos and Pylos in such a script, rather than in Minoan forms whose identities and differences can rather more easily be twisted about a careless or unscrupulous interpreter. I'm afraid I shall be out of the country when you come over, and will be back in England in the middle of August; but I hope there may be a chance of seeing you, Yours sincerely, Michael Ventris *Perhaps _ ought to be included? In that case that could be oz and complete the series.