The Phaistos Disc

8/18/2019 The Phaistos Disc

1/7

Phaistos


2/7

Phaistos - also Phaestos andPhaestus - was an ancient

city on the island of Crete.

Map of Minoan

CretePhaistos was located in

the south-central portion of

the island, about 3 1/2 milesfrom the sea. It was

inhabited from about 4000

BC. A palace, dating from

the Middle Bronze Age, wasdestroyed by an earthquake

during the Late Bronze Age. Knossos and other Minoan sites were also destroyed at

that time. The palace was later rebuilt toward the end of the Late Bronze Age. Thearea upon which Phaistos stood was the site where, in 1908, a curious clay disk,

dating to about 1700 BC, and containing a sophisticated pictographic writing, wasdiscovered. Its purpose and meaning, and even its original geographical place ofmanufacture, remain disputed.

The Phaistos Disk was discovered in the basement of room XL-101 of the Minoan

palace-site of Phaistos, near Hagia Triada, on the south coast of Crete. Italian

archaeologist Luigi Pernier recovered this remarkably intact "dish", about 15 cm in

diameter and uniformly just over 1 cm thick, on July 3, 1908.

Luigi Pernier discovered the disc during his excavation of the first Minoan palace.

It was found in the main cell of an underground "temple depository". These basement cells, only accessible from above, were neatly covered with a layer of fine

plaster. Their context was poor in precious artifacts but rich in black earth and ashes,

mixed with burnt bovine bones. In the northern part of the main cell, a few inches

south-east of the disk, and about twenty inches above the floor, linear A tablet PH-1 was also found. The site apparently collapsed as a result of an earthquake, possibly

linked with the explosive eruption of the Santorini volcano that affected large parts

of the Mediterranean region ca. 1628 BC.

Physical Description

The inscription was made by pressing pre-formed hieroglyphic "seals" into the soft

clay, in a clockwise sequence spiraling towards the disc's center. It was then baked

at high temperature. There are a total of 241 figures on the disc. Many of the 45

different glyphs represent easily identifiable every-day things, including human

figures, fish, birds, insects, plants, a boat, a shield, a staff, etc. In addition to these,there is a small diagonal line that occurs underneath the final sign in a group a total

of 18 times. The disk shows traces of corrections made by the scribe in several

places.

The Text

Although there is no official Unicode encoding for the symbols on the disk, the

ConScript Unicode Registry has assigned a block of the Unicode Private Use Area


3/7

to be used for the script. Two fonts include support for this area; Code2000 and

Everson Mono Phaistos. The text on the disk is given on the second of these links;

you can read that text if you have either of them installed.

A fired-clay disk

from the Second

Millenium B.C.

may finally havehad some of its

markings decoded.The mysterious

"Phaistos disk,"

found in 1908 in a

palace calledPhaistos on the

island of Crete,

contains symbolson both sides, in a

spiral

configuration

meant to be read

from the outside

toward the center.It is estimated to

date from about

1,700 B.C. For better than a century, scientists have been trying to decode the

meaning behind the symbols, and now Dr. Gareth Owens, of the TechnologicalEducational Institute of Crete, says he has figured out some of its keywords and the

general message it conveys. Using specific groups of symbols Owens says one side

of the disk contains the translated wording "great lady of importance" while the other

uses the expression "pregnant mother." One side, Owens says, is dedicated to a

pregnant woman and the other to a woman giving birth.

The Strokes

There are a number of glyphs marked with an oblique stroke, the strokes are not

imprinted but carved by hand and are attached to the first or last sign of a "word",depending on the direction of reading chosen. Their meaning is a matter of

discussion. One hypothesis, supported by Evans, Duhoux, Ohlenroth and others, is

that they were used to subdivide the text into paragraphs, but alternative meanings

have been offered by other scholars.

Direction of Reading

From the diverse epigraphical facts (overcuts, angulous points of the spirals,

corrections, etc.), it can be shown that the text has been written from the exterior to

the center. The fact that most of the corrections were done on the spot, and otherepigraphical facts, are showing that the scribe was "composing" his text in

proportion as he was printing it. There is therefore no way to dissociate the direction

of printing from the direction of reading.


4/7

Prior Attempted Decipherment

A great deal of speculation developed around the disc during the 20th century. The

Phaistos Disc captured the imagination of amateur archeologists. Alas, some of the

more fanciful interpretations of its meaning are living classics of

pseudoarchaeology.

Many attempts have been made to decipher the code behind the disc's glyphs.Historically, almost anything has been proposed, including prayers, a narrative or anadventure story, a "psalterion", a call to arms, a board game, and a geometric

theorem. While many enthusiasts still believe the mystery can be solved, scholarly

attempts at decipherment are thought to be unlikely to succeed unless more examples

of the glyphs turn up somewhere, as it is generally thought that there isn't enough

context available for meaningful analysis.

This general opinion is nevertheless disputed by several scholars on the basis of the

work of the mathematician Claude Shannon. Shannon theory about the Unicity

distance states that, in theory, the text's length is sufficient for reaching only onedecipherment that makes sense. The problem is, however, that once there are reasons

to think that a valid solution has been found, it is necessary to verify this solution by

all means possible (generally by deciphering another text written in the same script),to be sure about it. Unfortunately until today no second disc was found, what makes

the verification difficult? Some of the symbols were pictographs which means they

represented theobject

depicted.

Othersfunctioned as

ideograms in

which the picture of, say,

a boat, no

longer means"boat" but

expresses an

idea like

"travel".However, such

associations of

the object with its main qualities, uses, or features were usually direct, quite obvious,

and widely recognized. Pictographs and ideograms are also usually much easier to

understand intuitively than the syllabic and/or phonetic systems of writing which

evolve from them as a means of expressing more abstract ideas in a particular

language.

The uniqueness of this archaeological object is contested by at least two otherapparently related specimens - a votive double axe found by Spyridon Marinatos in

the Arkalohori Cave, Crete, and a fragment of a smaller clay disk, found atVladikavkaz, North Ossetia. But both inscriptions were engraved, not made with


5/7

stamps. Moreover, the first contains only superficially similar hieroglyphics, and the

second, interesting as it might prove, disappeared mysteriously. So far, the Phaistos

Disc remains a hapax.

This unique object is now on display at the archaeological museum of Heraklion in

Crete, Greece.

Reference: Thomas Balistier The Phaistos Disc - An Account of its Unsolved Mystery

Theories About the Phaistos Disk

TokenUsed in healing rituals or other ceremonies in ancient times

Legal document

Farmer's almanac

Schedule for palace activities as well as a site plan description for the palace of

Phaistos

Story of the journey of humanity

The repeated

combination of the

Rosette with the baldhead functions here

like the cartouches on

the Rosetta Stone thatgave Thomas Young

and Jean-Francois

Champollion the first

clues for their

decipherment of the

Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Symbols or messagesfrom extraterrestrials

who visited Earththousands of years ago- stamping their imprint

for future generations

to find as they move

through time


6/7

A Calendar System - AstronomicalCalendarium in Harmony with the

Mechanic of the Cosmos from a

geocentrical view. Side B explains on30 fields, including 12 peripheral

fields and 5 completing-points (called

Epagomenen by the ancientEgyptians) a year divided into 12

month x 30 days +5 days = 365 days.

The 'Invisible Hand' of God directed

the Sun-Path and the mechanic of theCosmos. A 'Great Goddess' and a

'Highest Goddess' are connected with

this Calender-Calculation of the

mankind and the position of the

sacrifice days. The relevant 'Great

Year' shown on the Disk was July -2776 to July -1321. This is the

beginning of the Time Calculation

Method (Fish with two legs).

Crossword Puzzle or Game Board -

There are those who feel the signs onthe disc's fields were the markings for the fields of a board game which illustrated

along its track the journeys of the sun god and the moon goddess, both in

astronomical and mythological terms. That game had close parallels in ancient Egypt


7/7

which allow the reconstruction of its

main features and event fields. Thesefields coincide with many virtually

identical fields in the still popular

"Game of the Goose" and are often still

in the same locations along the track of

this "modern" game as on its direct predecessor from at least three dozen centuries

ago.

Portal or Stargate

Documents

The Phaistos Disc