Crown Copyright/The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
If you had to guess the most indecipherable object in an exhibition about mathematics, codes, linguistics and archaeology, what would it be?
The keyboard, plugboard and rotors of the 1940s Enigma electromechanical cipher machine used by German U-boat commanders?
Or maybe it’s one of the ancient Linear B clay tablets excavated at Knossos in Crete, inscribed with recognisable numerals and part-pictographic signs such as animal heads, handled cups and chariot wheels?
No, the most mysterious mystery object at the Fitzwilliam Museum’s unprecedented pairing, Codebreakers and Groundbreakers, has no symbols.
It is a plain, slightly battered, silver teaspoon belonging…
