What is this doohicky?
It’s a unique artifact excavated in Crete, from a pre-Classical stratum. It was made with dies, basically analogous to movable type, then fired to hardness. Nothing like it has (yet) been found in any other site, and the characters used are unique (but resemble character sets found in some Anatolian inscriptions). We’ve had a topic about this artifact having been made in modern times as a forgery and salted into the dig, as had been suggested by a few before. Consensus is, it’s a legitimate ancient artifact containing an unknown inscription. The authority in charge of it will not permit thermoluminescence dating to be performed, even though that would settle the question, due to its uniqueness. Probably it could be examined in some other noninvasive way, but I’m not too sure I’ve ever seen one suggested. Probably a small sample (or a series of very tiny ones from different spots on the disk, combined) could be analyzed to determine geographic origin, but I’m not too sure of that one either. :’)