In 1908, during the excavations of the royal palace of the ancient city of Festa, which were carried out on the territory of the island of Crete, an unusual exhibit was discovered. A clay disc was found in the central compartment of the cache, which was disguised in the floor of one of the rooms. This exhibit was a sample of a completely new for historians and never met anywhere else in writing. The Phaistos disc has not been deciphered to this day.
The find was a small disc made of baked clay, about 16 centimeters in diameter and no more than two centimeters in thickness. The disc was made without using a potter's wheel. On both sides of it were inscriptions written in a spiral. These symbols were stamped with wood or stone seals on the once soft clay surface of the Phaistos disc. The inscriptions are considered to be the oldest printed text known to science.
Neither the purpose of the disc, nor the exact time of its manufacture are known. The find was conditionally dated 1700 BC. The broken tablet of linear writing found next to the disk also belonged to the same period. In general, finds with spiral inscriptions have been found not only in Crete, but also in other parts of the Aegeis. However, many scientists today question the authenticity of the Phaistos disc.
Both experts and amateurs have repeatedly tried to decipher the mysterious symbols depicted on both sides of the disc. Periodically and now there are statements about the decryption of the disk. But none of these messages has been officially recognized among the representatives of the scientific community. The isolation of the letter and the brevity of the message are especially difficult to decipher. Professionals believe that it will be possible to decipher the Phaistos disc only after the discovery of other artifacts with the same script.
Now everyone can see the disc in the exposition of the Heraklion Archaeological Museum on Crete, Greece. On the A side of the Phaistos disc, conventionally called "front", there are 123 or 124 characters, and on the B ("reverse") side - 119 characters. The total number of symbols on the clay disc is 45.
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Someone thinks that the text contains a brief historical chronicle of the events that took place in the territory of South-West Asia Minor. Others see the familiarity with Egyptian hieroglyphs. Among one of the hypotheses is the version that the rulers of Crete are listed on the disk, indicating the cities they owned. There are also such scholars who believe that none of the versions about the content of the text printed on the Phaistos disc is correct. Researchers even disagree on which direction the signs should be read. There are those who are sure: the disc text is written in the ancient Slavic language.
In 2001, an article was written in one of the magazines about the discovery of the so-called Vladikavkaz disc. It was a fragment of the same clay disc, on one side of which were inscribed symbols similar to those on the Phaistos disc. But after a while, the find was recognized as a fake, and even the confession of the master who made it was published - although this also raised doubts. However, since then, no one else has heard about the mysteriously appeared and disappeared Vladikavkaz disc, the find has not been found.