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Phaistos Disc

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The Phaistos Disc (Phaistos Disk, Phaestos Disc, Festos Disc, Greek: Δίσκος της Φαιστού) is a curious archaeological find, likely dating to the middle or late Minoan Bronze Age. Its purpose and meaning, and even its original geographical place of manufacture, remain disputed, making it one of the most famous mysteries of archaeology. This unique object is now on display at the archaeological museum of Heraklion in Crete, Greece.

image of a replica of the disk

Discovery

The Phaistos Disc was discovered in the basement of room 8 in building 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, in the same black layer, 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.

Dating

Y. Duhoux (1977) dates the disk to between 1850 and 1600 on the basis of L.Pernier's report, which says that the Disk was in a Middle Minoan undisturbed context. Jeppesen (1963) dates it to after 1400 on the basis of a wrong translation of Pernier's report (See Y.Duhoux, Le disque de Phaestos). Doubting the viability of Pernier's report, Godart (1990) resigns himself to admitting that archaeologically, the disk may be dated to anywhere in Middle or Late Minoan times. J. Best (in Achterberg et al. 2004) suggests a date in the first half of the 14th century based on his dating of tablet PH 1.

Similar objects

No object directly comparable to the Phaistos Disk has been found. There is, however, a small number of comparable symbols known from other Cretan inscriptions, known summarily as Cretan hieroglyphs. the votive double axe found by Spyridon Marinatos in the Arkalohori Cave. Then there is the altar stone of Malia. Finally, there is a seal fragment (HM 992), dated to the 18th century, bearing the "double comb" glyph (21). A spiral-shaped Linear A inscription is found on the golden ring of Mavro Spelio near Knossos (KN Zf 13). No inscription made with the same set of stamps has been found.

A very peculiar find was made in 1992 in a basement in Vladikavkaz, North Ossetia: A fragment of an apparent copy of, or draft for the Phaistos disk, with the symbols incised with a stylus rather than imprinted. It is uncertain whether this artifact is genuinely ancient, a good faith modern copy of the Phaistos disk, or a bad faith attempt at forgery. The house in the basement of which the fragment was found was built in 1880. Allegedly, the object was recognized as a fake and returned to its private owner.

The inscription

Side A (Original).
Side B (Original).

The inscription was made by pressing pre-formed hieroglyphic "seals" into the soft clay, in a clockwise sequence spiralling towards the disc's center. It was then baked at high temperature.

Glyphs

There are a total of 241 figures on the disc. Many of the 45 different glyphs represent easily identifiable every-day things. 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 45 symbols have been numbered by Arthur Evans from 01 to 45, and this numbering has become the conventional reference used by most researchers. Some symbols have been compared with Linear A characters by Nahm, Timm (2005) and others. Others scholars (J.Best, S. Davis) have pointed similar resemblances with the Luwian hieroglyphs, or with Egyptian hieroglyphs (A. Cuny).

01: "marching figure of a man", occurring 11 times.
02: "head of man with crested helmet". The most frequent symbol, the "Mohican" head in profile, occurring 19 times.
03: a bald head in profile, with "tatoo" or jewelery on the cheek, occurring twice.
04: "captive", a standing human figure with bound arms, occurring once
05: "male child", occurring once
06: "woman", occurring four times
07: "woman's breast", a bell-shaped symbol, occurring 18 times
08: "fist with cestus", occurring 5 times
09: "tiara", occurring twice
10: "arrow", ocurring four times (on side A only)
11: "bow", occurring once
12: "shield", occurring 17 times, compared with Linear B qe
13: "knotted club", occurring six times
14: "The flat tops of the two prominences in this figure as well as the slots in the base are characteristic features of manacles, the slots being for the attachment of thongs", occurring twice
15: "pickaxe", occurring once
16: "knife", occurring twice
17: "instrument for cutting leather", occurring once
18: "carpenters angle", occurring 12 times, compared with AB 37, Linear B ti
19: "kind of plane" (Y shape), occurring 3 times (on side A only), compared to Linear B sa
20: "handled vase", occurring twice
21: "double comb", occurring twice
22: "double pipe", ocurring five times (on side B only)
23: "square headed mallet", occurring 11 times, compared to AB 05 or AB 06, Linear B to or na
24: "Pagoda like building", occurring six times, compared to Linear B wa
25: "Ship", occurring seven times
26: "Horn of ox", occurring six times
27: "Hide of animal, probably an ox", occurring 15 times
28: "Ox's foot", occurring twice
29: "Head of animal of the feline genus", occurring 11 times
30: "Head of horned sheep", occurring once
31: "Flying bird", occurring five times (on side A only)
32: "Seated dove", occurring three times
33: "Fish", occurring six times
34: "insect, possibly a bee", occurring three times
35: "plant or tree sign", occurring 11 times, compared to Linear B te
36: "olive branch", occurring four times (on side B only), compared to Linear B ni (fig tree)
37: "plant with a fan-shaped flower", occurring four times
38: "Maguerite or star-anemone" (eight-petaled flower), occurring four times
39: "saffron flower" (Ψ shape), occurring four times
40: occurring six times
41: occurring twice
42: occurring once
43: "triangle with internal granulation", occurring once, compared to Linear B ta2
44: enigmatic figure, occurring once
45: representation of "water", occurring six times, compared to Linear B ra2

yielding a frequency distribution of

19-18-17-15-12-11-11-11-11-7-6-6-6-6-6-6-5-5-5-4-4-4-4-4-4-3-3-3-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1

The nine hapaxes are 04 (A.V), 05 (B.III), 11 (A.XIII), 15 (B.VIII), 17 (A.XXIV), 30 (B.XXVII), 42 (B.IX), 43 (B.VI), 44 (A.VII). 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) on both sides.

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

Evans argued 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, including Evans himself who changed his mind, that he was wrong: the inscription was made, and should be read, from outside in. As has been observed since the first efforts at decipherment, the centers of the spirals are not in the center of the disc, and some of the symbols near the center are crowded as though the maker was cramped for space; one pair of symbols are set top-to-bottom, so it is hard to tell what order they should be in. Except in the cramped section, when there are overstrikes, the inner symbol overlies the outer symbol. Yves Duhoux says that any outward reading may be discarded; despite all this, there are still a few such attempted decipherments (e.g. Massey 2003).

Inscription text

There are 61 "words", 31 on side A and 30 on side B (numbered A.I to A.XXXI and B.I to B.XXX, outside to inside; Evans numbered them from center out, with Arabic numerals), here read outside-to-inside (putting the "Mohican" glyphs word-initially and the strokes word-finally). The shortest words are two symbols in length, the longest seven symbols. The strokes are here transcribed as apastrophes ('). The transcription begins at the vertical line of four dots, circling the rim of the disk once, clockwise (13 words on A, 12 words on B) before spiralling towards the center (18 more words on each side). There is one word-final effaced sign at A.VIII, which Godart notes as resembling sign 3 or 20; or less probably 8 or 44. Evans considered side A as the front side, but technical arguments have since been forwarded favouring side B as the front side.

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'

The "Mohican" (02) only ever occurs word-initially, in 13 instances followed by the "shield" (12, which in some instances also occurs word-finally). Only one word is repeated three times, 02-12-31-26'. Six words occur twice each: 02-12-27-27-35-37-21, 02-27-25-10-23-18, 10-03-38, 22-29-36-07-08', 28-01', 29-45-07'.

Decipherment attempts

A great deal of speculation developed around the disc during the 20th century. The Phaistos Disc captured the imagination of amateur archeologists. 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. Some of the more fanciful interpretations of its meaning are classic examples of pseudoarchaeology.

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 ideographic symbols, a property of every known syllabary of the Ancient Near East (Linear B as well as cuneiform and hieroglyphic writing). There were, however, also alphabetic and purely ideographical interpretations. A purely ideographical reading is not linguistic in the strict sense, since even a successful decipherment would yield no information about the underlying language.

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 glyphs turn up somewhere, as it is generally thought that there isn't 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.

Comparison with other scripts

Regarding the origin of the signs, there is a few main line of theories. Until recently, most scholars have argued strongly against the local origin of the artifact. However, with the discoveries of some artifacts bearing highly similar signs, summarized as "Cretan hieroglyphs", hypotheses claiming Cretan origin have become more common. There are three main candidates for comparison with known scripts, all of them partly syllabic, partly ideographic: Linear A, Luwian hieroglyphs and Egyptian hieroglyphs. More remote possibilities are comparison with the Proto-Canaanite abjad or the Byblos syllabary. Some decipherment claims (e.g. Faucounau) make do entirely without direct comparison to a known script.

Linear A

Some signs are close enough to Linear A and Linear B to assign a certain phonetic value, like 12 = qe, 43 = ra2, or 31 = ku. A recent systematic comparison with Linear A is that of Torsten Timm, 2005 [1]. Based on the Linear A character distribution patterns collected by Facchetti (1999) Timm concludes that the language of the Disk inscription is the same as the language of Linear A. Timm identifies 20 of the 45 characters with Linear signs, assigning Linear B phonetic values to 16.

Luwian hieroglyphs

Achterberg et al. (2004) present a systematic comparison with Luwian hieroglyphs, resulting in a full decipherment claim (see below).In particular, they consider the stroke symbol cognate to the Luwian r(a/i) symbol, but assign it the value -ti. The stroke on A.III is identified as the personal name determinative. 01 is compared to the logogram SARU, a walking man or walking legs in Luwian. 02 is compared to word-initial a2, a head with a crown in Luwian. The "bow" 11 is identified as the logogram sol suus, the winged sun known from Luwian royal seals. The "shield" 12 is compared to the near identical Luwian logogram TURPI "bread" and assigned the value tu.

List of decipherment claims

Linguistic

Non-linguistic or ideographic

Character encoding

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.

References

  • Nahm, Werner. "Vergleich von Zeichen des Diskos von Phaistos mit Linear A". Kadmos (Vol. 14, No. 2. (1975)): 97–101. {{cite journal}}: |issue= has extra text (help)
  • Facchetti, Giulio M. "Statistical data and morphematic elements in Linear A". Kadmos (Vol. 38, No. 2. (1999)). {{cite journal}}: |issue= has extra text (help)
  • Timm, Torsten. "Der Diskos von Phaistos - Anmerkungen zur Deutung und Textstruktur". IF (Vol. 109 (2005)): 204–231. {{cite journal}}: |issue= has extra text (help)

Selected bibliography

General

  • Thomas Balistier, The Phaistos Disc - an account of its unsolved mystery, Verlag Thomas Balistier, 2000.
  • John Chadwick, The Decipherment of Linear B, Cambridge University Press, 1958.
  • Yves Duhoux, Le disque de phaestos, Leuven, 1977.
  • Y. Duhoux, How not to decipher the Phaistos Disc (PDF 5.9 Mb) , American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 104, n° 3 (2000), p. 597-600.
  • P. Faure, "Tourne disque", l'énigme du disque de Phaistos, Notre Histoire n°213, October 2003 (PDF 0.7 Mb)
  • Louis Godart, The Phaistos Disc - the enigma of an Aegean script, ITANOS Publications, 1995.

Attempted decipherments

This list contains off-line accounts of various decipherments mentioned above

  • Hempl, George. "The Solving of an Ancient Riddle: Ionic Greek before Homer". Harper's Monthly Magazine (122, no. 728 (Jan 1911)): 187–198.
  • Stawell, F. Melian. "An Interpretation of the Phaistos Disk". The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs (Vol. 19, No. 97. (Apr., 1911)): 23–29, 32–38. {{cite journal}}: |issue= has extra text (help) JSTOR URL
  • Jean Faucounau, Le déchiffrement du Disque de Phaistos & Les Proto-Ioniens : histoire d'un peuple oublié, Paris 1999 & 2001.
  • Thomas Balistier, The Phaistos Disc - an account of its unsolved mystery, Verlag Thomas Balistier, 2000 (as above); describes Aarten's and Ohlenroth's decipherments.
  • Achterberg, Winfried; Best, Jan; Enzler, Kees; Rietveld, Lia; Woudhuizen, Fred, The Phaistos Disc: A Luwian Letter to Nestor, Publications of the Henry Frankfort Foundation vol XIII , Dutch Archeological and Historical Society, Amsterdam 2004
  • Torsten Timm, Der Diskos von Phaistos – Fremdeinfluss oder kretisches Erbe?, BoD, 2005.

See also

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