It started at the end of the 19th century. A traveler who had just returned from Greece to his homeland, England, presented a small carnelian seal with strange images as a gift to the Oxford Museum. Sir Arthur Evans, the curator of the museum, became interested in printing. For a long time he puzzled over her origin, but never came to any conclusion. A few years later, Evans managed to travel to Athens, where he discovered several more seals, very similar to the one that was kept in the museum. The seals were three- and four-sided, oval in shape, containing images of drawing signs similar to hieroglyphs. All the seal holders claimed that these seals were brought from Crete.
“So the search led Evans to Crete, where he collected many items related to the era of the kingdom of Minos, sung by Homer. But what surprised and delighted Evans most of all was that the ancient seals and gems he hunted for were now the favorite adornments and amulets of Cretan peasant women. The researcher easily managed to acquire a large number of seals from the hospitable local residents. If the owners of amulets and jewelry did not want to part with their treasures, then Evans took casts from them."
Scientists believe that carvings on seals existed in Crete as early as the XXX century BC. The first images were decorative ornaments: sometimes figures of people came across. The emergence of the original drawing system of writing refers to a later era - to the XXII or XXI centuries BC. There are several varieties in the Cretan drawing writing. Signs depict people, individual body parts, pets, plants, weapons, religious symbols, and so on.
For a long time scholars have been trying to read the Cretan seals. But even today we can only speculate about the meaning of the symbols depicted on them. Perhaps the Cretan seals belonged to the Aegeans - that part of the ancient population of Crete, from whose language several words have survived in Greek sources. Perhaps a letter from the Minoans originated from the Cretan drawing letter: maybe there is a sense in the statement that the Aegeans and Minoans are one and the same people?
Which way is the disc spinning?
In 1908, while excavating a palace in the ancient city of Feste, Crete, the Italian archaeologist Pernier stumbled upon a small circular clay object that resembled a disk.
On both sides of the disc were located various images, as it turned out later, hieroglyphs (written signs of drawing). The hieroglyphs were imprinted on the disc using special stamps - thus, the disc is the oldest stamped inscription.
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This unique written monument was made in the first half of the 2nd millennium BC. Perhaps his homeland is Crete, but it is possible that he was brought to Crete from outside (for example, from Asia Minor) - some scientists believe that the clay of the kind that was used to make the disc was not found in Crete.
The inscription is divided into words and is located in a spiral, and scientists still do not have a consensus about the direction of reading the inscription: some believe that the disc was read from the edges to the center, that is, from right to left, while others believe that the reading began the other way around - from the center … In any case, the direction of reading the inscription on both sides of the disc was the same.
The hieroglyphs used in the inscription have a distinct pictorial character: these are images of people, animals, fish, birds, various household items and the like. These images do not have any clear correspondences in other scripts (in particular, the hieroglyphs of the Phaistos disc have very little in common with the signs of the Cretan pictorial writing).
"People are depicted on the disc walking to the right side of us: heads are turned to the right (there are hieroglyphs on the disc depicting people's heads - with or without feathers)."
The fact that the drawings are looking to the right makes some researchers think that the inscription itself was read from left to right. However, the direction of the signs in ancient inscriptions does not always coincide with the direction of reading the inscriptions themselves.
About the language of the Fest disc
What assumptions have not been expressed regarding the language of the inscription on the Phaistos disc! Some thought that the disc was written in Greek, others looked for one of the Asia Minor languages (Hittite, Lykmi or Carian) in the inscription, others believed that the inscription was Semitic, and so on.
Shortly after the end of World War II, a sensational report appeared in a reputable scientific journal. Linguist Schertel made a statement that he was able to read the inscription on the Phaistos disc using mathematical methods of decryption. Schertel discovered in the inscription a hymn to King Maio (that is, to Minos: by the way, Evans once believed that the inscription concludes a victory hymn: Evans came to this idea by studying the images on the disc). Excited by the message, scientists rushed to check the received decryption: however, it turned out to be nothing more than a figment of unbridled imagination!
In the mid-1960s, an American scientist proposed his own deciphering of the inscription: he read it in Greek, finding in it lists of cities. Two years later, another scholar read the inscription on the disk in Hittite. According to this scholar, the Phaistos disc contained a dedication to the gods.
Old disc - new problems
“Several years ago the venerable German scientist Ernst Grumach addressed the problem of the Phaistos disc. Grumach's article is mainly devoted to the corrections that were made to the Phaistos disc soon after it was stamped. Such corrections Grumach found in four places: in these places the old thirty-one were erased, and others were imprinted in their place. The corrections concern only strictly defined cases: in place of some old signs, signs were put in place of a head with feathers or a group of head with feathers + shield. Based on Ipsen's readings, it can be assumed that some determinants have been replaced by others for some reason. Why was it done? This question is worth puzzling over."
In the era of information technology, more exotic versions of the purpose of the Phaistos disc and the meaning of the inscription on it are being put forward. For example, it was hypothesized that something like a navigation computer was installed on Cretan ships, and the disk was a route map. If this hypothesis is confirmed, then we will have to reconsider all our ideas about the history of computing.
The Phaistos disc still keeps its secret …