Phaestos was an ancient city on the island of Crete. It was
inhabited from about 4000 BC. The area upon which Phaestos stood
was the site where a curious clay disk, containing a
sophisticated pictographic writing, was discovered. It was the
Phaestos Disk, an archaeological find, dating from about 1700
BC. The first moveable type! Its purpose and meaning, and even
its original geographical place of manufacture, remain disputed,
making it one of the most famous mysteries of archaeology. An
Italian archaeologist Luigi Pernier discovered this remarkably
intact “dish” (about 15 cm in diameter and uniformly just over 1
cm thick) in the basement of the Minoan palace site of Phaestos
during an excavation on July 3, 1908. The inscription was made
by pressing pre-formed hieroglyphic “seals” into the soft clay,
in a clockwise sequence spiralling towards the disk’s center. It
was then baked at high temperature. There are a total of 241
figures on the disc. Many of the 48 different glyphs represent
easily identifiable eve