Phaistos

Phaistos - also Phaestos and

Phaestus - 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 miles
from the sea. It was
inhabited from about 4000
BC. A palace, dating from
the Middle Bronze Age, was
destroyed 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. The
area 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, was
discovered. Its purpose and meaning, and even its original geographical place of
manufacture, 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 PH1 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

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 have
had some of its
markings decoded.
The
mysterious
"Phaistos
disk,"
found in 1908 in a
palace
called
Phaistos on the
island of Crete,
contains symbols
on 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 Technological
Educational 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 other
epigraphical 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.

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 an
adventure 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 one
decipherment 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 the
object
depicted.
Others
functioned 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 other
apparently related specimens - a votive double axe found by Spyridon Marinatos in
the Arkalohori Cave, Crete, and a fragment of a smaller clay disk, found at
Vladikavkaz, North Ossetia. But both inscriptions were engraved, not made with

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
Token
Used 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 bald
head functions here
like the cartouches on
the Rosetta Stone that
gave Thomas Young
and
Jean-Francois
Champollion the first
clues
for
their
decipherment of the
Egyptian hieroglyphs.
Symbols or messages
from extraterrestrials
who visited Earth
thousands of years ago
- stamping their imprint
for future generations
to find as they move
through time

A Calendar System - Astronomical

Calendarium in Harmony with the
Mechanic of the Cosmos from a
geocentrical view. Side B explains on
30 fields, including 12 peripheral
fields and 5 completing-points (called
Epagomenen
by
the
ancient
Egyptians) 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 the
Cosmos. 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 on
the 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

which allow the reconstruction of its

main features and event fields. These
fields 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