The Phaistos Disc is a disc of fired clay from the Greek island of Crete, dating possibly from the middle or late Minoan Bronze Age (second millennium BC). It bears a text on both sides in an unknown script and language, and its purpose and original place of manufacture remain disputed. Discovered in 1908 by the Italian archaeologist Luigi Pernier, the disc is made of fine-grained clay, intentionally and properly fired, and is approximately cylindrical with a diameter of around 16 centimetres (6.3 inches) and a thickness of almost 2 centimetres (0.79 inches), with rounded edges. The disc is an early example of movable-type printing, with the embossed signs that comprise its inscription resulting from separate stamps that were pressed into the soft clay before firing. It has captured the imagination of amateur and professional palaeographers, and many attempts have been made to decipher the text, which comprises 241 occurrences of 45 distinct signs. The Phaistos Disc is now on display at the Heraklion Archaeological Museum on Crete.Artefact credit: unknown; photographed by C messier; edited by Bammesk
Side A
Side B
