More than a century ago, one of the most controversial archaeological discoveries in history took place. During an excavation at the Minoan palace of Phaistos in ancient Crete, Italian Luigi Pernier found a disc-shaped clay tablet approximately forty centimeters in diameter. It was called the Phaistos Disc. But it was not just any clay tablet with inscriptions of ancient languages, but one that would be unique, because, to date, it has not been possible to decipher its contents.
In addition to the fact that the Phaistos Disk is ‘unique’ among archaeological discoveries when Pernier found it in 1908, it was labeled as controversial because a piece of its kind with such perfection in the engraving could not be legitimate. The archaeological community entered into conflict attributing a ‘false discovery’ that supposedly responded to the competitiveness among colleagues. However, to date, it has not been proven that the Phaistos Disk is fake; on the contrary, Pernier’s excavation methods were within the proper protocols.
But why is it that the Phaistos Disc attracts so much attention? The answer lies in the shadows of uncertainty and the blind spots of life, because of the seductive mystery generated by the lack of knowledge about something. This piece is the only one known with this kind of inscribed language, there have been no others of its kind and, therefore, there is no way of knowing what it really says.
An archaeological ‘wonder’
Two other reasons further add to the mystery surrounding it and why it was once labeled a fake. The first has to do with its shape, a disk of forty centimeters in diameter with a series of spiral symbols on both sides (almost all visible), dating from at least four millennia ago. It is to be thought that, to last such a long time in an almost perfect state of preservation, the construction process had to have been different from that of the other clay tablets found throughout the world. And according to experts, it was.
Apparently, the disk was not only literally baked to harden the clay and make it almost indestructible over the years, but unlike all the other tablets, this one gives the first hint of printing. Its symbols were not carved after firing, they were stamped into the fresh material with what archaeologists assume were script stamps.
In addition, 242 signs in clear and intentionally divided sequences of words can be seen between the two sides, which gives archaeologists the indication that this is indeed a true written language. However, the perfect strokes bear little resemblance to Cretan hieroglyphs, so where did they come from? Nobody knows for sure, and that is the reason why the Phaistos Disk is an archaeological ‘wonder’ that will keep us on the edge of mystery for a long time until, by some serendipity, someone manages to find a logical explanation.
Story originally published in Spanish in Ecoosfera
