[Interview] An interview with Stephen Bax

[Emma May Smith]

I don't know why there is an idea that Bax's method is similar to Ventris's. It isn't. Ventris (and Kober) constructed a series of interlocking sound values for multiple characters before guessing a single word. It was this table of sounds values which allowed the solution to be both a) self-propagating by suggesting more sound values, and b) self-checking by rejecting forced sound values. Once Ventris had made a handful of correct guesses, the rest was history.

Also, Bax's solution isn't that much like Champollion's, before anybody suggests that.