“The symbols consist of straight lines, dots, and curved lines in various combinations with each other. So far, two hundred and ten Vinca signs have been identified. About a third of them are symbols used in common throughout Europe at the time. These symbols all but disappeared during the first wave of Kurgan invasions around 4000 BCE. Writing of a different sort emerged in Sumeria at about 3000 BCE, but it was used for a very different purpose—in the service of law and bureaucracy. Devoid of spirituality, it counted property and promulgated edicts.
“Happily, the old script didn’t die out completely. Because the Kurgan infiltration of Europe didn’t extend into the middle of the Aegean Sea, the old script was carried forward to the island of Cypress where it evolved into the classical Cypriot syllabary. Likewise, it persisted in the hieroglyphics of Minoan Crete and in the Minoan Linear A script.”
The scrivener reached into a desk drawer and retrieved the replica of the stone key. He slid it across the desk until it rested next to the open page of the book. “Compare the markings on the key to what you see in the book,” he instructed.
The two women scrutinized both items carefully.
“It appears to me that one line of text on the key matches some of the characters in this book,” Faye noted.
“Either way, it’s all Greek to me.” Maddie shrugged.
Griffin sprang out of his chair and leaned over the desk. Fixing Maddie with an intense stare, he said, “You are more right than you can possibly imagine!”
He flipped over to the next page in the book.
Faye read the caption aloud. “Mycenean Linear B Syllabary.” She looked up at Griffin and smiled. “Oh, I see.”
“Well, I don’t. What’s he talking about?” asked Maddie irritably.
Griffin sat back down, still glowing with exhilaration at his discovery. “Some of the characters on the granite key are Mycenaean. The Mycenaeans were early invaders of Greece and later Crete. They were descendants of the Kurgan steppe nomads, but we think of them as proto-Greek. So, when you said, ‘It’s all Greek to’—”
“Yeah, yeah,” Maddie cut in. “Very funny. Get to the point.”
Griffin dutifully complied. “You will note that each of the five sides of the granite key contains one line of script that corresponds to Linear B characters. Above each character is a symbol, a hieroglyph.”
Faye picked up the key and turned it over in her hands. Maddie looked over her shoulder.
Griffin continued. “I believe the hieroglyphic symbols are meant to be translated into the corresponding Linear B syllables.”
“So, it’s like a substitution code?” the operations director asked. “A letter of the Greek alphabet for a hieroglyphic?”
“Not quite as simple as that,” Griffin said. “Linear B is a syllabary, actually. Each character corresponds to a consonant and a vowel together or a vowel sound alone. The Mycenaeans got the idea from the Minoan Linear A syllabary, but they had to adapt it to their own language. The Greek language and all Indo-European languages are different from what came before. They cannot conveniently use alternating consonants and vowels, so the characters had to mean something different in Linear B than they did in Linear A or the Cypriot syllabary. We still have not been able to translate Linear A because the Minoan language has been lost. Linear B, however, is another matter. Fortunately for us, it has been translated into Greek.”
“Then you can read what this line of script says?” Faye asked.
“I can read the syllables,” Griffin admitted, “but that isn’t the same as the message.”
“OK, you lost me again,” Maddie complained, rubbing her forehead tiredly.
“The key only shows which Linear B syllable corresponds to which hieroglyphic. The meaning of the message is in another location. I have a theory that the hieroglyphics are assembled in a particular order, and the key provides the Greek syllables to translate that message.”
“But that could be anywhere,” the operations director protested.
“On the contrary, it can only be one place in the world,” Griffin replied proudly.
The two women looked at one another skeptically and then back at the scrivener.
“It’s on the island of Crete,” he said simply.
“On Crete,” Maddie echoed, unconvinced. “How can you know that?”
“It’s fairly straightforward, actually. There are a few reasons why I draw that conclusion. First, Linear B was used in only two places on the planet. One was in southern Greece, primarily the Peloponnese, and the other on Crete.”
“OK, Mr. Wizard, that gives you two places to look, not one,” the operations director contradicted. “The Peloponnesian peninsula is a pretty big place.”
Griffin smiled angelically. “That’s true, but there’s one other bit of information that the granite key yielded which eliminated the Greek mainland from my search.”
Without warning, the young man flew out of his chair and whisked yet another volume from off the bookshelf to his right. He placed it in the middle of his desk and, without explanation, sat down again. He continued, “There was one line of text on the key, just here, you see?” He pointed to one of the five sides which contained three lines of markings instead of two.
Faye handed the granite key to Maddie for her to examine.
The latter looked at it briefly then turned a questioning gaze to Griffin. “Do you know what the extra line says?” she asked.
“I do,” he concurred. “The Linear B script roughly translates as the phrase ‘To find the Bones of the Mother.’”
“And what is that supposed to mean?” Maddie asked, handing the granite key back to Faye.
Wordlessly, Griffin gave her the volume he had just taken from the bookshelf. “This is a field journal written by one of our operatives on Crete over a century ago.
