Re: The Phaistos Disk

Welcome, Nicola,

I do like Godart's book, too, although it is certainly not as 'open for
everything' as it is trying to be (or the author says it is ...)

People who tried to decipher it (and said: my solution is THE only one) are
too many to say anything about - and archaeologists will probably never
accept a solution until there are other texts found in the same script to
prove the decipherment. Remember that there are still people, they say, who
believe Linear B might not be Greek after all ...

As for the facts you mention from Godart's book, I'd comment on the
following points:

3) Godart says gold, but naturally it might well have been bronze or another
moderately hard metal. Soft stone could probably not be worked into so fine
ridges (but that might be proven wrong by a real master...)

7) There have been big problems with dating as in the same cist there seem
to have been also Hellenistic sherds in a lower stratum (but I haven't seen
Pernier's - the Italian excavator's - personal words or report on it, so I
can't tell you if the data we have now - 97 years later - do give us certain
information on this point.) If the stratigraphy is actually disturbed - as
Godart implies - the disc might well be 1000 years younger (but who would
have written in this kind of pictograms at that time?)
If the stratigraphy of the nearer surroundings of the disc really fits the
Linear A tablet also present there, the disc would be dated around 1600-1700
BC.

Best wishes from Crete

Sabine Ivanovas