THE PHAISTOS DISC UNRAVELLED
By W.A.G. Westerlaken

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From the introduction:
"The Phaistos disc was found on 3 July 1908 by L. Pernier, during an excavation he supervised at the Minoan palace of Phaistos on Crete.
It is a practically round disc of baked clay, with a diameter of about 16 cm and an average thickness of about 16 mm, and it shows signs on both sides.
The signs are in between spiral lines, and clusters of signs are separated by vertical lines. In this way side A contains 31 words or groups of words and the other side 30.
The terms side A and side B were already used by Pernier, side A being used for the side with the floral pattern in the middle.
The 45 different signs were numbered by Arthur Evans. He subdivided the signs according to their appearance and thus created various groups, such as human figures, daily implements, animals, plants, etc.
The most striking feature of the disc is that the signs have not been written on or scratched in the disc, but were imprinted into the moist clay with the help of stamps. This means that this disc is the oldest known specimen of imprinting.
As regards the age of the disc, opinions differ. The earliest and latest dates put forward are 1700 and 1400 B.C. respectively.
Personally I am inclined to believe that the earliest date is closer to the truth, but I do not intend to elaborate on this. I was far more intrigued by the contents of the text..."

From the text:
Although parts can be understood "a verbatim translation of the text on the disc (though) cannot be given at the current time, because quite a number of signs still require further study or perhaps a better interpretation. The help of linguists and especially Hittitologists is obviously vital and it is to them that I would like to direct my request to test their abilities on this (translated) text."

For a copy of THE PHAISTOS DISC UNRAVELLED email us:

THE PHAISTOS DISC UNRAVELLED
By W.A.G. Westerlaken
Available in English only
75 pages

Sites of interest:

http://www.keysites.com/ns/980214/review2.html
Steven Roger Fischer thinks he "cracked the code" and he arrived at the conclusion that "the Phaistos Disc was inscribed with an ancient Minoan language that was closely related to Mycenaean Greek. It constituted a call to arms, to repel the Carians, invaders from Anatolia." To which we have to remark that it is too bad the Carians didn't come unto the Mediterranian scene some thousand years after the disc was enscribed or printed!

http://www.crosswinds.net/helsinki/~glennpj/glennj1.htm
Glenn Paul Johnson presents "an interpretive, comparative and hypothetical syllabic analysis of the hieroglyphic inventory associated with this Pre-Mycenaean artifact..." and he does so in only three volumes, which will set you back $950,-!! Glenn writes stories, poetry and dabbles in Faster-than-Light, Time Travel and other speculative topics.
Note: This address might not open!!

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/phaistos/
"Dr. Keith A.J. Massey and his twin brother Rev. Kevin Massey-Gillespie discovered the secret they believe provides the key to cracking the Phaistos Disk." To cut their findings short: it's Archaic Greek (huh?). And they want your help.

http://www.crl.com/~gcwelch/phaistos.html
Some offer ample explanations and just throw anything on the Internet. Has something to do with: "arbitrary phonetic substitutions for three symbols, a memory reset to either default values or coded hieroglypic values." Could have fooled us!

http://www.danwinter.com/portaldisk/
You thought you'd seen it all. Wrong! This one takes us to the stars: "The disk was created in 1600 BCE by initiates into the Isis-Osiris mystery-myth sect. The images on the disk are a symbol language representing the various parts of the Isis-Osiris mystery-myth, inwhich good-doing Osiris is opposed by wicked Typhon. The disk records the activities of the Isis-Osiris sect as they convened inside the Great Pyramid of Cheops and worked to establish their group consciousness using the tools of sacred geometry. They participated in higher levels of group activity at the astral level and beyond through interdimensional travel. This information is recorded on the disk."

More serious writing on the Phaistos Disc-script can be found in:
K. Aartun, Die minoische Schrift: Sprache und Texte I: Der Diskos von Phaistos. Die beschriftete Bronzeaxt. Die Inschrift der Tarragona-Tafel (Wiesbaden 1992).
Y. Duhoux, Le disque de Phaistos (Louvain 1977).