Looking for something else, I chanced upon a postcard to Arne Furumark, available online, signed by the participants at the 1956 Mycenaean Studies conference outside of Paris, which I talk about here. Among the names are the decipherers of Linear B, John Chadwick and Michael Ventris, as well as Georges Dumézil and Émile Benveniste, and several other participants, including Leonard Palmer, who I talk about here.

Furumark was a Swedish archaeologist, with a specialism in Mycenaean Greek pottery. He would have been an obvious participant in the event, and was clearly missed by those who did attend. At the top left of the postcard, Pierre Chantraine has written “Amicales pensées du colloque mycénien qui pense à vous”. The view is of a farm in Gif-sur-Yvette (La Ferme de la Comète), near where the conference was held.

The other signatures are almost all of other participants in the photo I shared in the post about the conference. The postcard is in Furumark’s archives at the University of Uppsala, where he taught for twenty years. Michel Lejeune’s 25 September 1955 circular about the event is also available online.

References

Michel Lejeune (ed.), Études mycéniennes: Actes du Colloque international sur les textes mycéniens (Gif-sur-Yvette, 3-7 avril 1956), Paris: Centre national de la recherche scientifique, 1956.

Archives

Arne Furumarks korrespondens, Uppsala University Archives, https://www.alvin-portal.org/alvin/view.jsf?pid=alvin-record:631665

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This note is in the same style as the ‘Sunday histories‘ posts, though its minor status means I’ve posted it mid-week. 

update September 2025: Apparently the sending of a postcard is a tradition that endures at this conference, as is invoking the spirit of the Gif event, in Mycenological conference bingo. Thanks to Dimitri Nakassis for linking to this post.