The Phaistos Disc, also called the Phaistos Disk, is a clay object from the island of Crete, Greece. It may date to the middle or late Minoan Bronze Age, around 2000 to 1500 BCE. The disc has writing in a language and script that are not understood. Scholars debate its purpose and where it was first made. It is currently displayed at the archaeological museum in Heraklion. The name is sometimes spelled Phaestos or Festos.
The disc was found in 1908 by Italian archaeologist Luigi Pernier during the excavation of the Minoan palace at Phaistos. It is about 16 cm (6.3 in) wide and has spiral writing on both sides. The writing includes 241 symbols made from 45 different signs. These signs were created by pressing stamps into soft clay before it was fired. At first, some experts thought the disc might be fake, but most archaeologists now believe it is genuine.
The disc has interested both amateur and professional experts who study ancient writing. Many people have tried to understand the meaning of its symbols. It is not certain if the symbols form a script, but most attempts to decode them assume they do. Some believe the symbols represent a syllabary, while others think they might be an alphabet or logographic system.
Discovery
The Phaistos Disc was discovered at the Minoan palace site of Phaistos, near Hagia Triada, on the south coast of Crete. It was found in the basement of Room 8 in Building 101, which is part of a group of buildings located to the northeast of the main palace. This group of four rooms also served as the main entrance to the palace complex. Italian archaeologist Luigi Pernier uncovered the intact object shaped like a dish on July 3, 1908, during his excavation of the first Minoan palace.
The disc was located in the main chamber of an underground storage room. These basement chambers were only accessible from above and were covered with a layer of fine plaster. The items inside were not rich in valuable artifacts but contained a lot of black earth and ashes mixed with burnt cow bones. In the northern part of the main chamber, within the same black layer, a few centimeters to the southeast of the disc and approximately 50 cm (20 inches) above the floor, a Linear A tablet labeled "PH-1" was also discovered.
Dating
Yves Duhoux (1977) places the disc's date between 1850 BC and 1600 BC (MM III in Minoan chronology) based on Luigi Pernier's report, which states the disc was found in a Middle Minoan undisturbed context. Jeppesen (1963) places the disc's date after 1400 BC (LM II–LM III in Minoan chronology). Louis Godart (1990) questions the reliability of Pernier's report and admits that archaeologically, the disc may date to any time during the Middle or Late Minoan periods (MM I–LM III, a time span covering most of the second millennium BC). Jan Best suggests the disc dates to the first half of the 14th century BC (LM IIIA) based on his dating of tablet PH-1.
Physical description
The disc is made of fine-grained clay. Some writers suggest the clay may not have come from the local area, possibly not even from Crete. It was carefully fired, unlike other items such as tablets and seals, which were accidentally baked.
The disc is nearly cylindrical, about 16 cm (6.3 in) wide and almost 2 cm (0.8 in) thick, with rounded edges. More precisely, its shape is slightly egg-like, with the width ranging from 15.8 to 16.5 cm (6.2 to 6.5 in) and the thickness from 1.6 to 2.1 cm (0.63 to 0.83 in). One side of the disc is slightly curved inward, while the other is curved outward.
The most notable feature of the Phaistos disc is that the raised symbols on its surface were created by pressing individual stamps into soft clay before it was fired. This method shows the disc is an early example of a printing technique similar to movable-type printing. Herbert Brekle, a typesetter and linguist, explains:
If the disc contains writing, it is a "printed" text that meets all the standards of traditional printing methods. The way the symbols are arranged in a spiral, the fact they were pressed into clay (blind printing), and not simply copied are just different ways to create writing. The key point is that the same symbols were repeatedly used on the disc.
A similar blind printing method from the medieval period is the Prüfening dedicatory inscription from 1119 AD.
Author Jared Diamond notes that the disc represents a technological idea that did not spread widely because it appeared at an unsuitable time in history. He compares this to the success of Gutenberg’s printing press.
In addition to the stamped symbols, there are a few marks made by scratching the wet clay with a pointed tool. Each side has a continuous spiral line that separates sections of the text. The space between these lines is divided into smaller parts by short lines that extend from the center to the edge. Each section contains a few complete symbols. The beginning of the text, near the edge, is marked by one of these lines and has five small dots punched along it. Some of the stamped symbols also have short slanted lines beneath them.
Signs
There are 45 unique signs on the disc, appearing a total of 242 times—123 on side A and 119 on side B. In addition, a small diagonal line was carved with a tool (not stamped) under some signs, a total of 18 times. The 45 symbols were numbered by Sir Arthur Evans from 01 to 45, and this numbering is still used by most researchers.
The signs were added to the Unicode universal computer character (UCS) set in 2008 after a 2006 proposal by Michael Everson and John H. Jenkins. In the table below, the "No." column shows the Evans number for each sign; the "Glyph" column displays a modern drawing of the symbol; and the "Font" column uses the UCS font available in the browser. The Unicode names are "PHAISTOS DISC SIGN" followed by names from a 1995 book by Louis Godart.
One sign on side A is too damaged to identify. According to Godart, it may be sign 03 (TATTOOED HEAD) or 20 (DOLIUM), or less likely 08 (GAUNTLET) or 44 (SMALL AXE). It could also be a 46th distinct sign.
The images of the signs below are reversed left-to-right compared to their appearance on the disc, as shown in most Western books and articles.
Some signs appear in different orientations, rotated by 90 or 180 degrees. It is generally believed that these rotations do not change the meaning of the symbols, so rotated copies are still considered the same symbol. Therefore, the "normal" orientation of these signs is unknown and may have been chosen by the scribe.
Many signs show drawings of real objects, such as humans, birds, plants, or a boat, or parts of these (like heads, hides, or flowers). However, the exact nature of most objects is still unknown as of 2023. The names assigned by scholars, especially Godart and the Unicode group, were often based on small shape similarities.
Symbol 21 (Godart's "COMB") was once thought to be a palace floorplan. However, this idea was questioned after a vase with a nearly identical symbol was found, likely used as a potter's mark.
Symbol 20 ("DOLIUM") was believed to be the shell of a large sea snail, such as Tonna dolium or similar species. One such shell was found at Phaistos and is thought to have been used as a musical instrument in rituals.
The distribution of symbols is not random and differs greatly between the two sides. Evans's symbol 02 (PLUMED HEAD) is the most common, appearing 19 times—14 on side A. The next most frequent signs are 07 (HELMET), with 18 occurrences (mostly on side B); 12 (SHIELD), with 17 (mostly on side A); and 27 (HIDE), with 15 (10 on side A).
Still, 26 of the 45 symbols appear on both sides at least once. The most common signs that appear on only one side are 31 (EAGLE) on side A and 22 (SLING) on side B, each appearing five times.
The table below shows how many distinct signs (Sign count) have the same number of occurrences (Frequency). The third number in each column is the product of the two numbers above, showing the total number of times those signs appear (Token count):
The nine signs that appear only once (hapaxes) are 04 (A5), 05 (B3), 11 (A13), 15 (B8), 17 (A24), 30 (B27), 42 (B9), 43 (B4), and 44 (A7). Of the eight signs that appear twice, four (03, 21, 28, 41) are only on side A; three (09, 16, 20) are only on side B; and one (14) appears on both sides.
The distribution of symbol pairs is also highly uneven. For example, of the 17 occurrences of sign 12 (SHIELD), thirteen appear immediately after sign 02 (PLUMED HEAD).
Text
The following is a single image of the text "unrolled." While the order of the characters is reversed from left to right, the signs themselves remain in their original orientation.
Evans once claimed that the disc should be read from the center outward, as it would have been easiest to write the text first and then shape the disc to fit. However, most scholars agree that he was incorrect, and Evans later changed his view. The correct reading direction is clockwise, from the outside toward the center, similar to the spiral inscription on the Lead Plaque of Magliano.
The signs on each side of the disc are arranged as a single spiral text, divided into groups by the radial strokes. These groups are commonly called "words," even though their exact meaning is unknown. Both ends of the text on each side are also considered "word" boundaries. There are 61 such "words" on the disc, with two to seven signs in each group: 31 on side A and 30 on side B. These "words" are numbered A1 to A31 and B1 to B30, read from right to left (clockwise, edge-to-center).
There may be one additional radial stroke near the center of side A, covered by sign 03 (TATTOOED HEAD), between sign 10 (ARROW) and the central sign 38 (ROSETTE). However, most scholars ignore this possible stroke and count the last three symbols as a single "word" 10-03-38, which appears in a similar position on the next-to-last turn.
On both sides, a radial line is found just before the start (outermost end) of the text, with five dots punched along it using a sharp round stylus.
Short oblique strokes drawn with a stylus (not stamped) are always attached to the last sign of a "word" when reading from the outside in. Their meaning is still debated. One idea, supported by Evans, is that they divide the text into "paragraphs."
All transcriptions of the text assume a right-to-left (clockwise, edge-to-center) reading direction, starting at the vertical radial line with five dots. However, the order of the characters in these transcriptions is reversed so they can be read left-to-right and top-to-bottom. The oblique stroke is used to mark the end of a "paragraph," with a horizontal line added after each "paragraph" for clarity.
For consistency with most published sources, these transcriptions include an oblique stroke at the end of word A24, even though high-resolution images show it to be a crack.
The following is a rendering of the Phaistos Disc inscription using Unicode characters from the Phaistos code block (code points +101D0 to +101FC). Radial strokes are shown with the ASCII character "|" (+7C), and the oblique subscripted stroke is marked by the comma-like PHAISTOS DISK COMBINING OBLIQUE STROKE (+101FD) after the affected symbol. The radial stroke with five dots, indicating the start of the text, is shown with the ISO Latin 1 character "¦" (+A6). The boxed question mark "⍰" (+2370) represents the illegible sign in word A8. The appearance of the signs depends on the font used by the browser, but they are typically flipped left-to-right compared to their appearance on the disc.
The following transcription uses modern drawings of the signs, which are reversed left-to-right compared to their appearance on the disc. The labels A1-A31 and B1-B30 are traditional word numbers.
The following transcription uses the Evans numbers for the signs. The vertical bar characters "¦" and "|" represent the start-of-text and word-separating radial lines, respectively. The slash "/" marks the oblique stroke under the preceding sign. The caret "^" indicates the transition from the first turn of the text (along the disc's edge) to the inner turns, and "??" represents the unreadable sign.
The disc shows signs of corrections, with some signs erased and replaced by other signs.
Godart describes these corrections as occurring in the following words: A1 (signs 02-12-13-01), A4 (29-29-34) together with A5 (02-12-04), A8 (12), A10 (02-41-19?-35), A12 (12), A16 (12-31-26?), A17 (second 27?), A29 (second 27?), B1 (12-22), B3 (37?), B4 (22-25 imprinted over the same), B10 (07?-24?-40?), B13 (beside 29?). Question marks indicate uncertainty about whether a particular sign was corrected.
The borders of word B28 were also widened to make room for sign 02.
The two signs 27 (HIDE) in word A29 are rotated 180 degrees compared to all other occurrences of this sign: "head down" versus "head up." This rotation may be due to limited space in A29.
Arie Cate observed that if sign rotations were random, the chance of them appearing in only two (or three) signs is very small.
There are several locations on side A where the same sign appears near each other in adjacent turns of the spiral, such as sign 02 (PLUMED HEAD) in word A1 and word A14. Also, the two 27 signs (HIDE) in word A29 are upside down, with the "heads" pointing toward the HIDE sign in word A23, in the adjacent turn. Arie Cate claims the chance of these alignments being coincidental is very low.
Origin of the artifact
For the first few decades after its discovery, many experts believed the artifact did not come from Crete. Evans wrote that when comparing the images on the Phaistos Disk to those of the Minoan hieroglyphic symbols, there were many differences. Out of the 45 symbols on the disk, only about 10 looked somewhat similar to Cretan hieroglyphic forms. The human figures on the disk had outlines and clothing that were not typical of Minoan art. The ship shown on the disk also looked different from similar designs found in Crete’s hieroglyphic or linear documents.
Gustave Glotz claimed the clay used to make the disk was not from Crete. Ipsen believed the disk came from somewhere in the Aegean Sea, but because it was different from Linear A or B, he also supported the idea that it was not from Crete. However, he noted that Linear A was a common script in the Aegean region, so this idea did not fully explain the variety of symbols.
Later, as more artifacts were found on Crete with similar designs, more experts began to think the disk might have come from Crete. For example, a vase found at Knossos has a symbol that matches one on the Phaistos Disk. A bowl found in 1965 at Phaistos has a mark that looks like the disk’s comb symbol. A similar mark was also found on a sealing from administrative documents discovered in 1955. Female figures with large, hanging breasts have also been found at Malia and Phaistos. The Arkalochori Axe has a short inscription with symbols similar to those on the disk.
These discoveries led more experts to support the idea that the Phaistos Disk originated in Crete. This view was shared by Michael Trauth in 1990, Yves Duhoux in 2000, and Andrew Robinson in 2008.
Hoax hypothesis
Some scholars believe the Phaistos disc might be a forgery because of its unique script, spiral pattern, and the way it was written using individual glyph stamps. No one has used thermoluminescence dating to determine when the disc was made. Andrew Robinson agrees that thermoluminescence dating would be helpful, but he does not support the idea that the disc is a forgery. Similarities between the disc and other Minoan objects found later support its authenticity. For example, the "comb" symbol (sign 21) matches symbols found on a sealing from 1955 and a bowl from 1965. The spiral layout on the disc is similar to a ring discovered in 1926 at Knossos. Other symbols on the disc match those found on fragments of Impressed Fine Ware from Phaistos.
Decipherment attempts
During the 20th century, many people guessed about the meaning of the Phaistos Disc, especially amateur archaeologists. Many people tried to understand the symbols on the disc, suggesting ideas such as prayers, stories, a game, or a math problem. Some of these ideas are not considered serious by experts.
Most experts think the symbols on the disc form a syllabary, a writing system where each symbol represents a syllable. This idea is based on the number of symbols (45) used in a text with 241 characters, which is common for syllabaries from ancient times. Some experts believe the symbols also include logograms, which are symbols that represent whole words or ideas, similar to how some ancient scripts worked. Others think the symbols might be part of an alphabet or purely logographic system.
Many people still hope the mystery of the disc can be solved. However, experts say it is unlikely without more examples of the same symbols found elsewhere. This is because there is not enough information to analyze the writing system fully. Any attempt to translate the disc without matching it to other known writings would not be accepted as correct.
The writing system on the Phaistos Disc is very different from other known scripts. However, some scholars think it was not created completely on its own. Gunther Ipsen suggested that the person who made the disc may have been influenced by other writing systems, such as Hieroglyphic Luwian, which combined symbols from cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphs.
Some experts believe the symbols on the disc are older or different forms of symbols used in Linear A, an ancient script. Others think the symbols resemble those in Anatolian Luwian hieroglyphs or Egyptian hieroglyphs. Less likely possibilities include symbols from the Phoenician alphabet or the Byblos syllabary.
Comparing the symbols on the Phaistos Disc to those in Linear A began in 1909. In 1959, Benjamin Schwartz said the Phaistos script might be related to Cretan scripts. Similar ideas were later proposed by other scholars, including Werner Nahm in 1975 and Torsten Timm in 2004.
Some experts noticed that certain symbols on the disc, such as 12 (SHIELD), 43 (STRAINER), and 31 (EAGLE), look similar to symbols in Linear A and Linear B. They think these symbols might have the same sounds, such as "qe," "ta," and "ku." Torsten Timm matched 20 of the 45 symbols on the disc to symbols in Linear A or B.
In 1961, S. Davis suggested the Phaistos symbols might be similar to Anatolian hieroglyphs. Jan Best and Fred Woudhuizen made the same claim in 1988. In 2004, Winfried Achterberg and others said they could match many symbols on the disc to Anatolian hieroglyphs, claiming they had fully translated the script. A detailed version of their research was published in 2021.
Summary table
This table shows the possible matches between the signs from Phaistos and other writing systems, including Linear A/B, the Arkalochori Axe glyphs, and Luwian hieroglyphs.
List of decipherment claims
There are two types of decipherment: linguistic, which finds the language of the writing, and non-linguistic, which does not. A logographical reading shows the meaning but not the language. This is not considered a linguistic decipherment. Unless told otherwise, the reading starts at the right side, moving left (like a clock's hands, from edge to center), beginning with side A.
Unicode
There are 46 symbols from the Phaistos Disc, including 45 signs identified by Evans and one symbol with a diagonal line, that were added to Unicode in April 2008 (Unicode version 5.1). These symbols are placed in the range 101D0–101FF in Plane 1, which is a special section called the Supplementary Multilingual Plane. These characters were given a strong left-to-right direction, so in charts and text (like on this page), the symbols are shown in reverse order compared to how they appear on the actual disc.
Modern use
Side A of the Phaistos Disc is featured as the logo of FORTH, a major research center in Greece.