INTRODUCTION
The Phaistos disc was discovered in l908 by the Italian archaeologist Luigi Pernier in the Minoan pre-formed hieroglyphic “seals” into a disc of soft clay, in a clockwise sequence spiraling towards the disc’s center.
The Phaistos disc captured the imagination of amateur and professional archaeologists, 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.
Attempts at decipherment are generally thought to be unlikely to succeed unless more examples of the signs are discovered, as it is generally agreed that there is not enough context available for a meaningful analysis. However more news has come to light recently with regard to the decipherment of The Phaistos Disc.
Close-up section of the Phaistos Disc.
HAS THE PHAISTOS DISC DECIPHERMENT BEEN CRACKED
The deciphering of the Phaistos Disc has puzzled specialists for over a century, however new findings describe the disc as the ” first Minoan CD- ROM ” featuring a prayer to a mother, says Gareth Owens, Erasmus coordinator at the Technological Educational Institute, speaking at the TEI of Western Macedonia on Monday, said the disc is dedicated to a “mother”
“The most stable word and value is ‘mother’, and in particular the mother goddess of the Minoan era, ” said Dr.Owens. He says there is one complex of signs found in three parts of one side of the disc spelling l -QE – KU – RJA, with l-QE meaning ‘”great lady of importance” while a key word appears to be AKKA or “pregnant mother”, according to the researcher. One side is devoted to a pregnant woman and the other to a woman giving birth.
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 north east of the main palace. This grouping of four rooms also served as a formal entry into the palace complex. Italian archaeologist Luigi Pernier recovered this remarkable intact ” dish,” about 15 cm in diameter and uniformly slightly more than one centimeter in thickness, on July 3rd 1908 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. There 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 inches south-east of the disc 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 in mid second millennium BC.
