Sorry for not posting -in the process of moving and my normal routine is all over the place

That evening he used the hotel wi-fi to get on the net and study the plants of the area and particularly those peculiar to Santorini. He finally cut it off at about two in the morning when he couldn’t keep his eyes open any further. He hadn’t been able to reach any firm conclusions about the fauna on the island, possibly because he was so tired. As a result, he was late getting down to the conference room for the next morning’s presentations and struggled to stay awake in the early afternoon as the speakers droned on. Like most academic functions, some speakers were interesting and entertaining while others were as dry and boring as reading Titus Livius! He wondered which category his presentation had fallen into for those listening. Hopefully, more the former than the latter!

The next day was a lay day followed by one final day of presentations which included some really nice finds from the eastern end of the island. And then the conference was over. His first big international conference as a guest speaker! The next day a group of the attendees had signed on for the tourist trip to the islands and flew to Santorini, which expedition Jason joined, and he got a good look at the famous frescos. These were even more fascinating in the flesh, so to speak, and he enjoyed the tour of them as well as the small museum that housed various Minoan remains and artifacts that had been recovered from the site over the years. In many ways, the island was a lot like Pompei, with buried remains captured in situ only without the loss of life as it appeared the citizens had evacuated calmly well before the big eruption. Still, the remains were interesting and subject to a lot of studies.

He had specially requested that his trip be just to Santorini rather than spending several days touring the other islands as most of the others were going to do. So after arriving at the hotel and settling into his room, he went downstairs and asked at the desk about touring the island with a local rather than one of the tourist people the others were using on their short visit. He explained he was interested in getting an idea of what the ‘real’ Santorini was like. His newly acquired and, up until now, secret ability to communicate fluently in Greek seemed to go over well with the man behind the reception desk. The concierge put him in touch with some sort of relative who would be happy to show him around the island. The fellow even had a boat which meant they could visit the volcanic island growing in the middle of the caldera and some of the interesting rock formations around other parts of the island. It was all arranged in a few minutes and with a quick phone call.

The next morning he wandered through the business area and bought a cheap floppy hat and extra sunscreen at a convenience store as he made his way through the busy town. The skies were blue, and the water was an amazing shade of blue as well, probably from reflecting the sky, Jason thought as he headed for the business address of the man the concierge had hooked him up as a local guide. He managed to find the fellow without too much difficulty, his newfound facility with Greek making it a lot easier than it would have been otherwise! They discussed the various activities the fellow could offer and settled first on a motorized tour of some parts of the island nearby before taking to the water. The tour around the island was to be in the local’s rather beat-up Range Rover and was actually quite interesting. The fellow’s boat was docked at Vlichada on the south coast, and the boat appeared to be a relic from the War, probably the First World War by the looks of it! After a bit of fussing with the outboard motor that, fortunately, looked considerably younger than the boat, they had an interesting trip to the volcanic island and around the southern coast. The state of the boat was a worry, but it floated, and the outboard was at least modern, well, no more than twenty years old at least!

Taroniah at Bay
Barely two weeks after getting back from dealing with the Dragoth threat, Taroniah receives an unexpected visit from Princess Lorianne of Norburia. According to her, there is a God running riot in the southern Kingdoms of Ithria, and the Princess believes only Taroniah has the magical strength and capabilities to defeat it! Finding that she can’t say no to the Princess, she assembles her ships and heads south, leaving Korlah to run the businesses and look after her children, whom she has decided not to take with her. Facing a God is not something you want to do with children in tow, especially when it involves many weeks of wandering all over the countryside on horseback. When she finally gets a chance to face down the God, she finds that she may have bitten off more than she can chew!
Available at all Amazon sites.
US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FKSWDKFD
AU: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B0FKSWDKFD

Chapter 6

Thera!

Knossos was amazing. And he didn’t mind the much-derided re-construction either. At least the reconstruction gave you some idea of what the place may have looked like. It was sacrilege to say such things openly, of course, at least amongst archaeologists and academics, but he still felt it was better than just a lot of dusty ruins composed of lines of rock barely ankle high like so many Roman ruins. His address to the symposium, carefully prepared with the help of Professor Rawlins and the Head of School, Professor Jones, didn’t come out as stilted as he was afraid it would sound. He had very little experience speaking in public apart from a couple of presentations he did of parts of his first Thesis, and those had been to just a few academics and students at the university. Naturally, he was very nervous and stiff at the start, but he soon relaxed as he got into the spirit of the story, and it appeared to go over well. More importantly, there were no stuff-ups with the accompanying slides and illustrations on the big screen!

On the other hand, it was intimidating to find himself plagued by a collection of noted academics at the formal dinner after a long day of presentations by various speakers. He found it felt very strange being treated like a fellow academic by many of the senior people at the conference. Such an attitude was not universal, though, as several of those who spoke to him did so in a rather derisive manner, while others barely acknowledged his existence. Still, there were plenty of academics present who were friendly to him and genuinely interested in his now much-rehearsed story of how he made the breakthrough. At least no one seemed to doubt the story was true, which was good!

The majority of those present were Greek or people who could speak Greek. He discovered that while he understood Mycenean Greek, modern Greek was not the same as ancient Mycenean Greek. That was despite the fact that modern Greek grew out of classical Greek, which in turn was a descendant of Mycenean Greek. With people speaking modern Greek in his near vicinity, he was soon able to pick up the modern version of the language. It became easier and easier to follow what they were saying and even start replying. He had no doubt that this rapid lucidity with modern Greek was thanks to the spell Urasmian had thrown on him, which seemed to be working just fine! In fact, he became so proficient with the language that he was at some pains to hide his sudden fluency. Given his halting, obviously very limited ability with the language at the start of the day, it could raise too many questions if he was seen talking like a native by the end of the day.

Urasmian’s spell had obviously kept on working, given how his understanding of language had improved dramatically in a very short time, and he couldn’t help but spend time thinking about how great it would be if he could become a magician himself. Worry about that later, he thought to himself and went back to listening to other people’s conversations. He was surprised to discover just how many of the locals thought he had simply gotten lucky and that one of them should have been the one to make the breakthrough. This chagrin was especially obvious from one of the chaps from the University of Athens who had been on the dig. He was the most indignant about Jason making the connection between the two sets of tablets but was very careful to be polite and charming when speaking to Jason in English! Ah, the joys of academic politics. Just like congress, only not so loud!

The chance that there would be a find of two sets of tablets detailing the same things was pure serendipity, but it gave him the means to hide what he was actually doing. And more fool him, he was dropping his thesis after he had spent two and half years of struggling to come up with either positive proof or even clear dis-proof of his original thesis argument that Mycenean invaders had taken over the Minoan administration, adopting their alphabet and spreading it to the mainland cities like Mycenae only after the occupation. After close to eighty thousand words and hundreds of hours of study, he was going to start a new thesis! Sigh.

In the event, he didn’t find it hard to write about his find at all, detailing the supposed steps he followed to make the breakthrough and the implications of the closeness of the two texts. The words flowed and flowed. He compared his translations of other Linear A tablets with the attempted translations and drew up detailed charts showing how his translation always gave readable and consistent results where others didn’t. Chapters on syntax, trying very hard to show a consistent evolution rather than the magically generated jump courtesy of Urasmian.

In the next two months, he did more typing than he’d done in the previous two years, but in the end, his new thesis was done and was submitted for review. His defense of his new thesis proved to be easy as the two scholars were too enthusiastic over his breakthrough to try very hard. Then, after many corrections and several subtle changes, the thesis was finally accepted, and in due course, he was awarded his Doctorate in Minoan studies. And then the furor that filled the academic journals about his breakthrough also filled his days and even his nights, given the international nature of the discussion. Five different offers to print his thesis!

Throughout the period, he had become so focused on getting the new thesis done that he lost track of the others and where they were up to with their own studies. He found he worked best at home in isolation when doing the type, type, type thing, so didn’t see much of them anyway, and they didn’t really grasp what he was doing until the graduation ceremony. There were actually two journalists from archaeology magazines there wanting photos and interviews! Franny had gone back to France after finishing her thesis but had returned barely in time for the graduation ceremony with her parents. Even the boyfriend turned up for the ceremony. Jason’s mother came to support him, but his father was interstate and couldn’t get back, which was disappointing. But hey, life was like that.

Franny’s parents were nice, and even the boyfriend seemed bemused by the journo’s wanting a piece of Jason. Photos and notes were also taken for the University Journal that was published monthly, and he even got a small article on the local TV channel news site, although not their actual TV news. In the following weeks, he spent most of the time responding to emails and phone calls from academics worldwide. In the third week after receiving his doctorate, he received an invitation to speak at a conference on Minoan affairs at Knossos in Crete! Oh, man! And then he realized he would be only a short hop from Santorini. I wonder if that plant still grows there? He thought to himself. He considered that thought at length. Oooh!

“Right.” She said in a flat tone of voice that Jason couldn’t decide about.

He felt she was either offering contmptuous dismissal, or she was too surprised to know how to respond. She pulled up another page that presumably had the two translations by the noted scholars. She read through them quickly, comparing his as she went, and then sat back and stared into space for a moment. She turned to face him.

“You were saying the words as you translated them, weren’t you?”

Jason spluttered. He hadn’t realized it was that obvious.

“Um. Sort of. The, um, the Myceneans copied the Minoan alphabet, sort of, and it seemed to me that the sounds are sort of similar. But I think Linear A is more guttural. Very Slavic or Russian in style. Anyway, that’s neither here nor there. How did I do with the translation?”

The Professor smiled. “The same as one of them here and the other there and completely different in a couple of spots, plus you translated pretty much the whole thing, including the lines they hadn’t managed to do much with. Hmm. I need to think about this.” She glanced up at him. “You were pretty sure of your translation despite how quickly you did it. You hesitated a bit in places, but that should have taken you hours, not a few minutes. Is this tablet one you studied before?”

“No, Professor. I have never seen that one before. I, well, I have just found that the language has sunk in. Mycenean too.” He hesitated and then decided he needed to add some misdirection or something. “It’s been a bit like unraveling one of the phrase puzzles, you know, like on a TV quiz. It’s all sort of vague until you get enough consonants and vowels, and then suddenly, the whole phrase is as clear as day. I think the Mycenean language has been a bit like that for me and now the Linear A as well.” He shrugged.

“I see.” She shook her head and didn’t look like she believed him. “I am not sure what is going on, but what do you want to do?”

She’d clearly decided to leave his unexpected translation skill to another time. Jason relaxed a bit. He hadn’t realized quite how tense he had been waiting for her response to his discovery.

“I thought that I could change my thesis to a study of Linear A and that I could publish the two sets of tablets and the translation of the Linear A ones alongside the Linear B tablets and make some comparisons and also point out the Semitic influence in the Minoan language.”

She considered this for a few moments and then smiled.

“Yes. We can do that. But first, we will need to get permission from the Archaeologists on the dig, plus probably their Faculty’s head. All that could take a while.”

Jason nodded in understanding. He did have some idea of the paperwork that would be involved.

“Will you help me?”

She smiled. “Of course. That is what a supervisor is for. Right. So, this is what we had best do first….”

Two hours later, they had sent numerous emails and worked out an outline for the new thesis. Finally escaping, he staggered down to the Refectory for a badly needed cup of coffee. When he finally made it up to the study room, most of the others had their heads down in whatever they were studying and barely nodded acknowledgment of his presence. He was bursting with his news, and they all pretty much ignored him! All right. See if he cared! He would ignore them right back. He found he was now badly scattered in his head and couldn’t study properly with the thought that he could publish the first translation of Linear A! If, in fact, he could offer a complete breakthrough with the language, he would have to be careful not to be seen to know too much. The result of the spell Urasmian had thrown on him had to be explained away by more rational means!

Sorry – no post this week – been in hospital and not well – hopefully normal transmission will resume next week
Taroniah at Bay is at the editor – I was hoping we’d get it out this month but otherwise early August.
Kyron the Rescuer is being written.

Peter

He pulled up the image file of the two sets of two matching tablets. He had them organized with the Linear B tablets on the left and the Linear A ones on the right. Displayed that way, they certainly looked similar. He pointed to the two-word line. “That says one cow in Mycenean. On the right, it says one cow in Minoan. And yes, I have checked this on other tablets. Every time that word appears, it seems to mean one or single or other variations of one unit. The other appears as a multiple version on many tablets. The syntax of Linear A appears to be more Semitic than Greek, but with a Greek admixture. Sort of like comparing French and English. Anyway, every time that word appears on the Linear A tablets, it matches the Mycenean word for cows in a similar position on the matching Mycenean tablet.” He paused here to see how she would react.

Professor Rawlins studied the images on the screen and turned her head slightly to study Jason before returning her attention to the screen. “And is that all you have translated?”

Jason shook his head. “I, um, well, I got so engrossed in the whole thing I sort of translated pretty much all of them.”

She glanced up in startlement. “All ten?”

“Well, yeah. And then I did a whole lot of tablets that have been posted on the net. I could translate all of them, despite lacking the matching Mycenean tablets, which made it a lot harder, and there are still a bunch of words I can’t work out, but overall, yeah, I can translate pretty much any Linear A tablet to a fair extent.” He stood up straight and crossed his arms, waiting to be shot down.

The Professor raised her eyebrows and looked at the images on the screen.

“You have really translated both these tablets?”

“Yes, Professor. If you scroll further down the page, you will see a translation of both tablets.”

She studied his translation for a few moments before sitting back for a second, then turned to Jason.

“And you think you can translate pretty much any Linear A tablet?”

Oooh. She was going to test him. All right, in for a penny.

“Yes, Professor. Allowing for words that I have not previously met and for which the meaning cannot be derived by the context, of course. But essentially, yes.”

She leaned back, looked at him, shook her head, then turned to her computer. She called up some website and then some page and crooked her finger at him to come closer. On the screen was a tablet, yes, Linear A.

“Two different noted scholars have each published translations of this tablet. Unsurprisingly there are differences between the two. What can you see?”

Jason leaned forward, and the Professor moved aside. He looked around the desk.

“Can I borrow a piece of paper and a pen?” he asked. Professor Rawlins frowned but quickly produced a pen and then a paper pad from a drawer in her desk. Jason ran through the tablet silently, mouthing the words as he translated the tablet. There were only a few words that weren’t obvious, but he made a show of hesitating here and there and seemingly having to think about this word or that as he worked through the tablet. Finally, he finished and stood back. Professor Rawlins just looked at him for a minute.

Jason had met Chloe at several functions before and after the girl had graduated from high school, but Chloe had always seemed to regard him as some sort of local wildlife that came with her mother’s job rather than a fellow student. She shared the thin build of her mother, but whereas Professor Rawlins’s mix of button nose and high cheekbones gave her a pixy look, Chloe had indeterminate cheekbones, a beak of a nose, and large ears, presumably gifts from her father. Chloe was with her mother when Jason arrived, leaving the Professor’s office after Jason had knocked. Jason nodded to her, which she barely acknowledged, and then heard the Professor call him into her office, so he put Chloe from his thoughts and entered the room. Like nearly every Classics staff member whose office he had been in, the décor was wood shelves, a desk, a comfortable-looking chair the Professor used, and a pair of University issue chairs for visitors. He plonked himself down on one of these, resting his laptop on his lap.

“You know this is the first time you have ever asked me for a meeting. So far, I have always had to chase you for progress reports.” She smiled in a resigned sort of way. “So, what’s the problem?”

Jason shook his head. “No problem. Well, not really. I, well, I want to change my Thesis subject.”

She looked surprised. “What! This close to finishing?”

Jason shrugged. “I can still finish it if you think I should, but I have discovered something, and, well, I think it would make both a better thesis as well as being a lot more important to Classics research.” There, he had made the outrageous claim that should grab her attention.

She didn’t look impressed with his pronouncement, merely sitting back in her chair and staring at Jason for a moment, a slight frown sharpening her features, making her look more like an evil elf than a pixie.

 “You have made an important discovery?” She shook her head as he nodded. “Where and what?”

She sounded like this had better be good, or else! He flipped open his laptop and stood up.

“I think it would be easiest to show you.” He said before moving over and putting his laptop on her desk. “You know I was looking at those Linear B tablets they found and then those extra ones discovered below the first group which had been stored with a similar number of Linear A tablets?”

She nodded as she had been the one to point him in the direction of the new finds in the first place.

 “Well, they are certainly important in terms of the Mycenean invasion and occupation of Crete and the consequent end of the Minoan civilization. They appear to almost certainly date right from the period of the Mycenean takeover and the lower box, which had the two sets of tablets, clearly points to a continuation and replacement of the Minoan temple city administration by the incoming Myceneans. And if you want me to continue the Thesis as we originally planned, then that is no problem, and it will be finished much sooner than I expected due to that find. But well, look at this.”

Gizel and Karvon continue on their normal undercover galactic travels, in the process dealing with a stowaway and managing to upset the criminal Portia Cartel at the same time. Then, a friendly Imperial Security officer tracks them down to remind them that their wedding date is rapidly approaching. Oops. The Empress is most upset with Gizel’s belated return to Kimeria, yet despite terrorists and further threats from the Portia Cartel, they finally have their big day, followed by a honeymoon that could best be described as interesting!

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otherwise find it at you local Amazon site

Better late than never

By the time he broke for a late lunch, his vocabulary and understanding of the Linear A language syntax was growing exponentially. After a break with the others in the Refectory, he returned to the study room with a new idea. He started pulling scans of other Linear A tablets off the internet and set about translating them as well. Hmm. Had he really just made a massive breakthrough? Everything he translated made sense, so he had to be getting the words right, didn’t he? He sat and pondered the matter for a few minutes leaning back in his chair and staring blankly at his computer screen.

He then sent an email to Professor Rawlins asking for an appointment to discuss his thesis. He returned to his study of random Linear A tablets from the net while getting increasingly fluent in the language. Or, at least, he thought he was. He supposed he could just be getting delusional and making it all up in his head. No, this was real. He considered the matter and decided that being too free and easy with the Minoan tablets would give away too much information that he would have difficulty explaining. He couldn’t very well tell everyone about Urasmian without getting locked up in the looney bin. Yes. A careful explanation based on comparing the two groups of tablets would explain his breakthrough perfectly well. Professor Rawlins got back to him about two hours later and offered a nine-thirty appointment time the following day. He accepted, then decided to call it quits for the day and headed home. The rain had stopped, of course, now that he wasn’t in any particular hurry.

He did enjoy having his parents back home, but at the same time, he found he sort of missed having the house to himself as well. Their holiday had really been the first time they had both been away together for more than just a weekend trip somewhere since his big sister had moved out last year. He sometimes wished he could afford to live on campus, but he had decided to leave his part-time job at Burger King when he began studying for his doctorate, so his finances were limited. His parents agreed with his choice to concentrate on his doctorate and were only too happy to support him, but the lack of a decent income still limited his options and his spending money! Plus, living at home would make it awkward if he finally met a girl who was interested in him. Living at home was seen as such a lame lifestyle for a guy.

Professor Rawlins was a forty-year-old thin woman who still kept herself in shape, unlike some of her male colleagues. She’d been married twice and was now dating an aging actor she’d met when some B-grade film had been made on the University campus involving an ancient Spartan Warrior coming back to life in the Twenty-First Century. It sounded lame even before seeing some no-name actors parading around campus like they were somebodies! Even the Professor thought the script sounded pretty awful! Her eldest child was a fresher at the college but was studying Law rather than Classics. The Professor seemed equally sad and elated at her eldest offspring’s choice of studies. The professor always seemed a little disappointed her daughter was not following in her footsteps but proud of her daughter for getting into Law School.