Just to break up the monotony of far too many Unknown Man posts in a row 🙂 , here’s Anthony Svoronos’ great long list of Phaistos Disk speculative theories and wobbly decipherment attempts, together with his own notes on what he suspects it is. Peter Aleff [#47 on Svoronos’ list] recently left a comment here asserting:
There is plenty of evidence that it recorded the path of a board game similar to the Egyptian Snake Game and Senet, and surviving in today’s children’s Game of the Goose. See http://www.phaistosgame.com/volume1.htm. Enjoy that surprising story, as well as the almost self-explanatory title page of the combined volumes 1 and 2 at phaistosgame.com/phaistos1booktitlepage.htm that shows the reconstructed gameboard and will be published next Spring.
The Phaistos Disk as board game, eh? Well, Fernand Crombette suggested this some decades ago, so that is not in itself a new idea. But we shall see next Spring, I guess!
But that’s by the by: I actually wanted to post about another Phaistos Disk-related story entirely. When I was recently looking for sources on other ancient artefacts with similar symbols (e.g. the Arkalochori axe, seal fragment HM 992, etc), I found the following proper cipher mystery story in a greek ceramic website selling repro Phaistos Disks:
A very peculiar find was made in 1992 in a basement in Vladikavkaz, North Ossetia: A fragment of an apparent copy of, or draft for the Phaistos disc, with the symbols incised with a stylus rather than imprinted. It is uncertain whether this artifact is genuinely ancient, a good faith modern copy of the Phaistos disc, or a bad faith attempt at forgery. The house in the basement of which the fragment was found was built in 1880. Allegedly, the object was recognized as a fake and returned to its private owner.
There’s a picture of this “Vladikavkaz Disk” on p.16 of Il disco di Festo: Un calcolatore vecchio di 4.000 anni by Rosario Vieni on Antikitera.net, a site whose description even non-Italians can read: “Il portale Italiano dell’Archeologia Misteriosa“. Vieni’s theory (that the Disk is some kind of ancient calculator) at #60 on Svoronos’ list.
Or, you might prefer Jerome Eisenberg’s THE PHAISTOS DISK: A ONE HUNDRED-YEAR-OLD HOAX? paper, which also has a picture on p.6 of the PDF. Like Svoronos, Eisenberg includes a multi-page appendix of decipherment attempts. Having said that, I’m a bit suspicious of Eisenberg’s readiness to classify the Vladikavkaz Disk fragment as a hoax simply on the basis that it resembles a handmade version of a disk he also thinks is a hoax. Though it is true that people do occasionally use hoaxes & fakes to make fools of us all, I suspect history usually does an even better job, by helping us make fools of ourselves. Caveat decryptor!
Finally, Word Geek’s Diana Gainer concludes her own Phaistos disk roundup by saying: “You know, some of the proposals that people have come up with are so far out, I wouldn’t be surprised if one of these days somebody claimed that Bigfoot wrote it as a love letter to the Loch Ness Monster!” Such nonsense! Everyone knows that Loch Ness Monsters can’t read, tcha… 😀
I rather liked the idea published in the 60s or 70s, arguing that it was a kind of calendar.I’ve wondered whether it mightn’t have been a poor man’s planisphere, too. Not incompatible with the idea of a game,either.
The Egyptian palm-tree climbing game is thought to be a climb to the northern heavens to the Egyptian king’s after-kingdom.
Diane: I’m not sure it’s likely to be a poor man’s anything, found in a palace. 🙂
nickpelling: A poor man’s tax form maybe.
…and a new Phaistos theory is born…
Blinde: don’t make it look so easy, everyone will want their own! 🙂 PS: I like your elephant story. 🙂
Oh – we’re back to the palace theory are we? I hadn’t kept in touch. Last I heard it was in a section supposed store-rooms and repositories. Old practice to keep records in holy/royal buildings. Ha – maybe a tax form after all. Or a kind of trader’s passport, to prove he had been to the relevant ports. But I still like the idea of the poor… minimal version of something akin to a planisphere, or antikythera thingy.
In my opinion there is not a text on the Phaistos disc, but there is a geometric information …Geometric depictions are not something like a vague part of some hypothesis, they are measurable evidences. Everybody may convince oneself by using ruler and calculator. Please try it on my website, fully illustrated 😉 mostly commented in german language, but a lot of depictions don´t need a comment 😉 https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=387642611289216&set=a.174563665930446.65198.174559075930905&type=1&theater
I wonder, has anyone thought of it being a recount of famous stories? For example, the stories of Joshua, Moses, Aaron, Miriam and the like? I find the portion with the flowering staff next to a snake, and that next to a flying bird rather an uncanny likeness to the story of how aaron turned his flowering staff into a snake (which subsequently ate all the other staffs turned snake), as a sign of the holy spirit (represented by the flying bird).
I started looking at the phaistos disk only 2 days ago, so if someone else has already had that theory, please disregard.
Mindy: well, the most generally accepted date for the Phaistos Disc is about 1700BC or possibly earlier, which seems very early for the stories you mention. And I don’t think anyone has proposed that it might have any Jewish connections…
The Phaistos Disk is a genealogy of deified kings on the recto side and a mythical flood narrative on the verso side, with a war story thrown in for good measure. For more on this, please see: phaistosdisk.com
The Phaistos Disc may be a planisphere as shown in illustrations which are posted at:
https://www.academia.edu/30685659/Celestial_Phaistos_Disc_Deciphered
The Phaistos Disc has characteristics of an astronomical instrument that could be used to mark time throughout the night and might connect to a ritual calendar.
– Lance Carter
This paper graphically shows how the Magliano Disc inscriptions appear to be based on ancient asterisms, signs, or constellations and are compared to the Phaistos Disc inscriptions. The Magliano Disc inscriptions appear to depict a way of drawing celestial signs that portray the northern sky. This paper shows that the Phaistos Disc may not be an isolated document.
https://www.academia.edu/31038379/Celestial_Magliano_Disc_Deciphered
These Archeoastronomy Animations show the Phaistos Disc as a planisphere:
Archeoastronomy Animations: Phaistos Disc Side A
https://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_id=EWnPBVLhVzY
Archeoastronomy Animations: Phaistos Disc Side B and Dispilio Tablet
https://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_id=yZMGdzkJeek