Background

One of the most puzzling archaeological findings without doubt is the Phaistos Disc. It was discovered in 1908 by archaeologist and academic Luigi Pernier, in the basement room 8, building 101, of the Minoan palace of Phaistos, in the south of Crete. This building was a member of a group on the North-East side of the main palace. The group's four rooms constituted the official entry to the palace. The Italian archaeologist Pernier recovered this remarkably intact disc on July 3 1908. The disc is made of clay and its diameter varies between 16.5 and 15.8 cm, while its thickness is between 1.6 and 2.1 cm. On the two sides of the disc we find 46 different symbols, many of which represent easily recognizable objects, such as human forms, fish, birds, insects, plants, etc. In total there are 242 symbols, 123 in first side and 119 in the second, positioned in a spiral. The symbols are arranged in groups with the use of small lines that are directed toward the center of the disc.

 

The disc has stimulated the imagination of many archaeologists, linguists, and even amateurs researchers, so numerous attempts have surfaced that try to decode it. A great deal of interpretations have been proposed in regards to its content, that for instance it is a prayer, or that it narrates a story, that it encodes a geometric theorem or a calendar etc.. Despite these attempts, the scientific community has not accepted any of the proposed decipherings and the disc remains an unsolved mystery. My deciphering attempt is primarily based on the book "The Phaistos disk, Guide to deciphering it", written by computer science professor Minas Tsikritsis, and secondarily on the book "The Phaistos disc speaks Hellenic" written by Ephi Polygiannaki who has a degree in computer science. Let me simply note that Theodoros Axiotis uses Hellenic mythology to come up with a symbolic interpretation of the disc, in his two volume book in Greek "The Phaistos disk deciphering".

 

There are 31 phrases on side A and 30 phrases on side B. But overall the original phrases are 53. On the first side there are 123 symbols from which one is worn out and is not recognizable. That is why we often  find references for 122 symbols on this side or 241 symbols in total. Side B has 119 symbols, while the total number of symbol was originally 242 number. The number of discrete symbols is 46, but one of them is a slated line which we believe, based especially on its location that it has no phonetic value. It role was thus that of a index of some sort. Therefore in reality the disc consists of 45 discrete voice symbols, the total being 46 in number.

 

An important question that pops up deals with the reading direction. If we agree that the disc is imprinted with a certain script - imprinted language - then where should we start to read it from, from the center toward the perimeter, from the perimeter to the center, or finally from the center to the perimeter on one side and from the perimeter to the center on the another? My opinion is that the disc on both sides is read, spiraling from the center to the perimeter. Another question that arises relates to the language of the text. Is it Hellenic? Languages like Hittite, Basque, Semitic, Georgian, and others have been proposed by various researchers. Also, are the disc symbols ideograms, are they syllabic marks like those of Linear A and B, or are they alphabetical letters? I agree with most researchers who propose that the symbols, because of their large number, probably represent syllabic marks. The language is an archaic dialect of Hellenic.