Phaistos Disc declared as fake by scholar

The Times of London ^ | July 12, 2008 | Dalya Alberge, Arts Correspondent

[nonsporting]

What if...the Phaistos Disc is an ancient board-game or an oracle...and the symbols do not represent letters or words, but a prize to be won or a future event?

Oui! Ja!

[SunkenCiv]

The Phaistos inscription is unique. Linear A, Linear B, and Cretan hieroglyphic was first discovered by Evans, who spent the rest of his life denying any of the writing systems concealed Greek. Linear B is a syllabary, was apparently adapted from Linear A, and various claims have been made for Linear A — that it hides an Anatolian language (Barry Fell), or Semitic (uh, I forget who), etc — but it has been generally admitted that Linear A was not used to write Greek (even though a couple of mavericks say they’ve cracked it as Greek). In “Lost Languages” the opinion is expressed that, short of finding another archive of tablets, Linear A will never be cracked because the known samples are too small (compared with Linear B, found in quantity by Blegen on his first day digging at Pylos). Cretan hieroglyphic was found in just a few examples (not sure if there was a tablet or two, or not, or merely short inscriptions on pots or something).

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

The Phaistos inscription is unique.

If it is unique, how did Mr. Fell translate it in your #8 above?

[SunkenCiv]

:') My apologies, the *artifact* is unique; Fell made educated guesses regarding character assignments, basing that on some Anatolian writing systems which use characters resembling those on the Phaistos disk. If the disk is authentic, the use of dies to make the inscription suggests a manufacturing / duplication process; that suggests the question, what happened to the others?

But anyway, here's something I scrawled in Ancient Times (it was over at The Globe forum), October 9, 2000 17:54:39 EDT:

A royal seal pressed into clay, with a Minoan hieroglyphic inscription (?), found at Knossos. If these four characters are Linear A as they appear to be, using my best guesses from Barry Fell's work on Linear A, they represent the consonants lu - ak/ag - ke - su/yu (the slashes indicate that I'm not sure which sign to use). ESOP Volume 4, No. 77 (p 26) shows the first two symbols and two others, translated as lugal that is, the king. The first character lu is a loan word meaning "man royal". Figure from p 37, The Aegean Civilizations by Peter Warren, 1989, a volume of the The Making of the Past series.

[colorado tanker]

Seems a little suspicious the authorities won't allow the test that could prove it one way or the other.

[Towed_Jumper]

I took a look at this disc again and my translation comes out to approximate “Eat More Ovaltine”...not sure about the date.

[SunkenCiv]

Yeah, based on the USGS definition, it's difficult to see what kind of legit objection to thermoluminescence could be raised.

[shibumi]

"The perfect omelet is made with two eggs, not three. Many beginners use milk or water in the whisk - this is a mistake....."

[Yardstick]

I’ll have a large Phaistos Disc with pepperoni, black olives, and cryptic runes.

[colorado tanker]

Actually, I like three eggs, with a wider pan. But adding milk - oh no!

I do that with scrambled eggs - which ain't no omelet!

[SunkenCiv]

Actually, that sounds like a *great* idea for a restaurant concept.

Uh, to me.

I guess this is an example of how half of all restaurants fail in the first year.