Michael Ventris studied architecture at the AA and served in the RAF as a navigator. A brilliant linguist, after years of painstaking study and research he introduced a new dimension to classical scholarship with the discovery in 1953 of the key to the deciphering of the Minoan Linear B Script. His work in this field has led to the understanding of much new information about ancient Greece and Mycenean civilization. Only 34 years old when he died in 1956, Michael Ventris’s achievements had earned him an OBE, an Honorary Doctorate from Uppsala University and an Honorary Research Associateship with University College London. A life-long friend of Ventris (they studied, travelled and worked together) Oliver Cox draws on much previously unpublished material to describe this extraordinary man, his theory of creative design and the analytical approach which he applied to the practice of architecture and to the decipherment. This lecture is in support of the Michael Ventris Memorial Fund, set up to promote research.