Phaistos Disc

Phaistos Disc
The Phaistos Disc or Phaistos Disk is a disk of fired clay from the island of Crete, possibly from the middle or late Minoan Bronze Age (second millennium BC), bearing a text in an unknown script and language. Its purpose and its original place of manufacture remain disputed. It is now on display at the archaeological museum of Heraklion. The name is sometimes spelled Phaestos or Festos.
The disk was discovered in 1908 by the Italian archaeologist Luigi Pernier during the excavation of the Minoan palace of Phaistos. The disk is about in diameter and is covered on each side with a spiral text, consisting of a total of 241 occurrences of 45 distinct signs, which were created by pressing individual sign stamps onto the soft clay before firing. While its unique features initially led some scholars to suspect a forgery or hoax, the disk is now generally accepted as authentic by archaeologists.
This mysterious object captured the imagination of amateur and professional palaeographers, and many attempts have been made to decipher the code behind the disc's signs. While it is not clear that it is a script, most attempted decipherments assume that it is; most additionally assume a syllabary, others an alphabet or logography.
Discovery
The Phaistos Disc was discovered in the Minoan palace-site of Phaistos, near Hagia Triada, on the south coast of Crete; specifically the disc was found in the basement of room 8 in building 101 of a group of buildings to the northeast of the main palace. This grouping of four rooms also served as a formal entry into the palace complex. Italian archaeologist Luigi Pernier recovered the intact "dish" on 3 July 1908 during his excavation of the first Minoan palace.
The disc 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 content 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, in the same black layer, a few centimetres south-east of the disc and about 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 eruption of the Santorini volcano that affected large parts of the Mediterranean region during the mid-2nd millennium B.C.
Dating
Yves Duhoux (1977) dates the disc to between 1850 B.C. and 1600 B.C. (MMIII in Minoan chronology) on the basis of Luigi Pernier's report, which says that the disc was in a Middle Minoan undisturbed context. Jeppesen (1963) dates it to after 1400 (LMII–LMIII in Minoan chronology). Doubting the viability of Pernier's report, Louis Godart (1990) resigns himself to admitting that archaeologically, the disc may be dated to anywhere in Middle or Late Minoan times (MMI–LMIII, a period spanning most of the second millennium B.C.). J. Best suggests a date in the first half of the 14th century B.C. (LMIIIA) based on his dating of tablet PH-1.
Physical description
Material
The disk is made of fine-grained clay. Some authors have stated that the clay does not appear to be of local origin, perhaps not even from Crete. It was intentionally and properly fired, unlike tablets and seals that were baked only accidentally, by building fires.
Shape and dimensions
The disk is approximately cylindrical, about in diameter and almost thick, with rounded edges. More precisely, the outline is slightly egg-shaped, with the diameter varying from 15.8 to and the thickness from 1.6 to . The disk is slightly concave on side A and convex on side B.
Typographic writing
The most remarkable feature of the Phaistos disk is that the embossed signs that comprise its inscription all result from pressing separate stamps – one for each symbol – into the soft clay before firing. Thus the disk can be seen as an early example of movable-type printing. Typesetter and linguist Herbert Brekle writes:
A medieval example of a similar blind printing technique
is the Prüfening dedicatory inscription.
Popular-science author Jared Diamond describes the disc as an example of a technological innovation that did not become widespread because it was made at the wrong time in history. Diamond contrasts the process with Gutenberg's printing press.
Scribed lines
Besides the stamped symbols, there are a few markings made by scoring the moist clay with a sharp stylus. On each side there is a continuous spiral line that separates successive turns of the text. The strip between successive spires of this line is divided into sections by short radial lines, so that each section contains a few whole signs. The presumed start of the text, adjacent to the edge, is also marked by such a radial stroke, with the addition of five dots punched along it with the stylus. Finally, under some of the stamped signs, there are short oblique strokes.
The signs
Sign list and counts
There are 45 distinct signs on the disk, occurring a total of 242 times — 123 on side A and 119 on side B. In addition to these, a small diagonal line was incised with a stylus (not stamped) underneath some signs, a total of 18 times. The 45 symbols were numbered by Arthur Evans from 01 to 45, and this numbering has been adopted by most researchers.
The signs were added to the Unicode universal computer character (UCS) set in 2008, after a 2006 proposal by Michael Everson and John H. Jenkins. In the following table, the No. column is the Evans number of each sign; the Glyph column is a modern drawing of the symbol; and the Font column uses the UCS font available in the browser. The assigned Unicode names are PHAISTOS DISC SIGN followed by the names shown under Name in the table below, taken from a 1995 book by Louis Godart.
One sign occurrence on side A is too damaged to identify. According to Godart, it may be sign 03 (TATTOOED HEAD) or 20 (DOLIUM); or less probably 08 (GAUNTLET) or 44 (SMALL AXE). Theoretically, it could also be a 46th distinct sign.
The sign images below are reversed left-to-right relative to their appearance on the disk, reflecting their presentation in most Western books and articles.
Also, some signs occur in the disk in two or more orientations, rotated by 90 or 180 degrees. It is generally assumed that the rotation has no semantic or linguistic value, so the rotated copies are still the same symbol. Therefore, the "normal" orientation of those signs is not known, and might have been left to the scribe's discretion.
Nature of depicted objects
Many of signs are depictions of concrete objects with a recognizable general nature (such as humans, birds, plants, a boat), or parts thereof (heads, hides, flowers). However, in most cases the precise nature of objects depicted is still unknown (as of 2023). The sign names assigned by scholars, in particular by Godart and the Unicode consortium, were rather arbitrary, often based on the slightest shape similarity.
Symbol 21 (Godart's "COMB") was once conjectured to be a palace floorplan. However, this hypothesis was cast in doubt by the discovery of a vase with a nearly identical symbol incised on the bottom, believed to be a potter's mark.
Symbol 20 ("DOLIUM") was assumed to be the conch of a large sea snail, such as Tonna dolium or some Eudolium species. One such conch was found at Phaistos and is believed to have been used as a musical instrument for ritual uses.
Sign distribution
The distribution of symbols is highly non-random, and quite different between the two sides. Evans's symbol 02 (PLUMED HEAD) is most frequent one, occurring 19 times — 14 of them on side A. The next most frequent signs are 07 (HELMET), with 18 occurrences, mostly on side B; 12 (SHIELD), with 17, mostly on side A; and 27 (HIDE), with 15, of which 10 on side A.
Still, 26 of the 45 symbols occur on both sides, at least once on each. The most common signs that occur on only one side are 31 (EAGLE), on side A, and 22 (SLING), on side B; both with 5 occurrences each.
The following table shows how many distinct signs (Sign count) have the same number of occurrences (Frequency). The third number in each column is the product of the two numbers above, that is, the total number of occurrences (Token count) of those signs:
The nine hapaxes (symbols occurring just once) are 04 (A5), 05 (B3), 11 (A13), 15 (B8), 17 (A24), 30 (B27), 42 (B9), 43 (B4), 44 (A7). Of the eight twice-occurring symbols, four (03, 21, 28, 41) occur on side A only, three (09, 16, 20) on side B only, and only one (14) occurs on both sides.
Sign correlations
The distribution of symbol pairs too is highly non-uniform. For example, of the 17 occurrences of sign 12 (SHIELD), thirteen follow immediately sign 02 (PLUMED HEAD).
The text
Directionality
Evans, at one point, published an assertion that the disc had been written, and should be read, from the center out; because it would have been easiest to place the inscription first and then size the disc to fit the text. There is general agreement that he was wrong, and Evans himself later changed his mind: the inscription was made, and should be read, in the clockwise sense, from the outside in toward the centre, as with the similar spiral inscription on the Lead Plaque of Magliano. Yves Duhoux stated that any outward reading may be discarded.
Among the arguments that support this conclusion is the fact that the centres of the spirals are not in the centre of the disc. Also, some of the symbols near the centre are crowded, as though the maker was cramped for space. One pair of symbols is even stacked in the "vertical" (radial) direction rather than side-by-side. Furthermore, whenever symbols overlap the inner symbol overlies the outer symbol. (However, this analysis is complicated by several apparent corrections made by the scribe, where the stamping of the corrected symbols may well have been different from the reading order.) Jean Faucounau has proposed a reconstruction of the scribe's movements, which would also require an inward direction.
The outside-to-centre reading direction implies right-to-left reading of the text, which is into the faces of the people and animals — as is the case in Egyptian and Anatolian.
In spite of this widespread consensus, some authors still dispute this conclusion and attempt to decipher it under the opposite reading order (left-to-right, counterclockwise, from the center to the periphery).
Phaistos disk scholars publishing in languages with left-to-right writing systems have generally found it convenient to mirror the text so that it reads from left to right. In this case, for consistency, the individual symbols are mirrored as well. (This practice is commonly seen also in many publications about Egyptian and Anatolian hieroglyphic texts.) The Unicode character set was designed to be used in this way, thus Unicode fonts typically depict the characters flipped relative to their orientation on the disk.
Order of the two sides
Evans considered side A as the "front" side, but technical arguments have since been forwarded favouring side B as the "front" side.
The following is a single image of the text "unrolled". While the order of the characters is left-to-right reversed, the signs themselves are in the original orientation.
"Words"
The signs are laid out on each side as a single spiral text, which is split by the inscribed radial strokes into "words". Both ends of the text on each side are also assumed to be "word" boundaries. There are 61 such "words" on the Disc, with two to seven sign occurrences each: 31 on side A and 30 on side B. These "words" are conventionally numbered A1 to A31 and B1 to B30, reading from right to left (clockwise, edge-to-center). The signs are laid out right next to the disk's edge at first (13 words on A, 12 words on B) before spiralling toward the center (18 more words on each side).
There may be one additional radial stroke near the center of side A, over-stamped by the sign 03 (TATTOOED HEAD), between sign 10 (ARROW) and the central sign 38 (ROSETTE). However, most scholars ignore that possible stroke and count the last three symbols as a single "word" 10-03-38 (which happens to occur also at about the same position on the next-to-last turn).
On both sides, there is a radial line also right before the start (outermost end) of the text, with five dots punched along it using a sharp round stylus.
"Paragraphs"
The short oblique strokes that were drawn with a stylus (not stamped) below some signs are always attached to the last sign of a "word" (assuming outside-in reading direction). Their meaning is a matter of discussion. One hypothesis, supported by Evans, Duhoux, Ohlenroth and others, is that they further subdivide the text into "paragraphs". However, alternative meanings have been offered by other scholars.
Most transcriptions have 10 of those oblique strokes on side A and 8 on side B. That mark occurs at the end of the last word on side B, but not on side A; however, the end of the text on side A is generally assumed to end a "paragraph" as well. There are thus 11 and 8 "paragraphs", respectively, on sides A and B. Those 19 "paragraphs" have between one and four "words", with two exceptions: one "paragraph" on side A with nine words (A4 to A12), and one on side B with 12 words (B7 to B18).
However, oblique strokes at the end of words A7 and B8 may have been lost due to damage along the edge of disk; and the discontinuity in the placement of symbols between B12 and B13, following the end of the first turn of the text, might have served as a "paragraph" break too.
Also, close inspection of modern high-resolution photographs of the disk show that the "stroke" commonly listed under sign 19 at the end of word A24 is not really a stroke sign, but merely part of a crack that extends from the center of the disk to its edge, cutting through several signs. Excluding that occurrence, there would be only 9 oblique strokes and 10 paragraphs on side A, and words A23 to A27 would be a single five-word paragraph.
Transcriptions
The following transcriptions of the text all assume a right-to-left (clockwise, edge-to-center) reading direction on the disk, starting at the vertical (radial) line of five dots. In these transcription, however, the order of the characters has been flipped, so that they should be read left-to-right and top-to-bottom. The oblique stroke is assumed to indicate the last word of a "paragraph". A horizontal line has been added after each "paragraph" for clarity.
For consistency with most published sources, these transcriptions assume that there is an oblique stroke at the end of word A24, even though high-resolution images show it to be just a crack.
Unicode
The following is a rendering of the Phaistos Disc inscription in Unicode characters from the Phaistos code block (code points +101D0 to +101FC). The radial strokes are denoted by the ASCII character "|" (+7C), and the oblique subscripted stroke by the comma-like PHAISTOS DISK COMBINING OBLIQUE STROKE (+101FD) after the affected symbol. The radial stroke with five dots, that indicates the presumed start of text, is denoted by the ISO Latin 1 character "¦" (+A6). The boxed question mark "⍰" (+2370) denotes the illegible sign in word A8. The appearance of the signs will depend on the font used by the browser, but normally they should all be left-to-right flipped relative to their appearance on the disk.
Side A:
¦ 𐇑𐇛𐇜𐇐𐇡𐇽
| 𐇧𐇷𐇛 | 𐇬𐇼𐇖𐇽
| 𐇬𐇬𐇱 | 𐇑𐇛𐇓𐇷𐇰 | 𐇪𐇼𐇖𐇛 | 𐇪𐇻𐇗 | 𐇑𐇛𐇕𐇡⍰ | 𐇮𐇩𐇲 | 𐇑𐇛𐇸𐇢𐇲 | 𐇐𐇸𐇷𐇖 | 𐇑𐇛𐇯𐇦𐇵𐇽
| 𐇶𐇚 | 𐇑𐇪𐇨𐇙𐇦𐇡 | 𐇫𐇐𐇽
| 𐇑𐇛𐇮𐇩𐇽
| 𐇑𐇛𐇪𐇪𐇲𐇴𐇤 | 𐇰𐇦 | 𐇑𐇛𐇮𐇩𐇽
| 𐇑𐇪𐇨𐇙𐇦𐇡 | 𐇫𐇐𐇽
| 𐇑𐇛𐇮𐇩𐇽
| 𐇑𐇛𐇪𐇝𐇯𐇡𐇪 | 𐇕𐇡𐇠𐇢𐇽
| 𐇮𐇩𐇛 | 𐇑𐇛𐇜𐇐 | 𐇦𐇢𐇲𐇽
| 𐇙𐇒𐇵 | 𐇑𐇛𐇪𐇪𐇲𐇴𐇤 | 𐇜𐇐 | 𐇙𐇒𐇵
Side B
¦ 𐇑𐇛𐇥𐇷𐇖 | 𐇪𐇼𐇖𐇲 | 𐇑𐇴𐇦𐇔𐇽
| 𐇥𐇨𐇪 | 𐇰𐇧𐇣𐇛 | 𐇟𐇦𐇡𐇺𐇽
| 𐇜𐇐𐇶𐇰 | 𐇞𐇖𐇜𐇐𐇡 | 𐇥𐇴𐇹𐇨 | 𐇖𐇧𐇷𐇲 | 𐇑𐇩𐇳𐇷 | 𐇪𐇨𐇵𐇐 | 𐇬𐇧𐇧𐇣𐇲 | 𐇟𐇝𐇡 | 𐇬𐇰𐇐 | 𐇕𐇲𐇯𐇶𐇰 | 𐇑𐇘𐇪𐇐 | 𐇬𐇳𐇖𐇗𐇽
| 𐇬𐇗𐇜 | 𐇬𐇼𐇖𐇽
| 𐇥𐇬𐇳𐇖𐇗𐇽
| 𐇪𐇱𐇦𐇨 | 𐇖𐇡𐇲 | 𐇖𐇼𐇖𐇽
| 𐇖𐇦𐇡𐇧 | 𐇥𐇬𐇳𐇖𐇗𐇽
| 𐇘𐇭𐇶𐇡𐇖 | 𐇑𐇕𐇲𐇦𐇖 | 𐇬𐇱𐇦𐇨 | 𐇼𐇖𐇽
Pictorial
The following transcription uses modern drawings of the signs, which are left-to-right reversed with respect to their appearance on the disk. The labels A1-A31 and B1-B30 are the traditional word numbers.
Side A:
Side B:
Numerical
The following transcription uses the Evans numbers for the signs. The vertical bar characters "¦" and "|" represent the start-of-text and word-separating radial lines, respectively. The slash "/" denotes the oblique stroke under the preceding sign. The caret "^" indicates the transition from the first turn of the text (along the disk's edge) to the inner turns, and "??" is the unreadable sign.
Side A:
¦ 02 12 13 01 18/
| 24 40 12 | 29 45 07/
| 29 29 34 | 02 12 04 40 33 | 27 45 07 12 | 27 44 08 | 02 12 06 18 ?? | 31 26 35 | 02 12 41 19 35 | 01 41 40 07 | 02 12 32 23 38/
| 39 11 | ^ 02 27 25 10 23 18 | 28 01/
| 02 12 31 26/
| 02 12 27 27 35 37 21 | 33 23 | 02 12 31 26/
| 02 27 25 10 23 18 | 28 01/
| 02 12 31 26/
| 02 12 27 14 32 18 27 | 06 18 17 19/
| 31 26 12 | 02 12 13 01 | 23 19 35/
| 10 03 38 | 02 12 27 27 35 37 21 | 13 01 | 10 03 38
Side B
¦ 02 12 22 40 07 | 27 45 07 35 | 02 37 23 05/
| 22 25 27 | 33 24 20 12 | 16 23 18 43/
| 13 01 39 33 | 15 07 13 01 18 | 22 37 42 25 | 07 24 40 35 | 02 26 36 40 | 27 25 38 01 | 29 ^ 24 24 20 35 | 16 14 18 | 29 33 01 | 06 35 32 39 33 | 02 09 27 01 | 29 36 07 08/
| 29 08 13 | 29 45 07/
| 22 29 36 07 08/
| 27 34 23 25 | 07 18 35 | 07 45 07/
| 07 23 18 24 | 22 29 36 07 08/
| 09 30 39 18 07 | 02 06 35 23 07 | 29 34 23 25 | 45 07/
Word list
The following table shows the distinct "words" of the text, their frequencies, and their locations. (The oblique "paragraph separator" strokes are not considered part of the words.)
The up/down arrow buttons on the first column can be used to sort the "words" lexicographically based on the Evans sign numbering — so that all the "words" that start with the same symbols are listed together.
The arrow buttons on the third column can be used to sort the "words" by back-to-front lexicographic order, in which the signs of each word are reversed; so that all the "words" with same ending are listed together. Column 4 still shows each "word" in the presumed reading order, only right-justified to make the common endings more evident.
Word-related sign statistics
The distribution of the word-initial symbols is quite non-uniform. In particular, the most common word-initial symbol, 02 PLUMED HEAD, occurs only in that position, and begins 19 of the 61 words. On 13 of its 19 occurrences, it is followed by 12 SHIELD (which however also occurs a few times at the end of words). The next most common word-initial signs are 29 CAT with seven occurrences in that position, 27 HIDE with five, 07 HELMET with four, and 22 SLING with three.
The distribution of word-final signs is also quite non-uniform and quite distinct from that of word-initial signs. The most common word-ending symbols are 07 HELMET, with eight occurrences; 01 PEDESTRIAN, with seven; 35 PLANE TREE with seven; 18 BOOMERANG with five; and then 08 GAUNTLET, 25 SHIP, 26 HORN, and 33 TUNNY, each with three occurrences each.
Repeated words
Six entire words occur twice each:
The three-word sequence "| 02 27 25 10 23 18 | 28 01/ | 02 12 31 26/ |" occurs twice, as words A14-16 and A20-22. Its last word "| 02 12 31 26/ |" recurs for a third time as word A19. Four more words occur twice each, "| 02 12 27 27 35 37 21 |" (A17, A29), "| 10 03 38 |" (A28, A31), "| 22 29 36 07 08/ |" (B21, B26), and "| 29 45 07/ |" (A3, B20).
Corrections
The disc shows signs of corrections having been made, with some signs erased and over-printed by other signs.
Godart describes these corrections as occurring in the following words: A1 (signs 02-12-13-01), A4 (29-29-34) together with A5 (02-12-04), A8 (12), A10 (02-41-19?-35), A12 (12), A16 (12-31-26?), A17 (second 27?), A29 (second 27?), B1 (12-22), B3 (37?), B4 (22-25 imprinted over the same), B10 (07?-24?-40?), B13 (beside 29?). Question marks indicate uncertainty about that particular sign being the result of a correction.
The borders of word B28 were also widened to make room for sign 02.
Sign rotations
The two signs 27 (HIDE) in word A29 are rotated 180 degrees compared with all other occurrences of this sign: "head down" versus "head up". This rotation might be motivated by lack of space in A29.
The rotations of the signs 29 (CAT) and 31 (EAGLE) have no lack of space. Defining the sign 29 in words B19, B20 and B21 as "head to the right", this presents as: head down in B29; head to the left in A3 and B15; head up in B18 and B26; head in between up and left in B13; head in between right and down in A4 (twice). The direction of the head of sign 31 is as follows: to the right in A16, up in A9 and A25, and to the left in A22.
The sign 02 (PLUMED HEAD) in word A29 is 90 degrees rotated to the right compared with all other occurrences of this sign. This might well be due to lack of space; the word is crowded and messy, with the sign 12 (SHIELD) pushed aside.
The two occurrences of sign 28 (BULLS LEG) are not rotated compared with each other. Rather, the way this sign is shown in the literature (including Unicode), with the foot down, is rotated compared with the sign on the disc, with the foot up.
Arie Cate observed that if signs rotations were random with uniform distribution, then the probability that they end up in only two (or three) signs is very small.
Signs in adjacent windings
There are several locations on side A where two occurrences of the same sign lie near each other in adjacent turns of the spiral, such as sign 02 (PLUMED HEAD) in word A1 and in word A14. Also the two 27 signs (HIDE) signs in word A29 are upside down, with the "heads" pointing to the HIDE sign of word A23, in the adjacent turn. Arie Cate claims that the probability of these alignments being coincidental is rather small.
Decipherment attempts
A great deal of speculation developed around the disc during the 20th century, particularly capturing the imagination of amateur archeologists. Many attempts have been made to decipher the code behind the disc's signs, with a wide variety of theories having been suggested, including prayers, a narrative or an adventure story, a "psalterion", a call to arms, a board game, and a geometric theorem; some of these theories are considered to be pseudoarchaeology, with little realistic chance of being accurate.
Most linguistic interpretations assume a syllabary, based on the proportion of 45 symbols in a text of 241 tokens typical for that type of script; some assume a syllabary with interspersed logographic symbols, a property of every known syllabary of the Ancient Near East (Linear B as well as cuneiform and hieroglyphic writing). There are, however, also alphabetic and purely logographical interpretations.
While enthusiasts still believe the mystery can be solved, scholarly attempts at decipherment are thought to be unlikely to succeed unless more examples of the signs turn up elsewhere, as it is generally thought that there is not enough context available for meaningful analysis. Any decipherment without external confirmation, such as successful comparison to other inscriptions, is unlikely to be accepted as conclusive.
Origin of the artifact
For the first few decades after its discovery most scholars argued strongly against the local origin of the artifact. Evans wrote that:
Gustave Glotz claimed that the clay was not from Crete. Ipsen concluded that the disc was certainly from somewhere on the Aegean; however, because of its differences from Linear A or B, he, like Evans, supported a non-Cretan origin for the Disc. He observes, however, that since Linear A was a common Aegean script such an assumption will not resolve the problem of multiplicity.
However, the consensus on this question changed in later decades, as a few other artifacts were found on Crete with significant resemblances to the disk. For instance, a vase found at Knossos (Vase 14 236) bears a stamped sign identical to the disk's 25 SHIELD sign (a circle with seven dots). Also, under the bottom of a bowl found in 1965 at Phaistos (bowl F 4718 from the House South of the Ramp) there is a sign in relief, believed to be a potter's mark, that is basically identical to sign 21 (COMB). A very similar sign is found as an impression on a sealing from a deposit of administrative documents discovered in 1955, beneath Room 25 of the Second Palace of Phaistos (sealing CMS II.5, n. 246). Female images with pendulous breasts have also been found at Malia and Phaistos. And the Arkalochori Axe bears a short inscription that uses several signs similar to those of the disk.
These and other finds have made Cretan origin more popular. This view was expressed by Michael Trauth in 1990, Duhoux in 2000, Andrew Robinson in 2008.
Possible hoax?
The uniqueness of the script, of the spiral arrangement, and of the method of writing (individual glyph stamps) have led some scholars to raise the possibility that the Phaistos disc is a 1908 forgery or hoax. It was pointed out that the date of manufacture has never been established by thermoluminescence dating.
However, the Disc is now generally accepted as authentic by archaeologists. Andrew Robinson concurs that thermoluminescence dating would be highly desirable, but does not endorse the forgery arguments.
The precise excavation records maintained by Luigi Pernier have always been a problem for the hoax hypothesis. That hypothesis was eventually put to rest by the discovery of the other artifacts in Crete with similar glyphs, which a 1909 hoaxer would not have known about. Also, a gold signet ring from Knossos (the Mavro Spilio ring), found in 1926, contains a Linear A inscription laid out in a spiral, similar to the Phaistos Disc.
Comparison with other scripts
While the Phaistos disk writing system is, on the whole, very different from other known scripts, several scholars have argued against it being an entirely independent invention. Gunther Ipsen argued that the creator must have been influenced by other scripts, and points out the Hieroglyphic Luwian script from Anatolia as an example of an original script inspired by other writing systems (its symbol values inspired by cuneiform, its shapes by Egyptian hieroglyphs).
Several scholars have proposed that the Phaistos signs are older or alternate forms of Linear A glyphs, specifically. Others have pointed to similar resemblances with the Anatolian (Luwian) hieroglyphs, or with Egyptian hieroglyphs. More remote possibilities are the Phoenician abjad or the Byblos syllabary.
Linear A
Comparison of the disk's signs with those of Linear A inscriptions go back to Evans in 1909. In1959, Benjamin Schwartz asserted a genetic relationship between the Phaistos Disc script and the Cretan linear scripts. Similar claims were made also by Werner Nahm in 1975, Torsten Timm in 2004, and others.
Some of these proposals point to simiarities between some glyphs, such as 12 (SHIELD), 43 (STRAINER), and 31 (EAGLE) to both Linear A and Linear B characters, and conjecture that they may have the same phonetic values — respectively 'qe', 'ta', and 'ku'. Based on the Linear A character distribution patterns collected by Giulio Facchetti, Torsten Timm goes as far as identifying 20 of the 45 characters with Linear A/B signs.
Anatolian hieroglyphs
Parallels between the Phaistos disk script and Anatolian hieroglyphs were proposed, among others, by S. Davis in 1961 and Jan Best and Fred Woudhuizen in 1988 In 2004, Winfried Achterberg and others proposed an extensive mapping to Anatolian hieroglyphs, which led them to a full decipherment claim.
Summary table
The following table summarizes the proposed identifications of Phaistos signs with Linear A/B, the Arkalochori Axe glyphs, and Luwian hieroglyphs:
List of decipherment claims
Decipherment claims can be categorized into linguistic decipherments, identifying the language of the inscription, and non-linguistic decipherments. A purely logographical reading is not linguistic in the strict sense: while it may reveal the meaning of the inscription, it will not allow for the identification of the underlying language.
Linguistic
Unless said otherwise, the attempts below assumed the right-to-left (clockwise, edge-to-center) reading direction, starting with side A.
George Hempl, 1911: interpretation as Ionic Greek, syllabic writing.
Florence Stawell, 1911: interpretation as Homeric Greek, syllabic writing); B-side first.
Albert Cuny, 1914: interpretation as an ancient Egyptian document, syllabic-logographic writing.
Benjamin Schwartz, 1959: interpretation as Mycenean Greek, syllabic writing, comparison to Linear B.
Jean Faucounau, 1975: interpretation as "proto-Ionic" Greek, syllabic writing.
Vladimir I. Georgiev, 1976: interpretation as Hittite language, syllabic writing; reading outward.
Steven R. Fischer, 1988: interpretation as a Greek dialect, syllabic writing.
Kjell Aartun, 1992: interpretation as a Semitic language, syllabic writing; reading outward.
Derk Ohlenroth, 1996: interpretation as a Greek dialect, alphabetic writing; reading outward; numerous homophonic signs.
Adam Martin, 2000: interpretation as a Greek-Minoan bilingual text, alphabetic writing; reading outward, side A as Greek, side B as Minoan.
Achterberg et al., 2004: interpreted as Luwian.
Torsten Timm, 2005: syllabic writing, comparison to Linear A; B-side first.
Gareth Alun Owens, 2007: interpretation as Indo-European, syllabic writing, comparison to Linear A.
Non-linguistic or logographic
Paolo Ballotta, 1974: interpretation as logographic writing.
Leon Pomerance, 1976: interpretation as astronomical document.
Reiner J. van Meerten, 1977: interpretation as documentation of a gift to Minos.
Peter Aleff, 1982:interpretation as ancient gameboard.
Ole Hagen, 1988: interpretation as calendar.
Harald Haarmann, 1990: interpretation as logographic writing.
Bernd Schomburg, 1997: calendar interpretation, logograms.
Patrick Berlingame, 2010: interpretation as the mythical labyrinth.
Hermann Wenzel, 1998: astronomical interpretation.
Alan Butler, 1999: interpretation as calendar.
Friedhelm Will, 2000: interpretation as number-philosophically-document of "Atlantean" origin.
Axel Hausmann, 2002: document from Atlantis, dated to 4400 B.C., logographic reading.
Helène Whittaker, 2005: a votive miniature version of a game board similar to the Egyptian Mehen.
Wolfgang Reczko, 2009: eclipse table for Knossos, covering 4 Saros cycles of 18 years each.
Unicode
A set of 46 symbols from the Phaistos Disc, comprising Evans's 45 signs and one combining oblique stroke, have been encoded in Unicode since April 2008 (Unicode version 5.1). They are assigned to the range 101D0–101FF in Plane 1 (the Supplementary Multilingual Plane). These characters were encoded with strong left-to-right directionality, and so in code charts and text (such as elsewhere on this page) the glyphs are mirrored from the way they appear on the disc itself.
Modern use
Side A of the Phaistos Disc is used as the logo of FORTH, one of the largest research centers in Greece.
See also
Mehen (game)
Arkalochori Axe
Dispilio Tablet
Cretan hieroglyphs
Linear A
References
Further reading
General
Bennett, Emmett L. (1996) — Aegean Scripts, (in The World's Writing Systems, Peter T. Daniels and William Bright (Eds.) Oxford: University Press.
Chadwick, John. The Decipherment of Linear B, Cambridge University Press, 1958.
Faure, P. "Tourne disque", l'énigme du disque de Phaistos, Notre Histoire n°213, October 2003 (PDF 0.7 Mb).
Gaur, Albertine. 1984 — A History of Writing — Charles Scribner's Sons.
Kober, Alice. The Minoan Scripts: Facts and Theory, American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 52, No. 1 (1948), pp. 82–103.
International Phaistos Disk Conference 2008, sponsored by Minerva Magazine. abstracts
Attempted decipherments
Aartun, Kjell, 'Der Diskos von Phaistos; Die beschriftete Bronzeaxt; Die Inschrift der Taragona-tafel' in Die minoische Schrift : Sprache und Texte vol. 1, Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz (1992)
Ephron, Henry D, (1962), "Tharso and Iaon: The Phaistos Disk, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Vol. 66. (1962), pp. 1–91. JSTOR URL
Gordon, F. G. 1931. Through Basque to Minoan: transliterations and translations of the Minoan tablets. London: Oxford University Press.
Hausmann, Axel, Der Diskus von Phaistos. Ein Dokument aus Atlantis, BoD GmbH (2002), .
Thomas G. Palaima, Emmet L. Bennet, Jr., Michael G.F. Ventris, Alice E. Kober, "Cryptanalysis, Decipherment and the Phaistos Disc.", in M.-L. Nosch and H. Landenius-Enegren eds., Aegean Scripts, (Incunabula Graeca 105, Rome: 2017) vol. 2, pp. 771-788
Polygiannakis, Ο Δισκος της Φαιστού Μιλάει Ελληνικά (The Phaistos disk speaks in Greek), Georgiadis, Athens (2000).
Pomerance, Leon, The Phaistos Disk: An Interpretation of Astronomical Symbols, Paul Astroms forlag, Goteborg (1976). reviewed by D. H. Kelley in The Journal of Archeoastronomy (Vol II, number 3, Summer 1979)
External links
Exploring the Enduring Mystery of Crete’s Phaistos Disc – AtlasObscura – 2022
2nd-millennium BC inscriptions
1908 archaeological discoveries
Ancient pottery
Archaeological artifacts
Archaeological discoveries in Greece
Art discs and ovals
Cretan hieroglyphs
Heraklion Archaeological Museum
History of printing
Individual ceramics
Inscriptions in undeciphered writing systems
Inscriptions in unknown languages
Minoan archaeological artifacts