Athena Review Image Archive ™
	The Phaistos disk  Herakleion Museum (photo: Athena Review).
	The Phaistos disk is stamped on both sides with a hieroglyphic script that is still undeciphered.   The 242 figures were stamped with sealstones on both sides of the disk starting from the edge and leading towards the center. The Phaistos Disk, whose content may be literary or ceremonial, probably dates from the Middle Minoan IIB period (17th century BC). The proto-syllabic script upon the Phaistos Disk is distinctive and may have originated outside of Crete. Some of its symbols (such as a soldier wearing a crested helmet) seem foreign to Minoan culture. Resemblances have been seen with a roughly contemporary Hittite hieroglyphic script from Turkey, which was used for Luvian, an Indo-European language (Duhoux 1977). .
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