The Phaistos Disk
The Phaistos Disk

Author: Thomas Balistier

Publisher: Verlag Dr Thomas Balister

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 111

ISBN-13: 9783980616805

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Since it was discovered in 1908, the Phaistos Disk - one of the most important artifacts from Crete's minoan culture - has challenged scholars of diverse diciplines and captivated interests of amateurs. Its allure is primarily due to the fact that no one has been able to really solve its mystery. None of the numerous decipherments has found general acceptance or scientific approval. This book does not offer yet another attempt at deciphering the Disk. Rather, it is a short presentation of the various research efforts on the dating and origin, writing and language, as well as content and purpose of the Disk. This lively account of the most important aspects of a not-so-strictly-scholarly debate, which has gone on for decades, also includes a view of the putative solutions.

Glyph-Breaker
Glyph-Breaker

Author: Steven R. Fischer

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 1997-09-05

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 9780387982410

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After successfully deciphering the Rongorongo script of Easter Island, Steven Roger Fischer gained a unique place in the pantheon of glyphbreakers: he is the only person to have deciphered not one but two ancient scripts. Both of these scripts yield clues of great historical importance. Fischers previous decipherment, of a Cretan artefact called the Phaistos Disk, provided the key to the ancient Minoan language and showed it to be closely related to Mycenaean Greek. Fischer's decipherment of Rongorongo shows that it was not merely a mnemonic device for recalling memorised texts, but was actually read and used for creative composition. This is the exciting story of these two decipherments, by the man who now must rank as the greatest glyphbreaker of all time.

The Decipherment of Linear B
The Decipherment of Linear B

Author: John Chadwick

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1990-09-13

Total Pages: 182

ISBN-13: 110771723X

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The languages of the ancient world and the mysterious scripts, long undeciphered, in which they were encoded have represented one of the most intriguing problems of classical archaeology in modern times. This celebrated account of the decipherment of Linear B in the 1950s by Michael Ventris was written by his close collaborator in the momentous discovery. In revealing the secrets of Linear B it offers a valuable survey of late Minoan and Myceanean archaeology, uncovering fascinating details of the religion and economic history of an ancient civilisation.

New Light on Phaistos Disc
New Light on Phaistos Disc

Author: Roberta Rio

Publisher: AuthorHouse

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 155

ISBN-13: 1467001228

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A clay disk that looks like a child's game has become a headache for archaeologists and historians. And for the throngs of tourists who visit Crete, it is fascinating for its mystery. This is a completely new interpretation of the meaning of the Phaistos Disc, which opens new horizons never before imagined by archaeologists and historians. The utilized interpretative methodology is new as well: It presents a new way of investigating artifacts that are mysterious due to their age; direct evidence isn't possible and interpretation is difficult. The ancients' access to ideas was much different than now. The difficulty of understanding lies in the code of communication, which is no longer understood and in the contents themselves, since neither of the two falls within our wealth of knowledge. The result with the classic historical-archaeological method can only be "un-understanding". This book presents one possible solution. If we are willing to mix "Sacred and Profane", "Rational and Intuitive", and "Scientist and Artist", we can reach the result of this book: The unveiling of a meaning that would otherwise remain mysterious to the mind of modern man.

The Greatest Invention
The Greatest Invention

Author: Silvia Ferrara

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Published: 2022-03-01

Total Pages: 227

ISBN-13: 0374601631

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In this exhilarating celebration of human ingenuity and perseverance—published all around the world—a trailblazing Italian scholar sifts through our cultural and social behavior in search of the origins of our greatest invention: writing. The L where a tabletop meets the legs, the T between double doors, the D of an armchair’s oval backrest—all around us is an alphabet in things. But how did these shapes make it onto the page, never mind form complex structures such as this sentence? In The Greatest Invention, Silvia Ferrara takes a profound look at how—and how many times—human beings have managed to produce the miracle of written language, traveling back and forth in time and all across the globe to Mesopotamia, Crete, China, Egypt, Central America, Easter Island, and beyond. With Ferrara as our guide, we examine the enigmas of undeciphered scripts, including famous cases like the Phaistos Disk and the Voynich Manuscript; we touch the knotted, colored strings of the Inca quipu; we study the turtle shells and ox scapulae that bear the earliest Chinese inscriptions; we watch in awe as Sequoyah single-handedly invents a script for the Cherokee language; and we venture to the cutting edge of decipherment, in which high-powered laser scanners bring tears to an engineer’s eye. A code-cracking tour around the globe, The Greatest Invention chronicles a previously uncharted journey, one filled with past flashes of brilliance, present-day scientific research, and a faint, fleeting glimpse of writing’s future.