Makrydakis George

[Makrydakis George @MakrydakisGeorg]

#MyXAnniversary

[Makrydakis George @MakrydakisGeorg]

"Glimps of colours"
South Crete
by Tomas Slovinsky
2025 Milky way photographer of the year

[Makrydakis George @MakrydakisGeorg]

#MyXAnniversary

[Greek Weather Report @XWReport]

Warmest Greek location is #Limenas_Hersonissou: 21℃
Time: 13:33:20

[Greek Weather Report @XWReport]

Warmest Greek location is #Ierapetra: 18℃
Time: 05:32:38

[Greek Weather Report @XWReport]

Warmest Greek location is #Paleochora: 17℃
Time: 05:31:14

[Greek Weather Report @XWReport]

Warmest Greek location is #Limenas_Hersonissou: 19℃
Time: 07:33:19

[Archaeo - Histories @archeohistories]

The mystery of the Phaistos Disc has been “solved by 99 percent” Gareth Owens, a linguist, archaeologist, and coordinator of the program Erasmus of Crete Technological Institute announced recently.

Owens has devoted thirty years to trying to solve the puzzle. The Minoan goddess of love, Astarte, who is linked to the Eastern goddess Ashtart, is the key figure that unlocks the mystery of the Phaistos Disc, Owens argues.

Phaistos Disc is a disk of fired clay from Minoan palace of Phaistos on the island of Crete, possibly dating to middle or late Minoan Bronze Age (2nd Millennium BC). It was 1908, and final dig was set to take place. Their funds for exploring the palace were running out. A tough moment for Pernier. Not least because, according to others around him, he was consumed with envy for his rival archaeologists and their sensational discoveries. Pernier needed his big break. No archives were found in the palace, nothing like the grand archives excavated at Knossos, in the island’s north, brimming with tablets of Linear A and Linear B; nor like the archives of Linear A tablets found at the Hagia Triada site, a settlement just to the south of, and contiguous with, Phaistos. At Phaistos there seemed to be no trace of writing at all. Though how could that be possible, Pernier asked himself: How could such an imposing and monumental palace, with its regal and grandiose staircases, contain only a few scattered inscriptions?

The disk is about 15cm in diameter and covered on both sides with a spiral of stamped symbols. The language imprinted on the face of the mysterious disk has never been fully decoded, and its symbols are part of no known alphabet either ancient or modern.

Some symbols, however, do bear resemblance to those found in Linear A and Linear B, which were the ancient languages of the Minoans. Linear A has not yet been decoded. Others are similar to hieroglyphs found in ancient Anatolian sites. Although the vast majority of scholars believe that the Phaistos Disc is authentic, a few archaeologists are unconvinced of its authenticity. Its purpose and meaning, and even its original geographical place of manufacture, remain disputed, making it one of the most famous mysteries of archaeology.

This unique object is now on display at the Archaeological Museum of Heraklion.

He, along with his team, is using evidence and strategies from linguistics and history to decode the mysterious disc. Owens says: “We are reading the Phaistos disc with the vocal values of Linear B and with the help of comparative linguistics, i.e. comparing with other relative languages from the Indo-European language family. Reading something, however, does not mean understanding.”

According to his data, the disc is a religious text to a “pregnant goddess” that takes shape in the face of Astarte, the goddess of love. “There is no doubt that we are talking about a religious text,” Owens reveals. “This is clear from a comparison made with other religious words from other inscriptions from the holy mountains of Crete. We have words that are exactly the same.”

The scholar adds that he suspects that “the Phaistos Disc is a hymn before Astarte, the goddess of love. Words such as those mentioned on the disc have been found on Minoan offerings.”

“As with today’s offerings, people pray when they are troubled, because of health problems or personal reasons,” he says. “Man doesn’t change, after all.”

The archaeologist says he believes that one side of the Phaistos Disc is actually dedicated to a pregnant mother goddess while the other is dedicated to the Minoan goddess Astarte.

On the importance of the figure, Owens noted that Minoan Astarte was the goddess of love, war, and the mountains and that her origin lies in the east. The goddess’s roots are “from ancient Mesopotamia, located in today’s Turkey; Astarte went to Cyprus and became Venus,” he explained.

© Tasos Kokkinidis / Greek Reporter

#archaeohistories

[Makrydakis George @MakrydakisGeorg]

Kokkini hani, Heraklion Crete

[Γιώργος Χαλκιαδακης @ghalkiadakis]

Καλή εβδομάδα!

[Γιώργος Χαλκιαδακης @ghalkiadakis]

Καλή εβδομάδα!

[Greek Weather Report @XWReport]

Warmest Greek location is #Agios_Nikolaos: 26℃
Time: 06:09:00

[Ghost of Hellas @ghostofhellas]

Boxing Children Fresco, Akrotiri, Thera (now Santorini), Greece, 1700 BC.

[Ghost of Hellas @ghostofhellas]

Blue Monkeys Fresco, Akrotiri, Thera (Santorini),1600 BC. Archaeologists had assumed an African species, but primatologists think they are Hanuman langurs, from the Indian subcontinent. This suggests the Aegean people may have had trade routes that reached over 2,500 miles