Maurice Wildon Montague Pope (17 February 1926 – 1 August 2019) was a British linguist, specialist in Classical studies and antiquity, one of leading researchers of the Cretan script Linear A.
In 1949, became a teaching assistant at the chair of classical studies of Cape Town University, lecturer from 1952, professor from 1957.
The hero of J. M. Coetzee's 2002 book "Youth" (pp 23–24) describes the Cape Town Classics Department: "Greek and pure mathematics are in his eyes the noblest subjects one can study at a university.
From afar he reveres the lecturers in Greek, whose courses he cannot take: Anton Paap, papyrologist; Maurice Pope, translator of Sophocles; Maurits Heemstra, commentator on Heraclitus.
In the 1980s, in cooperation with Jacques Raison, he prepared and published a corpus of Minoan Linear A inscriptions.