Drawing of face A
Example 1.:
The quadrature of the (calendar) circle.
Writers are divided about the numbers of characters on the disc. I have come across the totals: 241, 242 and 243, of which 242 characters is the most frequent opinon (i). 242 is written as 11 ² + 11 ². (indicators)
As something new I contemplate the two dotted dividers ahead of A01
and B01 as true characters, and the total amount is in my view 242 + 2 = 244
characters or 10 ² + 12 ². As it happens 244 is a multiple of 61, which is of
statistical significance, because the disc is divided into exactly 61 (5 ² + 6
²) signgroups.
Accordingly each signgroup holds an average of four
characters.
After this, the calendar prospect get into the picture, as six multiplied with 61 is equal to 366, corresponding to a leap year, and 365 - 244 = 121, thus the inscription is missing 11 ² characters. 10 ² +(11 ²)+ 12 ² = 365. This missing third part has no substantial presence in the inscription, but stands abbreviated (ii)
The visible inscription ,with its actual 244 characters, corresponds with two third of a year or eight months(iii), in which side A's now 124 characters statistically will make up four months of 31 days each, and side B's 120 are equal to four months of 30 days.
Through my method of investigation and its results as an entirety, which presumably reveals a Minoan calendar, I have gained the authority to claim those above data.
Three decisive openings given by the twenty-two stem-forms : The six initial
sign-groups of side A are in continuation of side B, giving part A and part B.
The
super-relation between the thirty-three pair of stems and the reduced stems "The
Gnomonical arrangement".
The
calendar takes form, when the two initial signs in front of A01 and B01 are
interpreted as part of the sign-material.
" In any cryptanalytic problem a single sure entry
solves the problem "(iv)
Drawing of face B
During one hundred years (3500 years?)
nothing occured.
Now suddently a handle appears in its smooth
surface.
Now when the probability has been made, that the signgroups are not inevitably words, but rather ideographic records of weekly functions, then new prospects of investigations emerge in relation to rituals drawn on murals and seals from Crete and Egypt, in contrast to the thoroughly tested standard of references to the linear inscriptions (v). Rites in conjunction with annual occurrences in nature form a whole study in itself far outside the scope of this essay.
To put an interpretation on pictures from the edge of historic time is very interesting, but also continually reflected by the imperfect documentation, though perhaps there will also be shown to be an analogy to something of common historical property, what concerns the imagery of the signs, or it will show that the pictorial message is a sealed chapter in an even higher extent, than e.g. the symbols of the never doubted Maya calendar.
Let me emphasize, that my superior objective with this investigation was to attain insight in the regularities, from which the sequences of signs were composed. In other words, I was not occupied with interpretations of the signs in themselves, but with an investigation of their interrelations and frequencies , which proved to be the right angel of approach.
The accomplishment of my decoding of the inscription implied a good number of disciplines, yet I am still not adept on calendar mathematic, and the continued unravelling of this calendar I shall leave to the readers, when a publication is effected in a way, proportional to the importance of my discovery, that everyone who has tried his hand at this enigmatic disc, amateurs as well as scholars, in this way shall get admission to my results. I trust, that someone among the readers will take inspiration from my method of investigation and its result, to place the last intricate pieces in this explicit riddle.
Example 3.:
| A09 | Sealstone (vi) |
This paper is a revised and expanded version of a little preprint, which
I had issued for about ten years back, but as I feel that my method of
investigation and its results deserves some more attention, I have, against my
personal interests, used furthermore time to demonstrate more perspectives of my
discovery.
1. These differing opinions are all about,
whether the only illegible character on the disc, the outlying sign in A08, is
obliterated by design, or failing that, if two signs were in its place. I accept
any sign , but I prefer a stemsign of stemgroup II, and the sign "P" is the best
match in my view.
2. Ottomar und Malte, Neuss: Der Diskos von
Phaistos 'Kryptogramm eines Kalenders- Interpretation eines Kulttextes aus
Kreta', Kurz und Gut heft 1 (Frankfurt 1975) calls attention to this fact: Face
B's 119 signs plus twice face A's 123 signs establish 365 signs in total. So too
L. Pomerance, The Phaistos Disc. An interpretation of Astronomical Symbols
(Göteborg 1976) 34. 'By turning the Disc eleven times and observing it twelve
times, the total annual count comes to 366 unit days...'. - Ergo: side A's 31
and side B's 30 signgroups compose two months in this opinion.
3. It is worth notice, that the glossary of
linear B contains eight words only, which are considered to be names of months.
John Chadwick, Documents in Mycenaean Greek (Cambridge 1956).
4. A quotation from Benjamin Schwartz, The
Phaistos Disc I. (JNES XVIII 1959), 108.
5. The main reason why this calendar was
overlooked, is in my opinion the different amounts of characters in the
signgroups (from two to seven), which have misled several generations of
researchers to believe, that the inscription was inevitably writing. Besides,
the statistical informations of initial, medial and final placing of the
characters, do not set themselves against the signgroups being words, until the
22 stemforms are defined/chosen.
6. Davis, Simon, The decipherment of the Minoan
Linear A and Pictographic Scripts (Johannesburg 1967), fig.97. This actual
quadripartited sealstone can be seen as an ibex, partial hidden behind a bush
(only its horn visible), and a startled bird (heliacal rising of Venus?). The
seal (impression?) has some analogy with the signgroup A09 .
7. Ideograph Written or printed character that symbolizes the idea of a thing without indicating the sounds that make up the word. (The Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English).
" You cannot change the eternal circles of the celestial bodies; but the grammar of an extinct language you can easily make up "
© Ole Hagen, 1998 - 26 - 08 hagen@gvdnet.dk
