The Phaistos Disk Cracked?
Several years in the making, the Massey Twins  present an article which details the complete story of this exciting decipherment
effort.

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The Phaistos Disk, displayed above, was discovered in Crete on July 3rd, 1908. While the 20th Century saw the cracking of
Linear B, Ugaritic, and other orthographic systems, the Phaistos Disk eluded decipherment. Perhaps it will deciphered in the 21st
Century? The disk is thought to date from around 1700 BC. It is a roundish disk of clay, with symbols stamped into it. The text
consists of 61 words, 16 of which are accompanied by a mysterious "slash" mark. There are 45 different symbols occuring 241
times. The symbols portray recognizable objects like human figures and body parts, animals, weapons, and plants. Since the text
of the disk is so short, decipherment by the statistical cryptographic techniques employed by Michael Ventris in cracking Linear
B are impossible. In 1998, however, Dr. Keith A.J. Massey and his twin brother Rev. Kevin Massey discovered the secret they
believe provides the key to cracking the Phaistos Disk. Their work continued until now in perfecting their theory.
Another ancient writing system provides the key to reading the Phaistos Disk. At Byblos in modern day Lebanon, an advanced
culture flourished for centuries. There are many signs of contact between Ancient Crete and Byblos, including signs of
orthographic borrowing as pointed out by Victor Kenna in "The Stamp Seal, Byblos 6593" Kadmos 9 (1970) pp 93-96. Further,
examples of the yet undeciphered Linear A script have recently been found in Turkey, providing evidence of orthographic
relationships between Crete and Asia Minor. The Proto-Byblic script was used in the early part of the 2nd millenium BC, a time
contemporary with the supposed date of the Phaistos Disk. The underlying language of the Proto-Byblic script was Semitic. It is
a linear script which displays many identifiable objects, like weapons, human figures, and body parts. The Proto-Byblic script,
catalogued by Maurice Dunand in the 1940's bears striking resemblance to the symbols of the Phaistos Disk. The similarity of
one Proto-Byblic character to a Phaistos symbol was noted by Dunand in his book Byblia Grammata, Beyrouth, 1945 on p 90,
"Il est presque identique a celui du disque de Phaestos qu-Evans avait identifie avec une colombe." [ It is almost identical to
something from the disk of Phaistos which (Sir Arthur) Evans has identified with a dove.] Dunand did not pursue his
observation of the similarities, yet it is this Proto-Byblic script which is demonstrated by the Massey twins as being a closely
related orthographic system to the Phaistos Disk. Eduard Dhorme, one of the decipherers of Hittite, published the first
consonantal values for the Proto-Byblic script in SYRIA XXV 1946 in an article, "Dechiffrement des Inscriptions
Pseudo-Hieroglyphicques de Byblos." A comparison of these values with the symbols of the Phaistos Disk yielded consonantal
assignments for a surprising amount of the writing on the disk. It should be noted here that all previous attempts to decipher the
Phaistos Disk have been subjective attempts, assigning phonetic values to the characters with no true objective criteria. This is
therefore the first effort at cracking the disk by OBJECTIVE determinations. When these consonantal values are examined,
elements of an Hellenic language emerge in the text of the disk. Scholars had never known what the significence of a mysterious
"slash" on 16 of the words of the Phaistos Disk. We observed, based on our values, that each of these 16 words are numerals
counting commodities on the disk, similar to the majority of Linear B texts.