The Riddle of the Labyrinth (53 page)

      
“The less said about teaching assignments, the better”
: AEK letter to ELB, Feb. 16, 1949, ELB Papers, PASP.
she established the Hunter chapter of Eta Sigma Phi
: AEK letter to “Professor Pearl,” March 20, 1944, AEK Papers, PASP.

111
she took her students excavating
: AEK letter to JFD, Feb. 18, 1948, AEK Papers, PASP.
“I think I'm a good teacher”
: AEK letter to JFD, Oct. 27, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.
“Dear Miss Kober”
: Fritzi Popper Green letter to AEK, June 27, 1944, AEK Papers, PASP.

112
“You know a great work”
: Brann (2005), 15.
“We may find out if Helen of Troy”
: Kober, untitled Phi Beta Kappa lecture (June 15, 1946), 16; italics added.

CHAPTER FIVE: A DELIGHTFUL PROBLEM

113
the newspapers announced the 132 recipients
: See, e.g., “Guggenheim Fund Makes 132 Awards,”
New York Times
, April 15, 1946, 16.
“one of the ‘grand old men'”
: AEK curriculum vitae (c. 1947), 6.
“Your learning is great”
: Sir D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson letter to AEK, Aug. 25, 1946, AEK Papers, PASP.
“The very notion of your problem”
: Leonard Bloomfield letter to AEK, May 25, 1944, AEK Papers, PASP.

114
“I find she is in excellent physical condition”
: Abraham L. Suchow, M.D., letter to HAM, April 8, 1946, AEK Papers, PASP.
She started work on a major review
: This would become A. E. Kober (1946).
“It seems the sheerest balderdash”
: AEK to JFD, July 20, 1946, AEK Papers, PASP.

      
“I hope he will not be too annoyed”
: AEK to JS, Oct. 13, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.
“Don't cool off too much”
: JFD letter to AEK, Nov. 9, 1946, AEK Papers, PASP.
He and Kober began corresponding in the early 1940s
: The first known letter between them is from AEK to JFD, Nov. 15, 1941, AEK Papers, PASP.

115
She had long since mastered
: AEK undergraduate transcript, Hunter College.
From 1942 to 1945, while teaching
: AEK curriculum vitae (c. 1947), AEK Papers, PASP.
“against the happy day”
: AEK letter to JLM, Dec. 14, 1946, AEK Papers, PASP.
“homesick for Athens”
: AEK to JFD, Dec. 14, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.
She did manage a vacation
: AEK letter to JFD, July 20, 1946, AEK Papers, PASP.
one of only two passing references to social life
: Ibid. In the other, in a letter to JLM, July 29, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP, AEK describes having gone to the beach with friends; both she and her mother returned with “terrific sunburns.”
a letter she wrote to Daniel mid-voyage
: AEK letter to JFD, July 20, 1946, AEK Papers, PASP.

116
she did them simultaneously
: AEK letter to JFD, Dec. 5, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.
“clearing up the background”
: AEK letter to HAM, Sept. 8, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.
“and some remnants of others”
: AEK letter to Brooklyn College president Harry D. Gideonse, Sept. 23, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.
“It's a thankless job”
: AEK letter to JFD, Oct. 27, 1946, AEK Papers, PASP.

      
“about a month of extremely intensive work”
: Ibid.
“I had never before been able to work”
: AEK letter to HAM, Dec. 12, 1946, AEK Papers, PASP.

117
The letter was to Sir John Linton Myres
: Myres was knighted in 1943.
Myres had been Evans's young assistant
: Horwitz (1981), 80.
“a disorganized legacy”
: Robinson (1995), 114.
Myres, who by the mid-1940s was elderly and ill himself
: See, e.g., AEK letter to HAM, AEK Papers, PASP, in which she describes Myres as “crippled with arthritis” and “practically house-bound.”
“Dear Professor Myers”
: AEK letter to JLM, Nov. 20, 1946, AEK Papers, PASP.

119
“If all the Minoan scripts aren't syllabic”
: AEK to JFD, Oct. 27, 1946, AEK Papers, PASP.

120
“form without meaning”
: Kober (1948a).
a series of tablets, reproduced by Evans in
The Palace of Minos: His discussion of the “chariot” tablets can be found in Evans (1935), 786–98.

122
In Latin, verbs can be inflected
: The verb paradigm and the noun paradigm that follows are adapted from Frederic M. Wheelock,
Latin: An Introductory Course Based on Ancient Authors
(New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1956), 3, 8.

123
When Evans first studied the Knossos tablets
: The first three examples are from Evans (1935), 714, the fourth from ibid., 736.

124
He decided that these sequences were inflections
: See, e.g., ibid., 714.

125
“We have here, surely”
: Ibid., 715.
“If a language has inflection, certain signs”
: Kober (1945), 143–44.

126
“It was one thing to suggest”
: Pope (1975), 159.

127
“When a syllabary is used
[
inflections
]
are bound to be obscured”
: Ibid., 143, note 1.

128
On December 13, 1946, a letter with an Oxford return address
: The letter, from JLM to AEK, is dated Nov. 27, 1946, AEK Papers, PASP; for its arriving on Dec. 13, see AEK to HAM, Dec. 13, 1946, AEK Papers, PASP; for it taking an hour before Kober dared open it, see AEK to JLM, Dec. 17, 1946, AEK Papers, PASP.
“Please let me know your plans”
: JLM to AEK, ibid.
“My fondest hopes [have] materialized”
: AEK to JLM, Dec. 17, 1946.

CHAPTER SIX: SPLITTING THE BABY

129
“In a little over a month”
: AEK to JLM, Feb. 6, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.
she was somewhat afraid to fly
: This is amply documented throughout Kober's correspondence, e.g., AEK to JLM, Jan. 30, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP; AEK to JLM, May 1, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.

130
of such poor quality that it would barely take ink
: See, e.g., AEK to JLM, July 7, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP. Palaima and Trombley (2003) also raise the issue of substandard paper.
“It was quite bearable”
: AEK to HAM, June 23, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.
84, Charing Cross Road:
Helene Hanff,
84, Charing Cross Road
(New York: Grossman, 1970).

131
when they began corresponding, in early 1947
: The first known letter between them is JS to AEK, Jan. 6, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.
“Dear Miss Kober,” Sundwall wrote
: Ibid.
“Of all the people in the world”
: AEK to JS, Jan. 28, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.

132
“coffee in the bean”
: AEK to JS, Feb. 25, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.
she mailed him an orange
: AEK to JS, Oct. 13, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.

      
“Höffentlich sind Sie nicht Teetotaler”
: AEK to JS, March 12, 1948, AEK Papers, PASP.
“Mother and I decided”
: AEK to JS, Oct. 13, 1974, AEK Papers, PASP.
Sundwall's publication of the contraband inscriptions
: Johannes Sundwall, “Minoische Rechnungsurkunden,”
Societas Scientiarum Fennica, Commentationes Humanarum Litterarum
(4:4, 1932) and
Altkretische Urkundenstudien
(Åbo: Åbo Akademi, 1936).
Now, a later book of Sundwall's
: Knossisches in Pylos: Johannes Sundwall,
Knossisches in Pylos
(Åbo: Åbo Akademi, 1940).
after searching for more than a year
: AEK to JS, Jan. 26, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.
“spent two very happy days”
: AEK to JS, Feb. 6, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.

133
“I've timed myself”
: AEK to JLM, Feb. 8, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.
when her fingers were stiff with cold
: Ibid.
“[
Myres]
mentions having a ‘severe chill'”
: AEK to JFD, Feb. 25, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.
“I'll be content to copy what I can”
: AEK to JLM, March 6, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.
On the seventh
: AEK to JLM, Feb. 6, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.
She planned to learn Ancient Egyptian
: AEK to HAM, March 8, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.

134
“Everything that's been written on Minoan”
: AEK to JLM, Feb. 8, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.
the issue that contained it
: AEK to HAM, March 3, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.
Titled “Inflection in Linear Class B”
: Alice E. Kober, “Inflection in Linear Class B: 1—Declension,”
American Journal of Archaeology
50:2 (1946), 268–76.

135
“Let us suppose, for instance”
: Ibid., 150; boldface added.

136
most Minoan words were three or four characters
: Alice E. Kober, “The Minoan Scripts: Fact and Theory,”
American Journal of Archaeology
52:1 (1948), 97.
Since many of the tablets were inventories
: Kober (1946a), 269.

137
Kober built a paradigm
: Adapted from ibid., 272.
“Kober's triplets”
: Robinson (2002), 69.
a hypothetical example from Latin
: Adapted from Kober (1946a), 275.

140
“If this interpretation is correct”
: Ibid., 276.

141
“I've been devoting all the time available”
: AEK to HAM, April 2, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.
It had taken her five years
: AEK to HAM, Jan. 27, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.

142
“I had a most delightful time”
: AEK to JFD, April 30, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.
“I can hardly realize I have seen him”
: AEK to JFD, May 6, 1948, AEK Papers, PASP.
The book was due out in early 1948
: AEK to JFD, April 30, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.
Kober left England on April 17
: AEK to JLM, Jan. 20, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.
On April 25, when the
Queen Elizabeth
docked
: AEK to JFD, April 30, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.
“I have so much to do”
: Ibid.

143
Dear Mr. Moe
: AEK to HAM, Jan. 30, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.

145
The letter from the foundation gave no reason
: HAM to AEK, March 28, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.
“I am in a way relieved”
: AEK to HAM, April 2, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.

146
Kober wrote a similar letter
: AEK to CWB, Nov. 20, 1946, AEK Papers, PASP.

      
As the story went
: A précis of the story appears, e.g., in Kober (1946c).
Blegen arrived in Pylos in April 1939
: William A. McDonald and Carol G. Thomas,
Progress into the Past: The Rediscovery of Mycenaean Civilization
, 2nd ed. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 229ff.

147
a vault in the Bank of Greece
: Carl W. Blegen, introduction to Bennett (1951), viii.

148
Kober's letter to Blegen
: AEK to CWB, Nov. 20, 1946, AEK Papers, PASP.
“The difficulties in the way of granting it”
: CWB to AEK, Dec. 9. 1946, AEK Papers, PASP.
“I am a pessimist”
: AEK to JLM, June 26, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.

149
bringing the number at her disposal
: AEK to HAM, Sept. 8, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.
manuscripts on Minoan sent in “by crack-pots”
: JFD to AEK, Sept. 3, 1946, AEK Papers, PASP.
“I rather consider myself an expert”
: AEK to JFD, Sept. 4, 1946, AEK Papers, PASP.

CHAPTER SEVEN: THE MATRIX

151
“in academic harness”
: AEK to JFD, Sept. 22, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.
“It must be quite wonderful”
: AEK to JS, June 3, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.
Daniel seized on the idea
: JFD to AEK, Sept. 11, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.

152
“Compared to you a hurricane”
: AEK to JFD, Sept. 22, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.
to be known as the Center for Minoan Linguistic Research
: JFD to AEK, June 19, 1948, AEK Papers, PASP.

      
“You are the person in this country”
: JFD to AEK, Sept. 11, 1947, AEK Papers, PAS
“I have a job which, while far from ideal”
: AEK to JFD, Sept. 18, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.
“Dangling . . . the Institute in front of my nose”
: AEK to JFD, Sept. 22, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.
“a big salary for a woman teacher,” more than $6,000
: Ibid.
“I know enough about academic salaries for women”
: Ibid.

153
By chance Roland Kent
: JFD to AEK, Sept. 19, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.
Greek phonology
: JFD to AEK, Dec. 6, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.
“Don't count on it too much”
: JFD to AEK, Sept. 19, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.
“Your latest letter . . . has me sitting here”
: AEK to JFD, Dec. 8, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.

154
from 1938, “as might be expected”
: AEK to Mary Swindler, Oct. 10, 1945, AEK Papers, PASP.
she had to enlist the aid of the Czech Consulate
: AEK to JFD, July 20, 1946, AEK Papers, PASP.

155
“Everybody is interested in the Minoan script”
: JFD to AEK, Sept. 7, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.
“One of the remarkable things”
: AEK to JFD, Sept. 8, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.
“About the article”
: AEK to JFD, Sept. 22, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.
hard at work on the fourth draft
: AEK to JFD, Oct. 8, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.

156
“the sixth draft (durn it!)”
: AEK to JFD, Oct. 18, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.
a “slight discovery”
: AEK to JFD, Dec. 14, 1947, AEK Papers, PASP.

      
historians have attributeda it to Ventris
: Michael Ventris, Work Note 1 (Jan. 28, 1951). In Michael Ventris,
Work Notes on Minoan Language Research and Other Unedited Papers
, edited by Anna Sacconi (Rome: Edizioni dell'Ateneo, 1988), 143.

157 Senatus Populus
que
Romanus: This example also appears in Robinson (2002), 88.
She made the discovery on December 14
: In her letter to Daniel, Dec. 14, 1947, Kober writes of having made her discovery “to-day.”
“Too bad I didn't discover it”
: Ibid.