The Phaistos Disc

[Johnny]

After a lengthy discussion with a good friend of mine who holds a master's in the classics yesterday, I'm once again curious about the Phaistos Disc and particularly what the various opinions on it are around here. I only saw a couple of posts referencing it and thought it deserved its own thread.

This friend of mine also acquired a J.D. and practices law these days but at one time had studied the disc fairly intensively and even presented a paper on it while visiting Crete. He subscribes to the common theory that the disc is an inventory of market goods. Having not thought about the artifact since my 10th grade world history class, I stared at the thing for about 5 minutes in the wikipedia article and determined that I think it was a pictographical memory aid for the chronological recitation of an oral tradition. Apparently that's a common theory as well.

So what do you think? None of the potential translation claims I saw looked really solvent.

[Minimalist]

This guy thinks its a hoax.

http://archaeology.about.com/b/2008/06/ ... a-hoax.htm

[Johnny]

This guy thinks its a hoax.

http://archaeology.about.com/b/2008/06/ ... a-hoax.htm

I guess we'll never know until some TL has been performed.

[Minimalist]

His article is in the July/August 2008 edition of Minerva. Does not seem to be available online.

[Tiompan]

Greece is not usually thought of as a centre of rock art but there are are pockets of mainly simple cup marks with one island in the Cycaldes
having more complex engravings , one of which is very similar to the Phaistos disc . I must say I thought the disc was more than likely a fake and the discovery of the marked rock has made me even more more sceptical as the motifs and sectioning are are like nothing else ,giving an impression of one fake done to support another .
I should point out that the engraving is a relatively recent find .

George

[E.P. Grondine]

Without demonstration here, and without discussion of the definition of PIE, I will simply state that the disk belongs to the class of PIE spiral foundation inscriptions, in which certain sacrifices are pledged to certain gods at certain times. The Etruscan Magliano inscription parallels it.

Similar spiral foundation inscriptions should be found at every major PIE site.

It can be read using Laroche's "Hittite Hieroglyphic" values, and the Magliano inscription can be read with Pallotimo's dictionary values. Try it yourself.

If you can find a bound copy of my personal work notes on LInear B and Linear A, you'll find a copy of it included. I am no longer circulating copies, as the only energy I have is to argue the data on recent impacts in the Americas, and can broach no distractions.

[Tiompan]

The rock art has a greater resemblance to the Phaistos disc than the Magliano inscription , having the same type of "sections" and widths within the spiral . it is also ,if both are genuine , more likely to be be of a similar date .Although if both are fakes then they are also likely to be within a century of each other . It wasn't part of a foundation .

George

[Johnny]

Without demonstration here, and without discussion of the definition of PIE, I will simply state that the disk belongs to the class of PIE spiral foundation inscriptions, in which certain sacrifices are pledged to certain gods at certain times. The Etruscan Magliano inscription parallels it.

Similar spiral foundation inscriptions should be found at every major PIE site.

It can be read using Laroche's "Hittite Hieroglyphic" values, and the Magliano inscription can be read with Pallotimo's dictionary values. Try it yourself.

If you can find a bound copy of my personal work notes on LInear B and Linear A, you'll find a copy of it included. I am no longer circulating copies, as the only energy I have is to argue the data on recent impacts in the Americas, and can broach no distractions.

EP, this post is like homework. And exactly what I was looking for. For anyone as ignorant as me, PIE is Proto Indo-European. I am waaay too inexperienced in old world theory and language to hold a solid belief that the disc is any of the 66 different decipherments I see listed here:

http://users.otenet.gr/~svoronan/phaistos.htm

Attempts to find any books or bound volumes this morning are resulting in fail for Johnny as the Douglas County libraries are experiencing technical difficulty with their site. Hopefully I'm not late on returning Fagan's Chaco Canyon.

[Johnny]

The rock art has a greater resemblance to the Phaistos disc than the Magliano inscription , having the same type of "sections" and widths within the spiral . it is also ,if both are genuine , more likely to be be of a similar date .Although if both are fakes then they are also likely to be within a century of each other . It wasn't part of a foundation .

I take it that the Magliano Inscription has yet to be TL dated as well?

[Tiompan]

The rock art has a greater resemblance to the Phaistos disc than the Magliano inscription , having the same type of "sections" and widths within the spiral . it is also ,if both are genuine , more likely to be be of a similar date .Although if both are fakes then they are also likely to be within a century of each other . It wasn't part of a foundation .

I take it that the Magliano Inscription has yet to be TL dated as well?

I don't believe it has , although it's provenance seems secure , it's made of lead and dated to at least a millenium after supposed date of Phaistos .

George

[E.P. Grondine]

EP, this post is like homework. And exactly what I was looking for. For anyone as ignorant as me, PIE is Proto Indo-European. I am waaay too inexperienced in old world theory and language to hold a solid belief that the disc is any of the 66 different decipherments I see listed here:

http://users.otenet.gr/~svoronan/phaistos.htm

Attempts to find any books or bound volumes this morning are resulting in fail for Johnny as the Douglas County libraries are experiencing technical difficulty with their site. Hopefully I'm not late on returning Fagan's Chaco Canyon.

There was a request for a bound copy of my worknotes on amazon several years back. Perhaps an internet archive search would lead you to it. There's only about 12 copies out there. Thus I'm fairly certain that my reading of that particular spiral foundation inscription is not among those listed at the link you posted.

PIE is usually defined as Proto Indo European, though the relationship is obscure to me and mutual intelligibility between PIE and IE speakers appears to have been limited, so I think of PIE as Pre Indo European. Given the identification by many scholars of languages of this group as PIE, I've found PIE to be a good abiguity to use.

I don't currently know the mt DNA haplogroups involved.

Linear A was finally broken by Dr. Brown of North Carolina, and clearly demonstrated by him to be related to Lycian.