________________
W
THE ALPHABET It is still premature in a general book of the kind of the present manual to discuss in detail the far-reaching conclusions of Hrozný's attempted decipherment.
It is an open question whether the "eteo-Cretan" inscriptions from Praisos, written in the Greek alphabet but in an unknown language, are in ancient Cretan; some scholars hold the opinion that they are composed in an Indo-European speech; in this case they cannot be connected with the ancient Cretan tongue. Racially, the ancient Cretans seem to have belonged to the Mediterranean type; they were dolichocephalic (longheaded). "brunet," of short stature.
The PHAISTOS Disc
Finally, mention must be made of the Phaistos-disc (Fig. 40), which is not only the most remarkable of all inscriptions found in Crete, but also the first known stamped object of its kind. It was found on the 3rd July, 1908, and belongs perhaps to about 1700 B.C. It is an irregularly circular terra-cotta tablet, about 6-7 inches in diameter, with characters impressed by
means of separate stamps and printed on both sides of the disc, along a spiral line dividing the face of the disc into five coils; these are sub-divided, by vertical lines, into groups of symbols which may represent words
vedea or sentences. The characters are highly pictorial but they show no relationship with Cretan pictographs, except for a few casual resemblances. The signs number 241 in all; 123 (divided into 31 groups) on one face of the tablet, and
Fig. 40-A and B The Phaistos disc
orci.
The
Aho
Dove
