February 2018 : new discoveries on the record of Phaestos ...

 

the linguist Gareth Owens makes once more "The voice of the Phaistos record" heard in a lecture given at the National Hellenic Research Foundation (NHRF), in collaboration with the Technological Educational Institute (TEI) of Crete.

 

"He has 61 words on both sides and 18 lines in the form of a rhythm sonnet, six words speak of the light and six words speak of the fading light.Three words speak of the pregnant goddess and ten others of the goddess with different adjectives "

"Words and an entire sentence from the Phaistos record have also been found in other Minoan religious syllabic inscriptions, both in the Arkalochori Cave and on the Yuchtas Hill beside Archanes and Knossos. nuns have been found with votive offerings, which means that the Minoan words associated with Minoan votive offerings are related to both religion and health.

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"Therefore, it can be seen in a logical context, that is, the Disc of Phaistos is a Minoan religious syllabic inscription read in epigraphic continuity and related to almost equivalent texts that are associated with the holy places and votive offerings, that is, wishes, prayers, and especially health, "Dr. Owens noted.

 

We believe that we can now read 99% of the Phaistos Disk with the phonetic values ​​of the Mycenaean Linear B script. We have a total of 242 printed signs, that is, syllables of letters, with 45 different signs. Now is the time to take the next step toward understanding

 

"We can now say what more than half of the words on the disc mean" and how, for 10% of the 61 words "we have linguistic clues as to their meaning" without knowing exactly what they mean. "Perhaps the voice of a Minoan sappho or hypatia speaks of Astarte, the goddess of love, of Minoan Crete.The disc contains 18 rhymes with a poetic alliteration. to be lines like a Shakespeare sonnet, or perhaps something like Cretan mantinades? "

 

This enigma began in 1908 when this mysterious, 4000-year-old disc was discovered in Crete in the palace of the now-defunct city of Phaistos. One hundred years later, no one had yet succeeded in translating the mysterious language written on the record dating back to 1700 BC. Two language specialists think they have finally solved the riddle.

 

For six years, Gareth Owens, a linguistics researcher at the Cretan Institute of Technology and John Coleman, a professor of phonetics at Oxford, studied what they call "the first Minoan CD-ROM.

 

According to the conclusions of the time of the two researchers, this disc would actually be a text of prayer to the goddess mother, principal deity of the Minoan civilization. However, as the site Archeology News Network reminds us, many interpretations have been made about this disc. The problem: there are only 241 signs engraved on both sides, "which represents a very short text and thus prevents to be able to invalidate or confirm any proposal". In addition, the record of Phaistos shows a writing system never found in excavations Minoan sites, or even elsewhere. According to the interpretation of the two linguists, a word comes up several times on both sides, that of "mother". The first side of the disc speaks of a woman expecting a child, the second would pay homage to a woman who has just been a mother. Gareth Owens and John Coleman relied on earlier studies of Cretan hieroglyphs, Linear A, a Minoan writing system, and Linear B, a Mycenaean writing system, to decipher it:

"The existence of the mother goddess was assumed for a century by what we know of the Minoan religion, yet it had to be proven in the texts," said Owens.

 

Gareth Owens says his discovery translates "nearly 90%" of the text on the disc.

 

 

The Phaestos disc is currently on display at the Heraklio Museum, one of the most beautiful museums in Europe.

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