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XIV. 



AN ATTEMPT TO DETERMINE THE CONTENTS OF THE 

 INSCRIPTION ON THE PHAESTOS DISC. 



By R. a. S. MACALISTER. 



Plate XXXVIII. 



Read Decembek 9, 1912. Published January 20, 1913. 



The Phaestos Disc is so well known that I need not do more than remind the 

 Academy that it was found in the excavation of the palace of Phaestos in 

 Crete, and is assigned to the period known as Middle Miaoan III. It is a 

 circular tablet of terracotta, 15'8-16'5 cm. in diameter. On each face is a 

 spiral band of four coils, indicated by a roughly drawn meandering line ; and 

 an inscription in some form of picture-writing is printed on this band. I use 

 the word 'printed' advisedly; for not the least interesting feature of the disc is 

 the fact that the characters have been impressed, one by one, from dies, 

 probably resembling those used by bookbinders. I suppose it is the oldest 

 example of printing with movable types in the world. 



Illustrations of the disc will be found, intei- alia, in connexion with 

 articles upon it in Ausonia, vol. iii, p. 255 ; the Revue arcMologiqiie, ser. iv, 

 vol. XV, p. 1 ; Rene Dussaud, Les civilizations pr^helldniques, pp. 292, 293 ; 

 Eendiconti della Reale Accademia dei lA/ncei, ser. v, vol. xvii, p. 642 ; vol. xviii, 

 p. 297 ; Evans, Scripta Minoa, vol. i, pp. 22-28, 273-293. On one face of 

 the disc, which I call face I (though in previous publications it is marked B), 

 there are 119 signs; on the other face, here called face II (previously lettered 

 A), there are 123. They are divided into what appear to be word-groups, 

 30 in number on face I and 31 on face II, by lines cutting across the 

 spiral bands at right-angles. These word-groups contain from two to seven 

 characters each. 



There are forty-five different characters employed. It is likely, therefore, 

 from the largeness of this number that we have to deal with a syllabary 

 rather than an alphabet; and we must be prepared to find that hovering 

 between sense and sound which is characteristic of syllabaries — ^just as when 

 a schoolboy jester writes " 8 pot8oes," where he employs the symbol 8 in the 

 first case for its se7ise, in the second for its soimd. 



I propose in the following discussion to associate a letter with each of these 

 forty-five cliaracters ; it being understood that the letter is purely an algebraical 



