THE PHAISTOS DISC
DECIPHERMENT

The Phaistos Disc (Disk) *
(* "Disc" and "Disk" are used in the literature interchangeably
and also here so that YOUR search engines find these pages.)
was deciphered by Andis Kaulins in 1980
and the decipherment published in that same year as
The Phaistos Disc: Hieroglyphic Greek with Euclidean Dimensions
- The "Lost Proof" of Parallel Lines" -
available through the Harvard Library in the Harvard-subscribed monograph series
(Harvard Library HOLLIS Number : 000165299)
"Origins: Studies in the History of Mankind and its Languages"
(For a scan of the main pages of the book go to THE PHAISTOS DISC )



Above: Phaistos Disk, Side A, Heraklion Museum, Crete

Below:Phaistos Disk, Side B, Heraklion Museum, Crete



The Phaistos Disc is Indo-European and syllabic in nature
and written in very ancient Greek similar to archaic Baltic.
Symbols on the Phaistos Disk are clear pictographic forebears
for the later more simplified "stick-figure" symbols of Linear B.
Some figures of Linear B can be extrapolated from the Disc.
Indeed, apparent duplication of phonemes in Linear B
comes from a lack of recognition by Michael Ventris
of dipthonged syllabic variants.

The Phaistos Disc is traditionally dated to ca. 1700-1500 BC, corresponding to the period of the burning of Minoan Palaces on Crete, probably due to the explosion of the Volcano Santorin on Thera ca. 1628 BC. The Disk was found in the treasure room of a so-destroyed Palace in Phaistos. However, some symbols, such as the central flower on Side A, and the "two-container" symbol are found in Pharaonic Egypt in the Old Kingdom, but not later. For example, the Palette of Narmer has the flower pictograph, and a cartouche attributed originally to Cheops by the Egyptologists has the two-container symbol. The physical disk surely dates to the 2nd millennium but we date some of the forerunner mathematics and symbols on this disk to earlier periods and to Tifinag pictographic comparables found e.g. also in earthworks at e.g. Lewes in Ancient Britain. The site Phaistos on Crete was a geodetic point in antiquity and the Disc shows how pre-Pythagorean geodetics were calculated. As a matter of information technology, the Phaistos Disk is also unique in that it unknowingly "anticipates" storage of information on CDs or DVDs, i.e. circular data storage.

The deciphered content of the Phaistos Disc is mathematical in nature.
It is a pre-Euclidean proof viz. lemma regarding the paradox
of Parallel Lines, very similar in approach to that used by
the great mathematician Lobachevsky,
more than 3500 years later.

SYLLABIC VALUES OF THE SYMBOLS
ON THE PHAISTOS DISC BY ANDIS KAULINS



Below: Linear presentation of Phaistos Disc Symbols on the Disc



Below: Diagram of the figure mandated by the Phaistos Disc

It was perhaps used to determine Solstices and Equinoxes
and surely used for Geodetic Measure based on the Pentagon



The disk reads as follows in very Archaic Greek,
older than any Greek known up to now
and dealing with Zeno's problem of parallel lines
similar to Lobachevsky's proof 5000 years later:

If the parallel lines B, D and C (see figure above)
are extended to f and g [and beyond but short of infinity],
then the resulting angle x varies, [nearing 180 or 0 degrees]
depending on where line f and g is drawn.
Hence, the termination is uncertain.

As the parallels B, D and C are extended
beyond bounds (i.e. to infinity, or infinite ends),
then the angle x [measured from the center of the circle
to the lines drawn to the ends of the extensions
of the parallel lines B and C]
will get smaller and smaller towards D
as the lines B, D and C are extended,
thus suggesting a converging termination.

For the Greek syllabic transcription and English transliteration
go to the Greek of the Phaistos Disk.
For a significant (and probably correct) interpretation
of the astronomical use of the above math figure go to Steve Burdic