Phaistos Disc
The Phaistos Disc (Phaestos Disc, Festos Disc) is a curious archeological find, most likely dating from about 1700 BC. Its purpose and meaning, and even its original geographical place of manufacture, remain unknown, making it one of the most famous mysteries of archaeology.
]
Discovery
The Phaistos Disc 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 six inches in diameter and uniformly half-an-inch thick, on July 3 1908.
Archaeological context
The context of the basement cells, which were neatly covered with a layer of fine plaster and only accessible from above, was significantly poor in precious objects and rich in black earth, ashes and burned bovine bones. Some twenty inches above the floor, and a few inches north, linear A tablet PH-1 was also found. Luigi Pernier attributed his finding to a "Temple Depository" inside the first Minoan palace where he conducted his excavation.
The site apparently collapsed during the famous ca. 1628 BC event of the Minoan world and the Mediterranean basin at large. The Phaistos disc was impressed in fresh clay with pre-formed hieroglyphic "seals" on both its sides, in a clockwise sequence spiralling towards the disc center. It was then very well cooked so that it is intact nowadays, some 3800 years afterwards.
Physical description
There are a total of around 241 figures on both sides of the Phaistos Disc, quite a few corrections and some ancillary but clearly stamped signs - in the likes of toponymical marks. No more than fifty-one different glyphs represent common "objects". These drawings include sketches of human figures, fish, birds, insects, plants, a boat, a shield, a staff, etc. As a stamped "engraving" (not an inscribed cuneiform tablet), the disc bears one of the earliest printed material known so far. This unique object is now on display at the archaeological museum of Heraklion in Crete, Greece.
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, and a geometric theorem.
Uniqueness
The uniqueness of this archeological object is contested by at least two other apparently related specimens - a votive double axe found by Spiros Marinatos in the Arkalohori Cave, Crete, and a fragment of a smaller clay disk, found at Vladikavkaz, North Ossetia. However, the first contains only superficially similar hieroglyphics, and the second, interesting as it might prove, disappeared mysteriously. So far, the Phaistos disk remains a hapax.
Selected bibliography
- Louis Godart, The Phaistos Disc - the enigma of an Aegean script, ITANOS Publications, 1995.
- Thomas Balistier, The Phaistos Disc - an account of its unsolved mystery, Verlag Thomas Balistier, 2000.
- Yves Duhoux, Le disque de phaestos, Louvain, 1977.
- John Chadwick, The Decipherment of Linear B, Cambridge University Press, 1958.
Archaeology
