47 Highpoint,
                                                                                                                            North Hill,
                                                                                                                            Highgate,
                                                                                                                            LONDON,  N.6.

                                                                                                                            May 3, 1952.

Dear Bennett, 

                     In working with your Index to the “B” sign-groups,
I’ve been figuring out what your complete signary must be. The
enclosed piece of paper includes, as far as I can find on the
first check, all the signs which occur in the index. Some time
when you have a moment to spare, I’d be glad to hear from you
whether the list does in fact correspond to yours in order. 
                     I can’t find out whether you include Myres’ *161 in
your signary. Some of the occurrences you have corrected to other
signs, but I can’t find in the Index what your readings for
785.3, 787.2 are (Myres *161 ki ko to -). 
                     I’m not quite sure what the position is with *34 and *35.
The trouble with them seems to be that *34 and *35 at Pylos are so
alike that they may be variants, whereas *___ (*34) and *___ (*35) at Knossos
are quite dissimilar signs. But I agree that two places on the
signary should be ample to dispose of the 4 of them.
                     Don’t take too much notice of the numbers in the first
column. I was thinking about the referencing of the signs, and trying.
to get something which was quite distinct from the tablet numbers or
previous signary references (or my AB-AC ones which I’ve abandoned);
and the letters have crept in with the numbers because I feel they
make the reference easier to remember. However, I expect you have
your own reference system (consecutive numbers with some distinctive
prefix?), and I’d be glad to have it some time, so that I can
conform to it. It is a nuisance that we have to have yet another
system of numbering and ordering after the ones of Evans, Myres,
Carratelli, Hrozny etc., but yours is obviously the one that works,
and I think we should push it so strongly that the others are abandoned
and forgotten. If you can revise my draft diagram to conform to yours,
I’d like to include copies of it with some future work note. 

                                                           Yours, 

                                                                    Michael Ventris