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Feature Articles 

The Phaistos Disc: roll ?em

/The enigmatic Phaistos disc has been interpreted in so many different
ways that most have given up all hope that it may ever be properly
understood. But amongst the myriad opportunities, there is one
possibility that is supported by the available evidence. /

Philip Coppens

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Phaistos ? also Phaestos and Phaestus ? is one of the ancient ?palaces?
on Crete. In early July 1908, riding on the wave of Sir Arthur Evans?
discovery of Knossos, a curious clay disc, dating to about 1700 BC,
containing a sophisticated pictographic writing, was discovered in
similar to less-known ruins on the southern coast of the island. Known
as ?the Phaistos Disc?, its purpose, meaning and even geographical place
of manufacture, remain disputed. Today, many walk past its display case
in the archaeological museum of Heraklion, while not all guides point
out the intriguing artefact. Dozens of theories about its origin and
purpose have been proposed, but in the final analysis, none has been
satisfactory. Still, hidden amongst the dozens of theories, there is
one, which has not been accepted by many, but may be the right answer.

The Phaistos Disc was discovered in the basement of room XL-101 of the
Minoan palace-site of Phaistos, near Hagia Triada, on the south coast of
Crete. The Italian archaeologist Luigi Pernier recovered this remarkably
intact dish, which is remarkably small, measuring about 15 cm in
diameter and uniformly just over 1 cm thick. There is nothing remarkable
about the disc itself: the inscriptions were made by pressing pre-formed
hieroglyphic seals into the soft clay, in a clockwise sequence
spiralling towards the disc?s centre. It was then baked at high
temperature. The palace was possibly destroyed and abandoned when the
Santorini volcano erupted ? one of the biggest geological dramas that
has upset the Mediterranean world in the past 10,000 years. If it had
not been for the sudden and dramatic end of palace life, the disc may
very well never have survived the millennia, until its discovery in 1908.

There is no enigma about how the disc was made. What is at the centre of
the controversy are the inscriptions on the disc and their meaning.
There are a total of 241 figures on the disc, created out of ?only? 45
different glyphs. This, some believe, could be an alphabet, a
hieroglyphic alphabet. Many represent easily identifiable, everyday
things, including human figures, fish, birds, insects, plants, a boat, a
shield, a staff, etc. Such depictions are also found in the Egyptian
hieroglyphic script.
But there is little one can do beyond classification, for the
inscriptions on the disc are largely an isolated occurrence ? unique ?
and thus any decodation is extremely difficult. If it is a language, so
far, no other instances of it have been discovered anywhere. Some
researchers have stated that there are some possible family members. One
is a votive double axe found in the Arkalohori Cave, also on Crete, but
it contains only superficially similar hieroglyphics and only a
potential three out of 51 markings share some resemblance. The second is
a fragment of a smaller clay disk, found at Vladikavkaz, North Ossetia,
which however disappeared mysteriously and can thus not be used for
comparison.

Most theories propose that the disc represents a text in an unknown
language. As there are a number of glyphs marked with an oblique stroke,
some believe these designate words, or even paragraphs. As to the text?s
meaning: it rangers from prayers, a narrative, an adventure story, a
call to arms, a legal document, a schedule for palace activities, etc.
Others argue that the disc is not text at all, but perhaps a calendar. A
token. Or a geometric theorem. Or a board game. A message from
extraterrestrials who visited Earth thousands of years ago. A portal or
star gate. In fact, almost the only thing most theories agree on is that
the text has been written from the exterior to the centre.

That the disc is not a language, despite widely being accepted in some
corners, seems quite logical, as the language is totally unique, yet its
surroundings ? Phaistos ? and its date ? 1700 BC ? would suggest that no
such isolated language would exist. Even if Phaistos had a language of
it own, why was it only discovered on one disc? In further contrast to
the writing tablets that were unruled back then and began to be ruled
with parallel lines only a couple of centuries later, the Disc has a
spiral-like track of irregularly long fields on each side, 30 on one and
31 on the other, all arranged between the incised curving borders of the
track. Still, one of the reasons for much of this confusion is that Sir
Arthur Evans had insisted that the signs on the Disd ?must be? syllabic
writing, because he promoted the Cretan-Mycenaean culture as the cradle
and earliest blossom of European civilization.
So what is it? At present, the most convincing theory is that it is a
game board. It looks like one and the usage of stamps in its fabrication
suggests a form of mass-production. Its ruled, leading inwards to the
centre, path, is a classical example that game-boards have shared
throughout their history.

What kind of game, is more difficult to asses. Some argue that it was
based on the journeys of the sun god and the moon goddess, both in
astronomical and mythological terms. That game had close parallels in
ancient Egypt, which allow the reconstruction of its main features and
event fields. In fact, such analysis revealed that these fields
coincided with many virtually identical fields in the still popular
?Game of the Goose?, which are still in the same locations along the
track of this ?modern? game as on its direct predecessor.
Intriguingly, on some of the Senet boards, these signs were impressed
into the clay-like soft mass before firing, and they were impressed with
stamps. In other words, as unusual as the stamping on the Phaistos Disk
may have been for imprinting a text, stamping was in no way exceptional
for impressing signs on game-boards. Another clue that also points in
the game-board direction comes from the eight-leaved rosette which
occurs four times on the disc. That sign is frequently found on ancient
game-boards, including those found in the Royal Graves of Ur in Sumer
from about 2500 BCE ? centuries before the Phaistos Disc.

Within the framework of a game-board, the origins of the disc can also
be explained: the existence of game-boards in neighbouring
civilisations, specifically Egypt. There was a profound Egyptian
influence in Crete, so much so that several of the levels at Knossos are
dated by the Egyptian artefacts that were recovered in them. Even the
base of a 12th Dynasty Egyptian dignitary?s diorite statuette came to
light at Knossos, in a deposit from a couple of centuries before the
disc. That an Egyptian board game would have made its way to Crete, is
thus absolutely possible ? and likely, seeing what other Egyptian items
ended up in Crete.
So what is Senet? It is an Egyptian race game and may be the ancestor of
our modern backgammon. A lot of information about Senet has survived in
the form of actual game-boards, descriptions, and tomb paintings of
Senet players with captions. The oldest known representation of Senet is
in a painting from the tomb of Hesy (Third Dynasty, ca. 2686-2613 BC).
Edgar B. Pusch published a series of photographs and drawings with
descriptions of all known Senet boards (about forty) and Senet playing
scenes in papyri and murals. According to a scroll fragment that dates
to Graeco-Roman times (but seems to record a much earlier tradition),
the 30 squares on the Senet board represented the 30 days in the
standard ancient Egyptian calendar month, and more specifically the
month of Thoth, the first month of the Egyptian year. The first Senet
square was the ?House of Thoth?, and the festival of Thoth was indeed
celebrated on the first day of his month which was also New Year?s day.
The thirtieth square stood for the last day of the standardized month
?when the moon is invisible?. We note that the disc has 30 ?long fields?
on one side, 31 on the other. So, in this thinking, those theorists who
concluded that the disc was a calendar, were not far off.
Still, if it is a game-board, the correspondence with Senet cannot be
one on one. Furthermore, the most common version of the Senet board was
laid out as a rectangular grid of 3 x 10 squares ? and not a disc.
Though the Senet and other board-games have survived, the rules of the
game itself have not. As such, archaeologists have tried to guess how
the game was played and have come up with their own rules. No doubt, the
rules of the game changed in Antiquity as well; the rules of football
have changed several times over the past century. And some games have
transformed into others. In fact, the likely scenario that the Phaistos
Disc is a game-board, is the best interpretation we can give for the
artefact ? and it is the most logical. But it is probably impossible to
ever accurately decipher how this game was played. It seems clear that
it was adapted from similar Egyptian games, but like everything about
the Minoan culture, it must have been adapted and given a specific local
turn.
Still, we can look towards the Egyptian Senet to imagine how it could
possibly have been played. It is believed that for Senet, sticks were
thrown to see how many squares the piece could be moved forward. If you
threw a one, four or six, you got an extra turn. You could not land on
one of your own pieces. If you landed on the other player?s piece, you
switched places with them. However, you can?t switch with them if they
have two or more pieces in a row. If the other player has three or more
pieces in a row, you can?t pass them. Some squares were ?safe? squares
and some were ?danger? squares. The first player to get all of their
pieces off the board had won the game. Still, it is equally possible
that the game was purely ?chance?: that the roles of the dice or throw
of the sticks allowed progress on the track, until the centre of the
field was reached. And perhaps the Phaistos Disc could be used for both
a chance game, and a ?rule game?, like backgammon.
No doubt, the Phaistos game had slightly different rules and the pieces
that were placed on top, will most likely never be recovered ? unless
they are small artefacts found amongst the rubble of the palaces that
archaeologists may have misidentified and that may sit in display cases
or museum vaults, waiting for a proper identification. Senet and other
ancient Egyptian games are slowly being revived. Antiquities scholar
Peter Aleff has already recreated a Phaistos-like game, which have gone
in commercial production. As such, the mystery of the disc is not only
being recovered, but is beginning to entertain the 21st century world ?
four millennia after it was first created. For those who believed that
the disc was a time portal? they too seem to have been quite right,
though not in the manner they proposed.