The Phaistos Disc is one of the most enigmatic of archaeological finds. Its purpose, origins and even how it was made are hotly debated by the scientific world. In a recent statement, researchers announced that the mystery of the Phaistos Disk has been “99 percent solved”. Solving the mystery of this disk will be an important prize for scientists. But why is this disk, now housed in the Archaeological Museum of Heraklion, so important?
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The Cretans, an advanced Bronze Age civilization, enjoyed their heyday around 1700 BC. However, they entered a period of decline about 3 hundred years later. The Phaistos Disc was found in 1903 among the ruins of the Minoan Palace at Phaistos. In the basement of one of the blocks on the northeast side of the palace, archaeologists found a clay tablet and a strange object written in Linear A (an as yet undeciphered script used in Crete until 1450 BC). The Phaistos Disk has been dated to around 1650 BC.
What is the Phaistos Disk?
The mysterious disk is made of clay and measures 15.7 cm in diameter and 2 cm thick. Both sides of the disk are covered with hieroglyphic inscriptions that curve inward. It has been noticed that sometimes a symbol on the disk slightly overlaps the symbol to its right. This indicates that the maker of the disk arranged the figures towards the left side. Thus, the text continued to curve inward in the center direction.
The way the Phaistos Disk was made is quite interesting. The symbols were written by stamping hieroglyphs on wet clay with wood or ivory and then firing it at high temperatures to harden it. From this point of view, the Phaistos Disc is actually the first example of printing in the world.
A total of 242 figures, divided into 61 groups with vertical lines, are engraved on the disk. Among them are images of running men, women, children, animals, birds, insects, tools and plants. The fact that these symbols were made with stamps has led archaeologists to think that similar discs were also produced. However, no similar discs have been unearthed in archaeological research so far.
In which language was the Phaistos disk written?
Moreover, the writing on the Phaistos Disk is unique. No other example has been found anywhere else. This makes it very difficult to understand. Another difficulty in understanding the disk is that no one knows exactly how to interpret the symbols on it.
Some of the images on the Phaistos Disc are pictures of things we recognize. But interpreting them in their familiar meanings does not help us to make sense of the disk. Linguists have tried to fit the symbols of the Phaistos Disk into any known writing system. But there is even disagreement about which way they should be read.
Many linguists think that the text is a series of signs that take the place of syllables (a syllabic alphabet). Others think it is a syllabic alphabet (concept script) combined with pictorial symbols to express a concept or idea. A combination of the two would put this text in the same class as all known syllabic scripts of Greece and Ancient Egypt, including the Linear B script of the Cretans, hieroglyphics and cuneiform.
What are the Claims About the Disk?
In fact, the uniqueness of the text has fascinated rather than intimidated researchers, making it more enigmatic. Unfortunately, when the text is so different, there have been unfounded translations and interpretations. Perhaps the most preposterous of these is the claim that the disc contains a message left to future generations by creatures from outside the world or the Atlantean civilization thousands of years ago.
The disc of Phaistos was found in the storage room of an underground temple, which has led some researchers to suggest that it may have had religious significance, possibly as a sacred anthem or ritual code. Various clusters of symbols are repeated in the text. This may indicate a refrain in the text. Some researchers have also concluded that the text contains parts of a sacred song. Luigi Pernier, the Italian archaeologist who discovered the disk, also thought that it had religious ceremonial significance.
It is possible that the disk was made for a religious purpose. However, this is only one of many speculations. There are numerous theories on this subject. Among them are claims that the text on the disk is an ancient adventure story, an ancient calendar, a call to war, a legal document and a game board.
Could the Phaistos Disk be a Hoax?
Although the Phaistos Disk was found at the site of the Minoan Palace, there is no conclusive evidence that it was made in Crete. Numerous excavations in Crete over the last 100 years have failed to find a single example of this disk. Some explain this with the possibility that the disk could be a fake.
Many researchers around the world are working diligently to decipher the disk. As a result, many people claim to have decrypted the disk. One such person is Gareth Owens, the archaeologist we quoted at the beginning of this article, who has been working on this cipher for nearly 30 years. However, linguists believe that the inscription is not long enough to be interpreted clearly. To decipher the existing language, we need to find similar examples. In the meantime, it seems likely that the Phaistos Disk will remain a mystery.
