Personal Notes on the decipherment of
the PHAISTOS DISK
Note 1 October 1997
The characters on the disk are imprinted and not handwritten. In all modern languages there are differences between handwritting and printing characters. In some cases these differences are rather significant and one might not be able to establish the correspondence between written and printed characters. Think for example of r,p,s,f,k,l,b as some characters hard to identify. On the other hand o,i,m,n are some of the easiest ones.
Is it then possible that the difference between the Phaistos disk and the Linear scripts is attributable exactly to this fact?Note 2 August 1998
A lot of the characters of the linear scripts can be understood as acronymic. Efi Poligiannaki in her book also explains some of the characters based on acronymic interpretations. If it is true that the characters are of acronymic origin then the fact that some Phaistos Disk characters are very similar to linear A and B characters should show that all three share values of particular acronymic characters and that can only indicate that the language in all three is of the same family (Indoeuropean since linear B is Greek). To illustrate this point imagine an englishman writing the word "Ax" in linear B and finding that he has basically drawn the object.
Note 3 September 1998
It is challenging to find an explanation as to why the Phaistos Disk characters are imprinted. Of course only speculative answers to this problem can be produced. My favorite speculation as to what went on is as follows:
The text could be a prayer or a request for a divination A special religious ritual demanded that the prayer or the request had to be submitted in writing by the hand of the suppliant. Of course the people coming to this shrine did not know how to write. Hence the priests devised the seals in order to permit to the people to express themselves in writing. In this sense the characters should be basically acronymic as in this way the illiterate people would recognise them.
Is there a correspondence between the disk characters and linear scripts? Not necessarily since the priests at Phaistos wanted the system to be understandable to the common folk. On the other hand some characters of the scripts are of acronymic origin and hence we can think of the Phaistos seals as clearer interpretations of an original object that was used by the scribes to represent the phonetic value of the first syllable but was later simplified beyond recognition of the original object.
Note 4 December 2005The notion that the divination request (note 3) had to be submitted in writing probably seems far fetched. However I would like to mention that among the archaeological findings at Dodoni we have uncovered a very large number of written requests for divination or questions that were addressed too the oracle (on lead plates). To my knowledge the exact role of these lead plates in the Dodoni divination ritual is not clear, still this shows an instance were questions had to be addressed in writing.
Note 5 January 2006
In response to a request from Mr. Stephen Pincock who is working with a British publisher on the writing of a brief history of codebreaking and will be including in his manuscript a section on the Phaistos Disk. I have expressed my opinion on the nature of the Phaistos Disk as follows:
Dear Mr. Pincock,
Thank you very much for your kind letter.
I will reply to the questions that you have sent me. Note however that there are other people who by their training (historians, archeologists etc might be more capable of answering your questions satisfactorily.
Firstly, could you explain how you became interested in the disk?
I was trained as a mathematician, and I was always fascinated about the history and techniques of code breaking. As a result I have read every book that I could get my hands on about code breaking including books about the enigma codes or the story of George Scovel (the man who broke Napoleon’s codes during the Spanish campaign) etc.
Eventually I came across the story of the decipherment of Linear B by Ventris. This stimulated my interest in the other linear scripts, the historical context of the Bronze Age Aegean and naturally the most enigmatic of all objects from this period , the Phaistos Disk.
What factors in your view make it so difficult to interpret?
For one thing the text is unique and short; as a result it is impossible to use statistical techniques to analyze it. Furthermore we do not have any historical information about the exact nature or use of this object as a result we do not have any hint about the possible content. Finally we do not know the language of the Disk; we even do not know whether the Disk is written in the language spoken at the Phaistos palace or whether it might be written in another language (eq. a treaty written in a foreign language)
There have been a vast number of suggested solutions--do you have any personal favourites--perhaps some of the more far-fetched, or even some of the more convincing proposals?
I do not have a favorite solution about the Phaistos Disk Text, however there are also other important questions about the Disk. The Phaistos Disk challenges our intellect with the obvious question of trying to make out the meaning of the text, this however as I said earlier is probably an impossible question. There are, however, other less obvious questions about the Disk, still these questions are important if we are to understand the use of this object – and this might be a first step towards decipherment.
(1) The most important aspect of the Disk - in my opinion – is the technique used to create it. The disk is printed using multiple seals. That means that the creators of the disk produced the full set of seals that allowed the printing of texts such as the Phaistos Disk. The effort involved in the construction of those seals was important and as a result we should assume that they were used to produce many different documents. And yet the Disk is the unique document produced with this set of seals that has survived to our days.
(2) Another interesting characteristic of the Disk is the detail and clarity of the signs. Linear scripts generally use much more abstract shapes and signs, on the contrary the Phaistos Disk signs are clearly recognizable to everybody and not only to specialized scribes. At these times writing was only accessible to few specialized scribes who worked in a palace office as a result there was no need for these elaborate signs.
Only wild speculations can be used to reconcile these characteristics, my favorite explanation is as follows:
The text on the Phaistos Disk is a question placed to an oracle. The ritual at this oracle required that the object inscribed with the question was destroyed during the process of divination. (Hence even though many texts were produced all were destroyed) The ritual also required that object inscribed with the question was prepared by the person who wanted to place the question at the oracle. To serve this purpose the priests at the oracle created the seals that were used on the Disk. These seals show simple everyday life objects recognizable by the people of that society, every seal represents the acrophonic value of the object. Thus using these seals an illiterate person could express his request “in writing” (This explains the detailed drawings of the objects and the need to use seals instead of writing instruments)
Of course this is a far fetched interpretation of the events that took place in Phaistos and resulted in the creation of this unique object, but we should bear in mind the following situations that share some common aspects with the ritual described above.
(a) On the Cycladic island of Keros we find archaeological evidence of a cult (predating the Phaistos Disk) in which we believe that valuable ritual statues were deliberately smashed.
(b) In the oracle of Dodoni (which is very old and possibly predates the Phaistos Disk) we have found lead tablets that contain queries to the oracle.
As an alternative we could consider that the text could be a prayer, with the same ritual requirements as above. In that case Efi Poligiannaki's interpretation would be in line with this ritual procedure.
Thank you very much for your kind attention, I hope that I have presented my ideas clearly.
Dr. Anthony Svoronos Ph. D.
If you know of other links about efforts to decipher the disk please let me know at svoronan@otenet.gr