Hidden History: Lost Civilizations, Secret Knowledge, and Ancient Mysteries by Brian Haughton (beginner reading books for adults txt) 📕

and plants. One or two of these symbols have been identified as vaguely similar to the Cretan hieroglyphs in use during the early to mid-second millennium B.C. What is so puzzling about the artifact is why the Minoans were using a primitive pictographic language at the same time as Linear A, a much more advanced script. Perhaps the primitive nature of the script on the disc points to a much earlier date for the object than is presently accepted. However, this is not necessarily the case, as archaic forms of writing often survive into much later periods, usually in the form of sacred or religious texts, as was the case in ancient Egypt. Furthermore, the text on the Phaistos Disc is unique;

no other examples of the script stamped on it have ever been located. This uniqueness, and the fact that the text is fairly brief, makes it extremely difficult to translate even a small part of it. That the inscription was made using a set of stamps would imply that there was large-scale production of objects impressed with this script, which, for one reason or another, have not yet surfaced in archaeological investigations.

A difficulty with understanding the artifact is that no one knows exactly how the symbols on it are meant to be interpreted. Does the disc contain a hieroglyphic inscription, or are the pictograms meant to be taken at face value? Although some images on the Phaistos Disc are pictures of familiar objects, trying to understand these literally does not help with obtaining any coherent meaning from the disc. Many linguists believe the text is a series of written signs representing syllables (known as a syllabary), while others assume it is a syllabary combined with pictorial symbols used to express a concept or idea (known as ideograms). The combination of a syllabary and ideograms would make it comparable to all known syllabaries of Greece and the ancient Near East, including Minoan Linear B script, hieroglyphic writing, and cuneiform. (The latter consists of pictograms drawn on clay tablets with a pen made from a sharpened reed, and originated in ancient Sumeria in the late-fourth millennium B.C.) The Palette of Narmer is an interesting example of such texts. It was discovered in Nekhen, (modern Hierakonpolis,) the ancient pre-dynastic capital of Egypt, by English archeologist James E. Quibell, in 1894. It dates roughly to 3200 B.C. and includes some of the earliest hieroglyphic inscriptions ever discovered. The Palette of Narmer uses a combination of hieroglyphs and pictographic symbols, which are to be taken literally to mean what they depict, indicating a possible parallel with the Phaistos Disc, in the sense that it could be interpreted as containing a mixture of ancient Cretan hieroglyphs and pictographs.

The tremendous difficulty of translation without further examples of the script has not dissuaded both scholars and amateurs from attempting the task. In fact, the unique nature of the text has added to its mystique and enthralled rather than repelled investigators. The distinctiveness of the disc has, unfortunately, meant that there have been a number of highly imaginative and unsubstantiated translations and interpretations of the text. Perhaps the most extreme among them is that the object contains a message left thousands of years ago by extraterrestrial visitors, or an ancient Atlantean civilization, for future generations to discover. The question of what exactly the message contains or why it was written in such a primitive script by supposedly advanced aliens (or Atlanteans) has, of course, never been answered.

Over the last 100 years numerous attempts have been made to try and identify the language on the disc. In 1975, Jean Faucounau published a translation, maintaining that the language was a pre-Greek, syllabic writing of a culture he identifies as Proto-Ionians, a people with closer ties to ancient Troy than to Crete. According to Faucounau's decipherment, the

Phaistos Disc describes the career and funeral of a Proto-loanian king named Arion. His translation has, however, not been accepted as sound by most scholars on the subject. In 2000, Greek author Efi Polygiannakis published (in Greek) a book entitled The Disc Speaks in Greek, claiming that the inscription on the disc was written in the syllabic writing system of an ancient Greek dialect. Dr. Steven Fischer's Evidence of Hellenic Dialect in the Phaistos Disk (1988) also identifies the text as syllabic writing in a Greek dialect.

One clue to the meaning of the object is the context in which it was found. The fact that the Phaistos Disc was unearthed in an underground temple depository has persuaded some researchers of its religious significance, suggesting that the text was possibly a sacred hymn or ritual. Several image groups in the text are repeated, which would suggest a refrain, and perhaps each side of the disc represents a verse from a song, hymn, or ritual incantation. In fact, Sir Arthur Evans, excavator of Knossos (the ceremonial and political center of Minoan civilization), concluded that the disc contained part of the text of a sacred song. The original discoverer of the disc, Italian archaeologist Luigi Pernier, also believed it had ritual significance. Nevertheless, though the Phaistos Disc was found at a Minoan palace site, there is no absolute proof that it originated on Crete at all. It may have been imported from just about anywhere in the Mediterranean, or even from the Near East.

While a religious/ritual explanation is certainly a possibility, it is only one of numerous ideas so far suggested for the Phaistos Disc. Theories include: an ancient adventure story, an ancient calendar, a call to arms, a spell written in Hittite (a language used in Turkey c. 1600-1100 B.c.), a legal document, a farmer's almanac, a schedule for palace activities, and a game board. In his 1980 book The Phaistos Disc: Hieroglyphic Greek with Euclidean Dimensions, German author Andis Kaulins claims to have deciphered the mysterious script and maintained that the language of the disc was Greek, and that it contains the proof of a geometric theorem. However, Kaulins' translation has found little support among archaeologists