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The Phaistos Disc, or Phaistos Disk, is a disk of fired clay from the island of Crete, Greece, possibly from the middle or late Minoan Bronze Age (second millennium BC), bearing a text in an unknown script and language. Its purpose and its original place of manufacture remain disputed.
Phaistos Disc, side A Phaistos Disc, side B Hempl's translation of the opening lines of the disc, from Harper's Magazine [1]: p.196 Many people have claimed to have deciphered the Phaistos Disc. The claims may be categorized into linguistic decipherments, identifying the language of the inscription, and non-linguistic decipherments.
A symposium was convoked to discuss the Disc in autumn 2008. [4] Eisenberg argues that the disc can be dated by a thermoluminescence test, but in 2009 the Greek curators would not permit the disc to be examined. [3] The authenticity of the Phaistos disc is supported by multiple discoveries made after the disc was excavated in 1908.
The Phaistos disc was suggested to be a hoax by "some scholars" (one guy, in 2008), but that was short-lived. (Our reference for "the Disc is now generally accepted as authentic" is a publication from 2006, so two years before the hypothesis of forgery, which is impressive foresight?) Card Zero 06:41, 30 August 2024 (UTC)
Phaistos Disc, c. 2000 BC. Linear A, c. 1800 BC – 1450 BC, partially deciphered. Phonetic transcriptions can be read with some approximation. Scholars can understand some of the words, and get a general idea of the document's contents. [2] Cypro-Minoan syllabary, c. 1550 BC. Grakliani Hill script – Grakliani Hill, c. 11th – 10th century BC.
A handful of Minoan inscriptions use other unknown writing systems. For instance, the Phaistos Disc features a pictorial script whose only close comparison is found on the Arkalochori Axe. Because so few instances of these scripts have been found, they remain undeciphered.
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Personally I find the chances of the Phaistos Disc being authentic as being far less than the chances for the Kensington Runestone. For the Kensington stone to be authentic we only have to assume that Vikings (or Swedes) had boats. For Phaistos Disc to be authentic we have to assume that Gutenberg had a time machine. Extraordinary claims need ...