I am also confused as to why it sounded like she said gold was a very hard metal. Perhaps some small words didn't get picked up by the mic; I noticed her mic was cutting off her words a lot. Maybe she said something like that they stamped the symbols '[in] gold, [with] a very hard metal', and the mic just didn't pick up the 'in' and 'with' 🤔
We should really take notice of how she speaks about "what we know". She speaks like a scientist. No claims, no agenda.... just the facts and logical inferences. Compare her style to a pseudoscience type- they leap to conclusions. They emphasize only what they think 'proves' their interpretation. One side works from what they know with qualifications and exceptions. One side starts from what they hope and sells it. Great interview DM!
I managed to listen until she described gold as a very, very hard metal. IMHO the disc could be a map of the universe showing where other humanoid species are to be found and what minerals can be found on the planets they inhabit, along with planets which just contain useful minerals.
Dating an object from the building it was found in is not 'Scientific', nor is it likely to be at all accurate. I have family heirlooms from my Dads side of the family that date back literally hundreds of years. Would a future Archeologist from 3222 date them as 'Created in 2022' just because they were all found 'In my House'? See how ridiculous that illogical and inaccurate method of dating objects is? IMO, Dating by 'Association' with buildings or other artifacts found near by is used far too often, and far too freely by Archeologists! If Archeologists require information about stone, ask a 'Stone Mason', information about Wood ask a 'Carpenter', information about Pottery, ask a 'Potter', etc. etc. In the past, Archeologists have often bestowed upon themselves the 'Misguided and inaccurate Ability' to identify, review and date a vast array of objects all of which have not fallen within their field of expertise at all. For example, three distinctly different styles of 'Stone Work' found in Peru, all three 'Attributed' by Academia in School Text Books to 'The Incas'. The same can be said of the Egyptians, creating their most amazing and biggest objects at the 'Beginning of their civilization, then 'apparently' just forgetting the technologies used a mere 1000 years later. These 'Academic' dating's and assignments are not logical, scientific or probably even the Truth.
@@polygonalmasonary This is very true, but in the absence of any other information this is the best starting point. If you're dating it any other way you're simply guessing unless you have other similar things from other time periods to compare. If the object is found with other objects and you have no other examples of said object which you can point to other time periods the logical conclusion is it's from the same time period. That doesn't mean you're right, but just means you have no other possible conclusions to draw. The fact is this is perfectly logical. What would be illogical is to draw any other conclusion. People who don't understand the scientific process generally think scientists assert that they're correct without question which is false. A scientist simply draws the most logical conclusion based on the available evidence. So, please explain how you would approach dating an object found with other objects when you have no other evidence. Perhaps you would just leave it undated, call it a mystery and pontificate over how it could be made by aliens?
I'd never heard of the disk before so, as an appreciator of interesting ancient artifacts, it was a special pleasure to hear this interview with Dr. Balducci. Thanks.
Honestly this video just made my day. Growing up my grandma would always tell me stories about our family back on crete (plaka in chania to be specific), combine that with being a huge fan of history equals the minoans and what little we do know of them always being very important to me to understand in my free time. I remember as a little kid i came up with a theory that the phaistos disk was actually a ritual calendar lol, oh how much i had to learn. Shoutout to fellow venetian gal Giorgia too for her insight, she's awesome!
Russian professor Grinevich is first man on earth,who has managed to seccessfully translate Phaistos disc.And can you guess what did he find?A truth,that has indicated,that Phaistos disc was made by the slavic people.Everyone else lies about theirs 'translation'of the Phaistos disc,but not Grinevich.
Enjoyable thank you. How wonderful it must be to study archaeology in Venice. I visited Knossos as a young man and remember they had what they said is the oldest known theatre and so I stood on the stage area and recited some Shakespeare. I know the Theatre of Dionysus makes the same claim but the theatre of Knossos is 1000 years older although considerably smaller and only seats around 400 people. I'd planned to return to Crete in 2020 for the first time in 30 years but sadly I missed out for obvious reasons and don't imagine I'll ever visit there again now or anywhere else for that matter. It's a beautiful island and I highly recommend visiting as there are many beautiful sites to see as well as beaches and caves to explore. Although I'm sure it has changed a great deal, I'd recommend visiting late in the year as it is still warm but not so hot you can not explore the ruins and there will be far fewer tourists.
I was there about 30 years ago too. It would be around late November and there was a downpour that lasted for ten whole days. It was like being in a non stop monsoon, lol. Never did manage to get back there since.
Thank you for all your efforts in sharing your knowledge. It's unfortunate that other pseudoscience channels get millions of subscribers and yours doesn't, yet. Your videos are good and valuable for education. I appreciate your efforts and hope you understand what help you are giving future learning generations. My son is only 3, but he'll be learning from your videos soon if I have anything to say about it. 👍🖖👋
@@WorldofAntiquity Professor, are the translations of Homer, that center on the rhyme, science or pseudo-science? Asking for a friend. He's an academic historian. Foundation of his work, if you want.
Dr Giorgia has a musical cadence I could listen to for hours. In my very scientific opinion, it's clearly the world's first record album. The "symbols" are the lyrics. That is why some words are repeated. It's the chorus!
The moveable type bit is by far the most interesting aspect of this artifact. It would seem a little excessive to make all the signs ONLY for creating this object, so maybe more artifacts with similar imprints will surface. Either way, the linear A (and earlier) cultures of Crete are very interesting indeed.
If it did pan out that there were more such artifacts made from movable type it would make an already super impressive ancient civilisation even more so. It's enough to make you wonder what modern Europe would have been like if Santorini had never erupted and brought them so low.
@World of Antiquities You never disappoint and the level of learning from your video discussions is phenomenal. I applaud you and thank you for sharing your knowledge and wisdom with us!
Fascinating, as you say Dr. Miano! I bought a brass copy of this disk on my first trip to Greece in the 1970's, which included Crete. The copy had a hole and was strung on a leather thong. I've moved several times and don't know where this souvenir is. It was too large and heavy to be used on a keychain [except for a hotel, that is]. About the repetition being religious, there is a second possibility, political hagiography of the monarch. Minos, by the Grace of Zeus, ruler of the sea, ruler of Knossos, Ruler of Phaistos, ruler of the Helenes, etc. She is right, though, that without more examples no scientifically valid conclusion even rises to the level of hypothesis, remaining just a notion. Keep up the great work!
Did he ever tell you that Phaistos Disc was translated by the russian professor Grinevich?And that Phaistos Disc is made by the slavs and not greeks,in times of the 5500BC when greeks didn't even existed.I bet he didn't,and i bet that he still talks about Phaistos Disc as 'greek phaistos disc',who's mysterious writings are still untranslated after 48 years after it was dug up.
I really appreciate this video. I had heard of the disk in passing previously, but this was an excellent opportunity to really learn something about it. Thank you David!
This series is awesome, gone through several of em the last days even in brakes of shifts. Very very interesting looking forward for more cuz most of them where just unknown for me. Ancient people where just awesome ❤️
An excellent interchange between two researchers of past civlizations. Dr Baldacci shows us how archaeologists are really like detectives who try to unearth facts to allow us to fill in the dotted lines of what really happened all those thousands of years ago. What I see from the disk is it may have been a sort of baked clay history book; I believe it was a clay book that may have been made to inform future generations of what had happened in the Minoan culture to the time it was made. Was it a learning tool?
I’ve just come back from a holiday in Crete and visiting the Heraklion Archaeological Museum where the Phaistos Disk is on display. During the visit I walked around the disk and had a ‘Eureka moment’ when I glanced up and noticed a wall fresco in one of the other displays. The wall fresco showed several wave swirls which appear to ‘spin’ or ‘turn’ in the same anti-clockwise direction as the hieroglyphs on the Phaistos Disk. It could suggest a connection between the undeciphered text on the disk and the sea, which would be consistent with the marine themes seen in Minoan art and decoration, and the maritime empire that the Minoan civilisation had.
If partial translations of the hieroglyphs are correct (such as by Owens) that the disk shows a religious text to a pregnant or mother goddess, then it would seem likely that the swirl-like pattern of the hieroglyphs might indicate a religious text to a sea goddess too. The only Eastern Mediterranean goddess I know that is both a pregnant or mother goddess, and a sea goddess is Asherah. This conclusion is also consistent with an earlier form of Greek mythology being practiced as Asherah is the ‘Queen of the Gods’ which in her shorten name form would be Shera or Hera. Furthermore, one of the symbols of Asherah is the palm tree and if you look at Minoan art there are several palms depicted suggesting again a possible connection with the goddess. Regarding the language of the hieroglyphs I see similarities with some of the undeciphered Indus valley civilisation hieroglyphs (e.g. the upright fish symbol). These similarities are increased when you also consider the uniform city plans with numerous small rooms of each civilisation, the municipal water supply systems, the common worship or importance of the bull, the lack of significant fortifications around cities, the maritime nature of each civilisation, etc. Taken together these geographical similarities could suggest the Cretan hieroglyphs represent an early form of an Indo-European language.
Congrats on your trip, and though it was awhile ago, I was also continually enchanted w/ Crete and the Greek isles in general. BTW, aside from whatever the disk's ultimate 'meaning', am still impressed that they already knew about 'moveable type' over 3,000 years ago!
Great video as always! Had read about the disk a few times before back in University, but always assumed it was like in Linear A or Cretan Hyroglyphs. But to know it's in a different script completely, and that all these writing systems (Cretan Hyroglyphs, Linear A and the Phaistos Disk one) were pretty much being used at the same time, really makes you think about how the Minoans related to writing. So sad we can't read any of it though
Fascinating subject, I like your approach Professor Miano. Would be interesting to see a video from your channel about prehistoric non indoeuropean lenguages. Great channel, cheers!
Thank you so much for your guest! I’ve always wondered the link between Linear A and linear b and why one couldn’t be deciphered with the other. Very informative thank you.
Very interesting video! Thanks for sharing your search, and Giorgia is so knowledgeable! I bought a miniature pin (a kind of broche) of this disk in Greece and dove into the meaning of it today. I hope it will be translated some day. I'm wearing the pin to work next week, great conversation starter!
This was great! More ancient artifacts please! 👍 I also like floor plans with artist renderings of ancient buildings 👍 7 Wonders of the Ancient World series?🤔
Being a center of trade, who is to say where it really came from and who really made it.? My first thought was ; Is that a boomerang? So, wish I knew more. What a fascinating field to be educated in. Thanks World of Antiquity for bringing this artifact to us.
my thoughts were: there is a definite beginning, the center of the spiral, and proceeds outward. And after she talked about the repetitions, I thought of family names and how they are reused generation after generation. So, is this a lineage, he asks rhetorically?
@@DocBree13 One way to decide which direction it was written would be to see if at one end of the strip the characters are crammed together, if the printer was running out of space - or spread out, if there was too much.
It would be fascinating to know the language they spoke and might give us an insight to pre indo European languages spoken in Europe by the Neolithic near eastern farmers.
When I first saw an image of this disk, the Maltese tal-Qadi stone fragment came to mind. It would be interesting to examine whether the temple builder culture of the Maltese islands is related in any way to the Cretan, Minoan, and other related cultures in the Eastern Mediterranean. As far as multi-lingual perspectives are concerned, this is very valid when it comes to Mediterranean Islands and can be seen throughout history. Taking the Maltese context as an example, archeological evidence suggests that at the crossroads of the BC/AD Millenium, Phoenician, Greek, and Latin (Roman) were all in use locally. Going forward a thousand years, we again find Latin, Greek, and Arabic in Sicily and Malta, being written/spoken during the same period. Coming forward another odd millennium, one finds Maltese, English, and Italian being used together. It is hence highly probable that this phenomenon of multi-culturalism or at least multi-linguistic tendencies were also present in Crete and elsewhere.
I have seen it in person, it’s nice and disk like. This museum has many lovely artifacts. Crete is awesome. The archeological museum in Athens has a nice machinisme you should go see. Btw I have been really enjoying your videos. I discovered your channel last week. Thanks for the interesting content. I’m looking forward to watching more of your videos.
Regarding the Minoan language: The oldest language was a pictographic writing system developed around 2000 BCE known as the Cretan hieroglyphs. Another group of signs was identified as Linear A, developed around 1700 BCE. While Cretan hieroglyphs have a pictorial appearance, Linear A has a linear appearance. It has been speculated that both Cretan hieroglyphs and Linear A represent the same language. Minoan civilization had trade contacts with the advanced Middle Eastern civilizations, with Egypt being the most influential. It is likely that the earliest Minoan writing (Cretan hieroglyphs) was modelled after the Middle Kingdom Egyptian hieroglyphs. Although superficially indeed similar to Egyptian symbols, Cretan Hieroglyphs are clearly distinct in both form and phonetic value. Yet the biggest difference lies in the underlying system itself. Egyptian Hieroglyphs are part of a complex writing system, where most signs have more than one possible reading, dependent on context (similarly to the Japanese Kanji characters). Signs could have both a phonetic (single consonant or syllable) value or an ideogrammatic (word) reading, but could even be utilized as phonetic complements or logograms (a written character that represents a word or phrase, like in Chinese), “reinforcing” the reading of words they were attached to. As many of these duplicities could only be interpreted by a native speaker of Old Egyptian, this system was very difficult to utilize for speakers of foreign languages. Also, the Egyptian system had over 800 different signs, which is an extremely large inventory of symbols compared to Cretan Hieroglyphs (roughly 85 or so different signs are known). Linear A signs identified ranges from 77 to 85 according to different scholars, suggesting that this was a syllabic writing system. Minoan scribes might have took the concept of writing from Egypt, creating their own signs and simplifying the system so that it became almost fully phonetic. Such a low number of individual characters is uncharacteristic of the complex writing systems of the ancient Near East, but it is fully compatible with a simple syllabary (reminiscent of the modern Japanese Hiragana or Katakana writing). Thus, some assume that Cretan Hieroglyphs, similarly to all later Aegean writing systems, were already syllabic in nature. Other scholars see Semitic influences / a relationship to Mesopotamian writings in the Minoan language, but these depend solely on Semitic loanwords, such as “sesame”, a word that appears in both Linear A and B (and also in ENGLISH). One thing is clear: After the rebuilding of the palatial complexes on Crete (with the advent of the so-called “New Palace Period”) the Hieroglyphic script fell out of regular use. A new script has taken its place, called Linear A. The relationship of Linear A and Hieroglyphics is probably comparable to the relation between Egyptian Hieroglyphic and Hieratic/Demotic script. Current available evidence suggests that the underlying system remained essentially the same; it is the shape of signs that suffered profound change due to graphical simplification. Linear A was used much more extensively than Hieroglyphs. Hundreds of clay tablets, inscribed vessels, statues, altarstones and even jewelery testifies its daily use. The triumph of Linear A is also striking in a geographical sense: Wherever Cretan traders went, Linear A followed. Perhaps due to the simplicity of the syllabary, it quickly spread to other regions surrounding Crete. While regularly used on many Aegean islands, sporadic finds suggest that it also reached the Greek mainland as well as the island of Cyprus and the Syrian coast.
At first Giorgia seems to be reading from a script, but later it just seems like she actually speaks that way and it's more like she's sometimes quoting things she's written herself. I'm curios about which stamps are known from Linear B. A bigger question is: How many ancient scripts are undeciphered? Besides the Minoan ones there's Harappan, and I imagine there are quite a few texts in known scripts like Egyptian, Mayan and Sumerian which defy understanding. I'm in love with Dr. Balducci. Please shoot me.
Very interesting presentation… should I say historically enlightening. Bravo! It would be very interesting to match (if possible) the clay content to a particular site… and even more helpful if a cache of matching metal stamps were discovered… the more complete a set of stamps; the better. As an after thought… in finding out the source of the clay… and where it was made… archaeologists may indeed find a cache of the stamps/tools used to impress the inscription. Probably whimsical thinking on my part… 😀
@@WorldofAntiquity Dr Miano, I know this is off topic relative to this video, but what do you think about Jean-Pierre Houdin’s internal ramp theory? Personally, I think it makes a lot of sense. What convinced me was when I read about the Grand Gallery being a mechanism to lift the Granite Blocks that seal the Kings Chamber. I just feel like you’re the most sensible and knowledgeable historian I’ve ever come across so I’d like to know if you agree with the theory or not.
It looks like a game to me. I've got a replica which I purchased in Greece about 40 years ago because I was mesmerized by it. It's hung in all my homes since. One day I hope to learn what it is.
I think the disc is a game board. Some symbols are on other ancient games such as the Royal Game of Ur. I think probably each of the symbols has a meaning to what to do with game pieces from perhaps die or throwing sticks. Stamping letters really was unknown back then. But stamping GAME BOARDS was common.
11:57 Or, a third option, a legal document: "Mr. A says that... Mr. B says that... Mr. A replies that... Mr. B replies that... Mr. A and Mr. B not in agreement..., etc".
I can never get enough info about the Phaistos disk. Couldn’t the repetitive combinations simply be analogous to articles such as “the?” It seems like it may be jumping to a conclusion to assume they likely represent incantations. Great interview!
Dr Miano, I am of Greek and Cypriot heritage and absolutely love your channel as it’s helped me gain a greater appreciation for my roots. Have you seen a TH-camr named William Krapek who has a series of videos claiming to have cracked not only the Phaistos disc but apparently Linear A as well. I’d be grateful if you’d take a look at his content and respond as I tremendously respect your opinion and scholarship.
Fascinating. I was always mesmerized by the Minoan civilization, was waiting for a video on that topic form you Also, I binged watched all your “busting” videos, and now I moved to other series. Hope you get invited to Joe Rogan or smthng, I feel like boom in popularity of “alternative history”, is at least partially caused by miserable answers of unprepared Michael Shermer, during debates with Hancock. I love to imagine, how different it would have gone, If you were on Michales place I used to like Hancock, but then realized he is more of a fiction writer, rather than a scholar. Moreover a very dogmatic one. Scientific exploration of history, is much more complicated and requires more effort, but in the end much more rewarding. Love your work!
Sadly, I think pseudoarcheology would be flourishing even without Hancock or Shermer’s less-than-stellar performance. It’s just one branch of a very healthy tree that has taken root, and in the current anti-science environment, it will be extremely difficult to thwart it.
@@DocBree13 Yep, it seems to be connected. In my personal circles, some people (well educated, family, good jobs) are into easily (at least in my mind) disproven conspiracy theories. No logic, just "feelings".
Someone obviously went to a LOT of effort to create 45 different stamps that made the impressions. I would not think that this was done just for this one object. My guess is that someone needed those stamps to make it easier for them to make several items using those 45 patterns. Those stamps would be most likely from fired clay - there is no basis for saying they were metal (or gold) unless you found one. Also, there is no basis for saying that this was religious. It could be wise sayings, laws, song lyrics, recipes, public notices etc. I don't like when anything that is unknown is immediately labeled "religious" or "ceremonial". Good video - enjoyed it. p.s. liked and subscribed
I saw the disc on display at the museum in Irakleo on Crete a few years back. There's so much interesting stuff from what we call the "Minoans" to be seen and yet-to-be understood. Sadly, unlike other Bronze Age societies, the "Minoans" didn't use their writing system all that much so there's not much of their writing preserved (that we've yet discovered), much less any "Rosetta Stone"-like mutilingual texts in already deciphered languages (not even Linear B-written Bronze-Age Greek).
One of the things that's always puzzled me was the invention of the moveable type printing press. I try hard to realize that everything looks obvious post hoc, but given how people were using metal stamps for ages, 1436 in Europe seems waaaaay over due.
Of course there was printing by the Chinese and the Koreans long before Gutenberg but even in Europe 250 years before Gutenberg in the north eastern Italian town of Cividale del Friuli -once the capital of the influential ecclesiastical state of Aquileia(Patriarchate)there is a silver altarpiece that has letters punched into it by individual letter punches-obviously they knew the principle behind printing.
It should also be added that Babylonains (of course) showed evidence of using moveable type for inscriptions as well. To quote Irving Finkel and Jonathan Tayler in their book, "Cuneiform", The British Museum, 2015, p.p. 15--16: "Mud bricks were an opportunity too good to miss. From around 2300 BC, scribes were put to work writing out royal names and titles on uncountable building blocks. Then somebody had a bright idea: a true labour-saving device. Signs that made up the king's inscription could be cut in reverse on a block and used to stamp bricks (fig. 5). This first kind of printing went on for almost two thousand years. Remarkably, its use was reserved for mundane bricks, and no other purpose. Other types of text were not required in large numbers and there may also have been cultural resistance to the use of stamping for learned texts. In a few stamped examples some signs are upside down. The best explanation is perhaps that individually mounted wedge signs have been carelessly replaced in a matrix after cleaning out a stamp. Here we would have not only printing, but even moveable type, two thousand years before Gutenberg!"
One would think with some of the technology available in Greece and Rome, one would think that such technology would have been developed earlier. There were mechanical, water driven automatic doors created in Ancient Greece. Considering the Antikythera Mechanism, they obviously had the ability to make complex metal mechanical devices and considering the fact that a printing press is mostly wood with some metal parts, one would expect a printing press to have developed earlier. I can only think that there just weren’t enough people who read back then to justify it. My guess is that they increases in education and reading is what drove the development of the printing press as part of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment.
@@keirfarnum6811 You're guess isn't correct. Literacy was fairly common in Rome; there were even book vendors. The key lies in the technology that is used for putting symbols on. In particular, the Romans, and the Egyptians before them, used papyrus. When Rome conquered Egypt, they got control of papyrus production and trade. Papyrus doesn't have the absorbency nor flexibility of paper, which was invented in China (along with wood-block printing). The real answer is that Greece and Rome didn't have paper! When the Roman empire declined, access to papyrus declined and literacy didn't have a chance to spread throughout Europe. In the middle ages in Europe, vellum was used. Books printed on vellum were insanely expensive; dozens of animal skins are required to make a book! To make a long story short, the Arabs got paper from the Chinese, and then the Europeans got it from the Arabs. It wasn't long after that that the Gutenberg press arrived in Europe in the early 1400s triggering the Enlightenment. There are other factors involved in triggering the Enlightenment as well, but paper was necessary. So printing technology (even with moveable type) without the co-technology of paper doesn't go so far. There is an excellent NOVA episode, "A to Z, Part 2, How Writing Changed the World" which goes through all this in detail. If you can find it somewhere, it is an absolutely amazing and eye-opening documentary. (It can be found as a torrent, btw.)
@@Blitnock Sometimes some small aspect of a culture can determine the development of that culture in a big way-I remember the English celebrity Steven Fry in his quiz program "Qi" discussing how the beverage preferences of two different cultures influenced their technology :-the Chinese liked drinking tea so developed ceramic and porcelain production while the Mediterranean world liked wine so invented and developed glass technology-in the Middle Ages in Europe someone invented reading glasses effectively doubling the creative life of scholars and inventors -later glass scientific instruments were invented allowing many scientific discoveries in those fields requiring these things -ultimately the telescope which enabled a host of astronomical discoveries and changed the world view of a civilisation.One could make the same arguments for religious beliefs of a culture as well -if you don't allow graven images and statues the chances are you will never develop the art and technology of statue making.I think even musical tastes can determine things -the west has always had keyboard instruments even in ancient Greece and Rome there were hydraulic organs.This continued in the Middle Ages with the massive monumental church organs with all their sound effects produced from a keyboard.First harpsichord and then piano invented.:Then the typewriter -same sort of principle-ultimately the computer-the basic principle behind each one of these products is basically the same -press a key and you get a certain effect.
Another possibility is that it is not written language, but a guide for maritime traders. Starting in the center, or home, each set of glyphs could represent the goods and services found on a particular island along a sequential trade route. Many of the glyphs appear to be trade items, such as wheat, grapes ingots etc. Others could represent temples, slaves and so on. A trader could use disc to plan outward and inbound trade voyages.
Why not feature these experts' on thumbnail and title? At least their names. I think I figured it out, it'd decrease clicks because most people are not looking for interviews when browsing. But still I believe it is doing them injustice as they are the main contributor of these videos. Please consider.
Thank you Dr. Baldacci and Miano; having a researcher talk about the topic was a huge treat. 6:24 Gold is a very soft metal; unless alloy.
I am also confused as to why it sounded like she said gold was a very hard metal. Perhaps some small words didn't get picked up by the mic; I noticed her mic was cutting off her words a lot. Maybe she said something like that they stamped the symbols '[in] gold, [with] a very hard metal', and the mic just didn't pick up the 'in' and 'with' 🤔
Gold is plenty hard enough to press into wet clay.
Big thanks to the Doctor for teaching us in her second language!!!
It's not his second language. It's his B language.
We should really take notice of how she speaks about "what we know".
She speaks like a scientist. No claims, no agenda.... just the facts and logical inferences.
Compare her style to a pseudoscience type- they leap to conclusions. They emphasize only what they think 'proves' their interpretation.
One side works from what they know with qualifications and exceptions.
One side starts from what they hope and sells it.
Great interview DM!
Exactly!
I managed to listen until she described gold as a very, very hard metal. IMHO the disc could be a map of the universe showing where other humanoid species are to be found and what minerals can be found on the planets they inhabit, along with planets which just contain useful minerals.
Dating an object from the building it was found in is not 'Scientific', nor is it likely to be at all accurate.
I have family heirlooms from my Dads side of the family that date back literally hundreds of years.
Would a future Archeologist from 3222 date them as 'Created in 2022' just because they were all found 'In my House'?
See how ridiculous that illogical and inaccurate method of dating objects is?
IMO, Dating by 'Association' with buildings or other artifacts found near by is used far too often, and far too freely by Archeologists!
If Archeologists require information about stone, ask a 'Stone Mason', information about Wood ask a 'Carpenter', information about Pottery, ask a 'Potter', etc. etc.
In the past, Archeologists have often bestowed upon themselves the 'Misguided and inaccurate Ability' to identify, review and date a vast array of objects all of which have not fallen within their field of expertise at all. For example, three distinctly different styles of 'Stone Work' found in Peru, all three 'Attributed' by Academia in School Text Books to 'The Incas'.
The same can be said of the Egyptians, creating their most amazing and biggest objects at the 'Beginning of their civilization, then 'apparently' just forgetting the technologies used a mere 1000 years later. These 'Academic' dating's and assignments are not logical, scientific or probably even the Truth.
Do we know for certain this is not a Monopoly game?
@@polygonalmasonary This is very true, but in the absence of any other information this is the best starting point. If you're dating it any other way you're simply guessing unless you have other similar things from other time periods to compare. If the object is found with other objects and you have no other examples of said object which you can point to other time periods the logical conclusion is it's from the same time period. That doesn't mean you're right, but just means you have no other possible conclusions to draw. The fact is this is perfectly logical. What would be illogical is to draw any other conclusion. People who don't understand the scientific process generally think scientists assert that they're correct without question which is false. A scientist simply draws the most logical conclusion based on the available evidence. So, please explain how you would approach dating an object found with other objects when you have no other evidence. Perhaps you would just leave it undated, call it a mystery and pontificate over how it could be made by aliens?
Love the shorts, but man do I crave the long form videos. Excited to watch through this video.
So i, bro. 🤝
Agreed. Long indepth are more interesting.
You can't even see if they're shorts or long pants.
Yeah, I like longer videos too 💖💪
I'd never heard of the disk before so, as an appreciator of interesting ancient artifacts, it was a special pleasure to hear this interview with Dr. Balducci. Thanks.
*Baldacci
Honestly this video just made my day. Growing up my grandma would always tell me stories about our family back on crete (plaka in chania to be specific), combine that with being a huge fan of history equals the minoans and what little we do know of them always being very important to me to understand in my free time. I remember as a little kid i came up with a theory that the phaistos disk was actually a ritual calendar lol, oh how much i had to learn. Shoutout to fellow venetian gal Giorgia too for her insight, she's awesome!
Russian professor Grinevich is first man on earth,who has managed to seccessfully translate Phaistos disc.And can you guess what did he find?A truth,that has indicated,that Phaistos disc was made by the slavic people.Everyone else lies about theirs 'translation'of the Phaistos disc,but not Grinevich.
Love this! I actually have a pendant necklace of the Phaistos disk that my husband got for me in Greece. It's cool to learn even more about it!
That’s wonderful! I’d love one of those.
I got a replica with a display stand when I was in Crete about 20 years ago.I gave it to a friend as a gift.
Her expression in English is amazing. What a brilliant interview. Thankyou!
What a pleasure to hear from an expert about this artifact. Its very interesting.
Enjoyable thank you. How wonderful it must be to study archaeology in Venice. I visited Knossos as a young man and remember they had what they said is the oldest known theatre and so I stood on the stage area and recited some Shakespeare. I know the Theatre of Dionysus makes the same claim but the theatre of Knossos is 1000 years older although considerably smaller and only seats around 400 people. I'd planned to return to Crete in 2020 for the first time in 30 years but sadly I missed out for obvious reasons and don't imagine I'll ever visit there again now or anywhere else for that matter. It's a beautiful island and I highly recommend visiting as there are many beautiful sites to see as well as beaches and caves to explore. Although I'm sure it has changed a great deal, I'd recommend visiting late in the year as it is still warm but not so hot you can not explore the ruins and there will be far fewer tourists.
I was there about 30 years ago too. It would be around late November and there was a downpour that lasted for ten whole days. It was like being in a non stop monsoon, lol. Never did manage to get back there since.
everytime I watch one of your vidoes, I am struck by how glad I am its here. I have always loved history and you present it so well.
Thank you for all your efforts in sharing your knowledge. It's unfortunate that other pseudoscience channels get millions of subscribers and yours doesn't, yet.
Your videos are good and valuable for education.
I appreciate your efforts and hope you understand what help you are giving future learning generations.
My son is only 3, but he'll be learning from your videos soon if I have anything to say about it.
👍🖖👋
Wow, thank you!
I couldn’t agree more, and you’re a great parent!
But..., but..., but..., the ALIENS! 👽😱😆
@@WorldofAntiquity Professor, are the translations of Homer, that center on the rhyme, science or pseudo-science?
Asking for a friend. He's an academic historian. Foundation of his work, if you want.
@@keirfarnum6811 History Channel 🤣
Everything built by Aliens
I appreciate this presentation of the Phaistos Disk and a reasonable scientific discussion. Thank you Dr Miano and Dr Baldacci
Dr Giorgia has a musical cadence I could listen to for hours.
In my very scientific opinion, it's clearly the world's first record album. The "symbols" are the lyrics. That is why some words are repeated. It's the chorus!
It’s the real lyrics to the Most Mysterious Song in the Internet
The moveable type bit is by far the most interesting aspect of this artifact. It would seem a little excessive to make all the signs ONLY for creating this object, so maybe more artifacts with similar imprints will surface. Either way, the linear A (and earlier) cultures of Crete are very interesting indeed.
If it did pan out that there were more such artifacts made from movable type it would make an already super impressive ancient civilisation even more so.
It's enough to make you wonder what modern Europe would have been like if Santorini had never erupted and brought them so low.
@@mnomadvfx indeed!
This is why I love your channel! You always have great guests and cover great subjects Dr M!
This was a wonderful interview. Thank you for this. I would love to hear or read more by Giorgia!
Saw this disc at a museum in Crete, such a captivating artifact.
@World of Antiquities
You never disappoint and the level of learning from your video discussions is phenomenal. I applaud you and thank you for sharing your knowledge and wisdom with us!
This was a good conversation. Thankyou for asking the question about why linear A cant be translated from linear B.
What an interesting artifact. I love learning about the Minoans.
Dr. Baldacci's Italian accent is quite wonderful.
Fascinating, as you say Dr. Miano! I bought a brass copy of this disk on my first trip to Greece in the 1970's, which included Crete. The copy had a hole and was strung on a leather thong. I've moved several times and don't know where this souvenir is. It was too large and heavy to be used on a keychain [except for a hotel, that is].
About the repetition being religious, there is a second possibility, political hagiography of the monarch. Minos, by the Grace of Zeus, ruler of the sea, ruler of Knossos, Ruler of Phaistos, ruler of the Helenes, etc. She is right, though, that without more examples no scientifically valid conclusion even rises to the level of hypothesis, remaining just a notion. Keep up the great work!
awesome, grazie Dr. Giorgia Baldacci!
I really enjoyed Dr. Baldacci's explanations, what a great interview!
Did he ever tell you that Phaistos Disc was translated by the russian professor Grinevich?And that Phaistos Disc is made by the slavs and not greeks,in times of the 5500BC when greeks didn't even existed.I bet he didn't,and i bet that he still talks about Phaistos Disc as 'greek phaistos disc',who's mysterious writings are still untranslated after 48 years after it was dug up.
Holy sheesh!!! Good thing I found your channel. I'm getting crazy with the megalithic, pre-flood or ancient high technology videos.
I really appreciate this video. I had heard of the disk in passing previously, but this was an excellent opportunity to really learn something about it. Thank you David!
The Minoan civilization is so fascinating! I had never heard of this artifact until this video. Great content as always.
Woah. I had no idea that moveable type existed so long ago. I’d love to see a video looking at that in more depth
Hey, Drew. Great to see you here!
Great interview. She is an expert indeed, wow.
A copy of the disk is one of my souvenirs from a trip to Greece. Thanks for the refresher.
The Minoans are fascinating. I love your interviews.
I have a replica of this on my school desk.
Another great episode! I always assumed that the script on the Phaistos Disk was Linear A so I really appreciate you both clearing that up. Thank you!
This series is awesome, gone through several of em the last days even in brakes of shifts. Very very interesting looking forward for more cuz most of them where just unknown for me.
Ancient people where just awesome ❤️
I was previously under the impression that this disk was an example of Minoan highroglyphics. Thanks for clearing that up.
Thank you dottoressa Baldacci, and thank you doctor miano
An excellent interchange between two researchers of past civlizations. Dr Baldacci shows us how archaeologists are really like detectives who try to unearth facts to allow us to fill in the dotted lines of what really happened all those thousands of years ago. What I see from the disk is it may have been a sort of baked clay history book; I believe it was a clay book that may have been made to inform future generations of what had happened in the Minoan culture to the time it was made. Was it a learning tool?
Channel is growing in leaps and bounds! I knew it would. Keep up the great work. 100k is just around the corner.
Great Video, I enjoyed the deep dive in one object and its background
I’ve just come back from a holiday in Crete and visiting the Heraklion Archaeological Museum where the Phaistos Disk is on display. During the visit I walked around the disk and had a ‘Eureka moment’ when I glanced up and noticed a wall fresco in one of the other displays. The wall fresco showed several wave swirls which appear to ‘spin’ or ‘turn’ in the same anti-clockwise direction as the hieroglyphs on the Phaistos Disk. It could suggest a connection between the undeciphered text on the disk and the sea, which would be consistent with the marine themes seen in Minoan art and decoration, and the maritime empire that the Minoan civilisation had.
If partial translations of the hieroglyphs are correct (such as by Owens) that the disk shows a religious text to a pregnant or mother goddess, then it would seem likely that the swirl-like pattern of the hieroglyphs might indicate a religious text to a sea goddess too. The only Eastern Mediterranean goddess I know that is both a pregnant or mother goddess, and a sea goddess is Asherah. This conclusion is also consistent with an earlier form of Greek mythology being practiced as Asherah is the ‘Queen of the Gods’ which in her shorten name form would be Shera or Hera. Furthermore, one of the symbols of Asherah is the palm tree and if you look at Minoan art there are several palms depicted suggesting again a possible connection with the goddess.
Regarding the language of the hieroglyphs I see similarities with some of the undeciphered Indus valley civilisation hieroglyphs (e.g. the upright fish symbol). These similarities are increased when you also consider the uniform city plans with numerous small rooms of each civilisation, the municipal water supply systems, the common worship or importance of the bull, the lack of significant fortifications around cities, the maritime nature of each civilisation, etc. Taken together these geographical similarities could suggest the Cretan hieroglyphs represent an early form of an Indo-European language.
Congrats on your trip, and though it was awhile ago, I was also continually enchanted w/ Crete and the Greek isles in general. BTW, aside from whatever the disk's ultimate 'meaning', am still impressed that they already knew about 'moveable type' over 3,000 years ago!
Great video as always!
Had read about the disk a few times before back in University, but always assumed it was like in Linear A or Cretan Hyroglyphs. But to know it's in a different script completely, and that all these writing systems (Cretan Hyroglyphs, Linear A and the Phaistos Disk one) were pretty much being used at the same time, really makes you think about how the Minoans related to writing. So sad we can't read any of it though
Fascinating subject, I like your approach Professor Miano. Would be interesting to see a video from your channel about prehistoric non indoeuropean lenguages. Great channel, cheers!
Yusss! Love me some Minoan civilisation content 😄
Thank you so much for your guest! I’ve always wondered the link between Linear A and linear b and why one couldn’t be deciphered with the other. Very informative thank you.
WoA is fast becoming one of my favourite TH-cam channels!
Very interesting video! Thanks for sharing your search, and Giorgia is so knowledgeable! I bought a miniature pin (a kind of broche) of this disk in Greece and dove into the meaning of it today. I hope it will be translated some day. I'm wearing the pin to work next week, great conversation starter!
This was such a great interview...I had to watch it again... she's fantastic and I love her accent..
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Recently spent several hours walking around the Phaistos site. Very impressive.
This was great!
More ancient artifacts please! 👍
I also like floor plans with artist renderings of ancient buildings 👍
7 Wonders of the Ancient World series?🤔
Thank You for the Vid and Thank You Dr. Giorgia Baldacci - Appreciated
Thank you for posting this video. Its probably the one of the most imformative videos about this topic and I really enjoyed it.
Thanks for watching, Hana!
I really enjoyed that one. I can't say that I have heard of this disk before, but I have heard about Minoan culture before.
Fascinating topic! Thank you, Dr Miano.
Being a center of trade, who is to say where it really came from and who really made it.? My first thought was ; Is that a boomerang? So, wish I knew more. What a fascinating field to be educated in. Thanks World of Antiquity for bringing this artifact to us.
my thoughts were: there is a definite beginning, the center of the spiral, and proceeds outward. And after she talked about the repetitions, I thought of family names and how they are reused generation after generation. So, is this a lineage, he asks rhetorically?
Interesting possibility!
I thought she said it runs from the outside in?
No idea either way, but I looked at it from the inside out looking at the glyphs myself.
@@stripeytawney822 she did, but it seems more likely to me that it started in the middle, too
@@DocBree13 One way to decide which direction it was written would be to see if at one end of the strip the characters are crammed together, if the printer was running out of space - or spread out, if there was too much.
It would be fascinating to know the language they spoke and might give us an insight to pre indo European languages spoken in Europe by the Neolithic near eastern farmers.
Love to hear your thoughts on the stone pots/jars found under the step pyramid.
Really like this artifacts video. I would definitely be interested in seeing you analyse other artifacts with guest experts.
brillant presentation.
Thank you David.
When I first saw an image of this disk, the Maltese tal-Qadi stone fragment came to mind. It would be interesting to examine whether the temple builder culture of the Maltese islands is related in any way to the Cretan, Minoan, and other related cultures in the Eastern Mediterranean.
As far as multi-lingual perspectives are concerned, this is very valid when it comes to Mediterranean Islands and can be seen throughout history. Taking the Maltese context as an example, archeological evidence suggests that at the crossroads of the BC/AD Millenium, Phoenician, Greek, and Latin (Roman) were all in use locally. Going forward a thousand years, we again find Latin, Greek, and Arabic in Sicily and Malta, being written/spoken during the same period. Coming forward another odd millennium, one finds Maltese, English, and Italian being used together. It is hence highly probable that this phenomenon of multi-culturalism or at least multi-linguistic tendencies were also present in Crete and elsewhere.
I have seen it in person, it’s nice and disk like. This museum has many lovely artifacts. Crete is awesome. The archeological museum in Athens has a nice machinisme you should go see. Btw I have been really enjoying your videos. I discovered your channel last week. Thanks for the interesting content. I’m looking forward to watching more of your videos.
Love this and it reminds me of a day plan
I really enjoyed this video, thank you.
Will be listening to this while in the Crete archeology museum 👍🙌
These are the facts as we know it! It doesn’t get better than this.
Almost 40k subs! Great to see, congrats!
This is fascinating, never heard of this disk til this video
That's the Minoan equivalent of "Jumanji". No wonder they all suddenly disappeared.
Ha ! Classic
Regarding the Minoan language: The oldest language was a pictographic writing system developed around 2000 BCE known as the Cretan hieroglyphs. Another group of signs was identified as Linear A, developed around 1700 BCE. While Cretan hieroglyphs have a pictorial appearance, Linear A has a linear appearance. It has been speculated that both Cretan hieroglyphs and Linear A represent the same language.
Minoan civilization had trade contacts with the advanced Middle Eastern civilizations, with Egypt being the most influential. It is likely that the earliest Minoan writing (Cretan hieroglyphs) was modelled after the Middle Kingdom Egyptian hieroglyphs.
Although superficially indeed similar to Egyptian symbols, Cretan Hieroglyphs are clearly distinct in both form and phonetic value. Yet the biggest difference lies in the underlying system itself. Egyptian Hieroglyphs are part of a complex writing system, where most signs have more than one possible reading, dependent on context (similarly to the Japanese Kanji characters). Signs could have both a phonetic (single consonant or syllable) value or an ideogrammatic (word) reading, but could even be utilized as phonetic complements or logograms (a written character that represents a word or phrase, like in Chinese), “reinforcing” the reading of words they were attached to. As many of these duplicities could only be interpreted by a native speaker of Old Egyptian, this system was very difficult to utilize for speakers of foreign languages. Also, the Egyptian system had over 800 different signs, which is an extremely large inventory of symbols compared to Cretan Hieroglyphs (roughly 85 or so different signs are known). Linear A signs identified ranges from 77 to 85 according to different scholars, suggesting that this was a syllabic writing system.
Minoan scribes might have took the concept of writing from Egypt, creating their own signs and simplifying the system so that it became almost fully phonetic. Such a low number of individual characters is uncharacteristic of the complex writing systems of the ancient Near East, but it is fully compatible with a simple syllabary (reminiscent of the modern Japanese Hiragana or Katakana writing). Thus, some assume that Cretan Hieroglyphs, similarly to all later Aegean writing systems, were already syllabic in nature.
Other scholars see Semitic influences / a relationship to Mesopotamian writings in the Minoan language, but these depend solely on Semitic loanwords, such as “sesame”, a word that appears in both Linear A and B (and also in ENGLISH).
One thing is clear: After the rebuilding of the palatial complexes on Crete (with the advent of the so-called “New Palace Period”) the Hieroglyphic script fell out of regular use. A new script has taken its place, called Linear A. The relationship of Linear A and Hieroglyphics is probably comparable to the relation between Egyptian Hieroglyphic and Hieratic/Demotic script. Current available evidence suggests that the underlying system remained essentially the same; it is the shape of signs that suffered profound change due to graphical simplification.
Linear A was used much more extensively than Hieroglyphs. Hundreds of clay tablets, inscribed vessels, statues, altarstones and even jewelery testifies its daily use. The triumph of Linear A is also striking in a geographical sense: Wherever Cretan traders went, Linear A followed. Perhaps due to the simplicity of the syllabary, it quickly spread to other regions surrounding Crete. While regularly used on many Aegean islands, sporadic finds suggest that it also reached the Greek mainland as well as the island of Cyprus and the Syrian coast.
Don't speak bullshit,'latin alphabet' was created by the slavs,not greeks.
Very interesting. Thanks!
Loving this series, David.
excellent video as always
At first Giorgia seems to be reading from a script, but later it just seems like she actually speaks that way and it's more like she's sometimes quoting things she's written herself. I'm curios about which stamps are known from Linear B.
A bigger question is: How many ancient scripts are undeciphered? Besides the Minoan ones there's Harappan, and I imagine there are quite a few texts in known scripts like Egyptian, Mayan and Sumerian which defy understanding.
I'm in love with Dr. Balducci. Please shoot me.
Very interesting presentation… should I say historically enlightening. Bravo!
It would be very interesting to match (if possible) the clay content to a particular site… and even more helpful if a cache of matching metal stamps were discovered… the more complete a set of stamps; the better.
As an after thought… in finding out the source of the clay… and where it was made… archaeologists may indeed find a cache of the stamps/tools used to impress the inscription.
Probably whimsical thinking on my part… 😀
Love the idea...make no conclusions...just gather data for later interpretatiom
Thank you Dr Miano and Dr Baldacci.
...I think it's a shopping list, I see Ritz crackers, hair jell, a swiffer duster.
Great stuff, thanks. Forget the pseudoscience, this is the good stuff.
Both are good content I learn alot from debunking pseudoscience
Grazie dott.ssa Baldacci per la presentazione interessantissima!
As a new subscriber, this is the first fresh drop for me and I couldn’t be more excited to watch and then add it to my sleep playlist 😎
Welcome aboard!
@@WorldofAntiquity thank you Dr. Miano!
@@WorldofAntiquity Dr Miano, I know this is off topic relative to this video, but what do you think about Jean-Pierre Houdin’s internal ramp theory? Personally, I think it makes a lot of sense. What convinced me was when I read about the Grand Gallery being a mechanism to lift the Granite Blocks that seal the Kings Chamber. I just feel like you’re the most sensible and knowledgeable historian I’ve ever come across so I’d like to know if you agree with the theory or not.
It looks like a game to me. I've got a replica which I purchased in Greece about 40 years ago because I was mesmerized by it. It's hung in all my homes since. One day I hope to learn what it is.
I think the disc is a game board. Some symbols are on other ancient games such as the Royal Game of Ur. I think probably each of the symbols has a meaning to what to do with game pieces from perhaps die or throwing sticks. Stamping letters really was unknown back then. But stamping GAME BOARDS was common.
I thought that thumbnail was a pecan pie! Way to grab my attention LOL
11:57 Or, a third option, a legal document: "Mr. A says that... Mr. B says that... Mr. A replies that... Mr. B replies that... Mr. A and Mr. B not in agreement..., etc".
I can never get enough info about the Phaistos disk. Couldn’t the repetitive combinations simply be analogous to articles such as “the?” It seems like it may be jumping to a conclusion to assume they likely represent incantations. Great interview!
The words are too long to just be an article or preposition.
Thank you.
Dr Miano, I am of Greek and Cypriot heritage and absolutely love your channel as it’s helped me gain a greater appreciation for my roots. Have you seen a TH-camr named William Krapek who has a series of videos claiming to have cracked not only the Phaistos disc but apparently Linear A as well. I’d be grateful if you’d take a look at his content and respond as I tremendously respect your opinion and scholarship.
I haven't seen it, but I will check it out.
@@WorldofAntiquity thanks so much for your reply as well as your outstanding content.
Fascinating!
Fascinating. I was always mesmerized by the Minoan civilization, was waiting for a video on that topic form you
Also, I binged watched all your “busting” videos, and now I moved to other series. Hope you get invited to Joe Rogan or smthng, I feel like boom in popularity of “alternative history”, is at least partially caused by miserable answers of unprepared Michael Shermer, during debates with Hancock. I love to imagine, how different it would have gone, If you were on Michales place
I used to like Hancock, but then realized he is more of a fiction writer, rather than a scholar. Moreover a very dogmatic one.
Scientific exploration of history, is much more complicated and requires more effort, but in the end much more rewarding.
Love your work!
+1, we need big guns for fighting likes of Hancock, people that are well spoken and ready to fight!
Shermer performance was very disappointing. If David or Jason Colavito were there, Hancock wouldn't stand a chance.
@@Siska0Robert there should be "no mercy" for the likes of Hancock and the rest
Sadly, I think pseudoarcheology would be flourishing even without Hancock or Shermer’s less-than-stellar performance. It’s just one branch of a very healthy tree that has taken root, and in the current anti-science environment, it will be extremely difficult to thwart it.
@@DocBree13 Yep, it seems to be connected. In my personal circles, some people (well educated, family, good jobs) are into easily (at least in my mind) disproven conspiracy theories. No logic, just "feelings".
Thank you💙
Excellent. Thank you.
Thanks for sharing❣
Someone obviously went to a LOT of effort to create 45 different stamps that made the impressions. I would not think that this was done just for this one object. My guess is that someone needed those stamps to make it easier for them to make several items using those 45 patterns. Those stamps would be most likely from fired clay - there is no basis for saying they were metal (or gold) unless you found one. Also, there is no basis for saying that this was religious. It could be wise sayings, laws, song lyrics, recipes, public notices etc. I don't like when anything that is unknown is immediately labeled "religious" or "ceremonial". Good video - enjoyed it.
p.s. liked and subscribed
Thank you!
I saw the disc on display at the museum in Irakleo on Crete a few years back. There's so much interesting stuff from what we call the "Minoans" to be seen and yet-to-be understood.
Sadly, unlike other Bronze Age societies, the "Minoans" didn't use their writing system all that much so there's not much of their writing preserved (that we've yet discovered), much less any "Rosetta Stone"-like mutilingual texts in already deciphered languages (not even Linear B-written Bronze-Age Greek).
Thanks for the great content 👍
One of the things that's always puzzled me was the invention of the moveable type printing press. I try hard to realize that everything looks obvious post hoc, but given how people were using metal stamps for ages, 1436 in Europe seems waaaaay over due.
Of course there was printing by the Chinese and the Koreans long before Gutenberg but even in Europe 250 years before Gutenberg in the north eastern Italian town of Cividale del Friuli -once the capital of the influential ecclesiastical state of Aquileia(Patriarchate)there is a silver altarpiece that has letters punched into it by individual letter punches-obviously they knew the principle behind printing.
It should also be added that Babylonains (of course) showed evidence of using moveable type for inscriptions as well. To quote Irving Finkel and Jonathan Tayler in their book, "Cuneiform", The British Museum, 2015, p.p. 15--16:
"Mud bricks were an opportunity too good to miss. From around 2300 BC, scribes were put to work writing out royal names and titles on uncountable building blocks. Then somebody had a bright idea: a true labour-saving device. Signs that made up the king's inscription could be cut in reverse on a block and used to stamp bricks (fig. 5). This first kind of printing went on for almost two thousand years. Remarkably, its use was reserved for mundane bricks, and no other purpose. Other types of text were not required in large numbers and there may also have been cultural resistance to the use of stamping for learned texts. In a few stamped examples some signs are upside down. The best explanation is perhaps that individually mounted wedge signs have been carelessly replaced in a matrix after cleaning out a stamp. Here we would have not only printing, but even moveable type, two thousand years before Gutenberg!"
One would think with some of the technology available in Greece and Rome, one would think that such technology would have been developed earlier. There were mechanical, water driven automatic doors created in Ancient Greece. Considering the Antikythera Mechanism, they obviously had the ability to make complex metal mechanical devices and considering the fact that a printing press is mostly wood with some metal parts, one would expect a printing press to have developed earlier.
I can only think that there just weren’t enough people who read back then to justify it. My guess is that they increases in education and reading is what drove the development of the printing press as part of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment.
@@keirfarnum6811 You're guess isn't correct. Literacy was fairly common in Rome; there were even book vendors. The key lies in the technology that is used for putting symbols on. In particular, the Romans, and the Egyptians before them, used papyrus. When Rome conquered Egypt, they got control of papyrus production and trade. Papyrus doesn't have the absorbency nor flexibility of paper, which was invented in China (along with wood-block printing). The real answer is that Greece and Rome didn't have paper!
When the Roman empire declined, access to papyrus declined and literacy didn't have a chance to spread throughout Europe. In the middle ages in Europe, vellum was used. Books printed on vellum were insanely expensive; dozens of animal skins are required to make a book!
To make a long story short, the Arabs got paper from the Chinese, and then the Europeans got it from the Arabs. It wasn't long after that that the Gutenberg press arrived in Europe in the early 1400s triggering the Enlightenment. There are other factors involved in triggering the Enlightenment as well, but paper was necessary.
So printing technology (even with moveable type) without the co-technology of paper doesn't go so far.
There is an excellent NOVA episode, "A to Z, Part 2, How Writing Changed the World" which goes through all this in detail. If you can find it somewhere, it is an absolutely amazing and eye-opening documentary. (It can be found as a torrent, btw.)
@@Blitnock Sometimes some small aspect of a culture can determine the development of that culture in a big way-I remember the English celebrity Steven Fry in his quiz program "Qi" discussing how the beverage preferences of two different cultures influenced their technology :-the Chinese liked drinking tea so developed ceramic and porcelain production while the Mediterranean world liked wine so invented and developed glass technology-in the Middle Ages in Europe someone invented reading glasses effectively doubling the creative life of scholars and inventors -later glass scientific instruments were invented allowing many scientific discoveries in those fields requiring these things -ultimately the telescope which enabled a host of astronomical discoveries and changed the world view of a civilisation.One could make the same arguments for religious beliefs of a culture as well -if you don't allow graven images and statues the chances are you will never develop the art and technology of statue making.I think even musical tastes can determine things -the west has always had keyboard instruments even in ancient Greece and Rome there were hydraulic organs.This continued in the Middle Ages with the massive monumental church organs with all their sound effects produced from a keyboard.First harpsichord and then piano invented.:Then the typewriter -same sort of principle-ultimately the computer-the basic principle behind each one of these products is basically the same -press a key and you get a certain effect.
Love this stuff, so fascinating!
i like how you pretended the basic questions are yours
but you actually asking what we would have asked
Another possibility is that it is not written language, but a guide for maritime traders. Starting in the center, or home, each set of glyphs could represent the goods and services found on a particular island along a sequential trade route. Many of the glyphs appear to be trade items, such as wheat, grapes ingots etc. Others could represent temples, slaves and so on. A trader could use disc to plan outward and inbound trade voyages.
Why not feature these experts' on thumbnail and title? At least their names. I think I figured it out, it'd decrease clicks because most people are not looking for interviews when browsing. But still I believe it is doing them injustice as they are the main contributor of these videos. Please consider.
Fascinating! More so than any pseudoscience distraction!