Re: Phaistos disk (was: boustrophedon)

|  > >>> My opinion is that it's a game board.

        I actually like that one. For many Egyptian board games, each square
had some special religious meaning (like the senet board) (or at least we
think they did). Old North European art loved using the spiral as a motif.
Phaistos is about half way between those areas. Perhaps someone was toying
with an idea to keep his children, or himself, busy in the evenings.

        Otherwise, for years, I've always had this strange notion that one
day a potter's child or apprentice got bored and decided to play with the
decorative stamps. S/He was amused with the work, and decided to throw it in
the kiln with the regular work.
        Millennia later, books are written trying to figure out the product
of one person's half hour of boredom.

        From what I've read, the characters on the disk are all stamped in,
not hand-written in. I think this is why I've always thought of someone
playing with the potter's stamps.

        However, if I recall correctly, all the images are similar to the
hieroglyphs/pictures which Linear A & B characters are believed to be
derived from. Unfortunately, the writing does not directly correspond to
either script, or anything Greek-like.

        Mike

______________________________________
Mike Karapcik   *       Tampa, FL
Network Analyst *       USF campus
H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Research Center
ConlangCode: v1.1 CIT !h+ !u cG:M:R:S:G a+ y n30:3
B+++/R:Wic A+ E+ N1 Is/d K ia-:+ p-- s- m o P S----

Reply