this is not really a reply to marco's query, but rather a bibliographical
comment regarding the phaistos disk and fischer's work.

fischer's *glyphbreaker* (1997) is a successor to his book *evidence for
hellenic dialect in the phaistos disk* (1988), which was reviewed by emmett
bennett in the journal *written language & literacy* 1:261-64 (1998). as
bennett points out, the "decipherment" that fischer puts forward is one of
many, and we have no basis for preferring one to another - since we lack
confirmatory evidence for any of them.

fischer also published *rongorongo, the easter island script: history,
traditions, texts* (oxford, 1997). this book was reviewed favorably by
martha macri in *written language & literacy* 2:152-56 (1999).

i haven't seen *codebreaker*, but the blurb for the book, as quoted by
amazon, claims that fischer's *rongorongo* presents a decipherment of the
easter island script. in fact fischer's book *rongorongo* is a very
detailed and meticulous study of the easter island script in every aspect,
but it does NOT claim to have arrived at a decipherment.
--
William Bright
Professor Emeritus of Linguistics & Anthropology, UCLA
Professor Adjoint of Linguistics, University of Colorado, Boulder
Editor, Written Language and Literacy
Editor, Native American Placenames of the United States
1625 Mariposa Avenue, Boulder, CO 80302
Tel. 303-444-4274
FAX 303-413-0017
Email william.bright@...

William Bright's website: http://www.ncidc.org/bright