The Faistos Disk - the enigma of an Aegean script, by Louis Godart

In 1908, on the hill of Festos in Crete, Luigi Pernier, a member of the Italian Archaeological mission to the island, found in excavation what was to become known as the Phaistos disc. A medium-size, round, clay tablet, both faces covered with signs, the unique and mysterious traces of a syllabic script dating back to the late second millennium BC, the meaning of which has been lost.

Since the day the disc was discovered, its decipherment has been one of the most complex and intriguing riddles in the history of archaeology. Professionals and amateurs alike have grappled with it, proposing any number of eccentric or erudite solutions. Yet, for all the plethora of hypotheses and proliferation of bibliography, no real advances have been made in our knowledge, which remains superficial and confused.

Drawing on serious experience, matured through field work and years of study, Godart tries to sort out this pell-mell of proposals, laying the foundation for true knowledge of the object in question. Each individual sign is analyzed and reproduced, and the system of writing thus revealed is compared with the signs of other known scripts in Minoan - Mycenean Crete, as well as with archaeological data from regions with related cultures. So the study of the disc is an opportunity for a journey into the scripts and for a tour of the civilizations of the first Mediterranean peoples.

ITANOS Editions - 168  pages - 22X23 cm - paperback