Encrypted Secret On Clay
A scientist and experts for the ancient languages have succeeded to decrypt some of the oldest known letters, such as famous Linear B or the Ugaritic, an ancient Northwest Semitic language.
The Phaistos disc, an old clay board with hieroglyphs and pictures, does not belong to this category. It is still encrypted and even the biggest authorities in this field could not understand what the meaning of these signs is.
Crete Culture
The Phaistos disc is one of the rare remains of the Crete culture, which was accidentally found in some side room of the main palace. It was in 1903. The archeologists had good a catch, because they were found Linear A tablet and lots of pottery beside the Phaistos disc. All those items were from Neo-palatial period.
The Phaistos village, a small place on the Crete island, was mentioned in the beginning of the 19th century, but the first archeologists exploration of this site and the main palace began in 1884. First men in the modern history who get the honor to explore the great palace were Italian archeologists F. Halbherr and A. Taramelli.
Cretan state declared independent in 1898 and researching of the location was continued by the experts from the Italian Archeological Scholl in Athens.
Linear A Letter
The majority of those artifacts were written with Linear A letter, which is, as we mentioned, still encrypted. Nobody knows what these messages are about.
Basically, we know very little about Phaistos itself and its history. We know king Radamanthis had a palace there and that he was a brother of the king Minos. Also, we know the Phaistos was a place of birth of Epimenidis, one of the greatest persons of that time. His name was mentioned between other seven wise men, the most esteemed people of that time.
The Phaistos disc is a clay circle, which has both sides fulfilled with the hieroglyphs. The structure of these signs is clear and strict, which means all letters are lined in separate groups and divided by vertical lines. The linguists think that each divided part or the group represents one word.
Just a few of these strange signs were decrypted and the key was found in the hieroglyphs from a later period (from the Proto- palatial period).
Great Mystery
The scientists still argue about the meaning and the purpose of this strange artifact. For some, the message on clay is some sort of the hymn, because symbols are repeating like a refrain in poems. Others think it is ritual text or something related to the religion of that time. A third group of the scientists assumes the hieroglyphs are the name of the soldiers. The latest works on this subject, suggest the text on the circle board is a story about the king’s palace.
The main barrier for the successful braking the Linear A letter lies in the length of the text. It is, according to linguists, just too short. Whole table contains only 45 different signs. The symbols are the small portraits of the people, animals, plants and different objects.
