The central court, probably used for dancing, would have accommodated hundreds of dancers. These were early Greeks, so it is hard to imagine the large central courts of the palaces were not used for dancing. Probably they danced in spirals. Greek dancers still dance the pyrrhic, or Armed Dance, sometimes called Kronou Teknophagia, meaning "Crane Dance" and the "Dance of the Labyrinth." In the tradition of this dance, the movements are performed from right to left, then left to right, then stationary or slowly before an altar. Historically as well, Homer, in Chapter 18 of The Iliad, gives an account of a dance floor designed by Daedalus for Ariadne at Knossos, where the dancers would dance in circles and then dance in lines.

Hereon there danced youths and maidens whom all would woo, with their hands on one another's wrists. The maidens wore robes of light linen, and the youths well woven shirts that were slightly oiled. The girls were crowned with garlands, while the young men had daggers of gold that hung by silver baldrics; (left, engraved dagger hilts, click to enlarge) sometimes they would dance deftly in a ring with merry twinkling feet, as it were a potter sitting at his work and making trial of his wheel to see whether it will run, and sometimes they would go all in line with one another, and much people was gathered joyously about the green. (Homer, The Iliad)

The walls of the palaces are often covered in spirals like a labyrinth, the word originating as Labrys and also meaning "axe." The palace at Knossos was like a maze, with endless passageways and rooms, and supposedly designed by Daedalus. Some say the palace might be the Maze of Daedalus.

Was Daedalus the creator of the Phaistos Disk, or was Daedalus the collective name of the brilliant Bronze Age artisans who lived and worked back then? They were incredibly creative. Is Crete the root word for create? They created palaces, designed mazes, made bronze armor and weapons, painted beautiful murals and frescoes, made exquisite pottery, designed drainage systems, built trading ships, and they had a fascination with bulls. Not just at Knossos, where the palace roof tops were trimmed in bull's horns and the walls display images of bull sports, but also other places like Mallia, where the palace is designed like the head of a bull. And then, of course, there is the world-famous legend of the Minotaur, a half-bull, half-human creature contained by Daedalus inside the maze.

Bull's horn symbol at Knossos Palace, Crete

Bull worship, bull sports and bull symbolism make the Minoans so interesting; all that brilliant art and technology and still a focus on the bull? After perhaps as many as 25,000 preceding years of bull worship, it is not surprising that the bull figured significantly in their civilization. Egypt had its Serapis – the sacred Osiris-Apis bull. Baal was widely worshipped, the Israelites had their golden calf Moshe (Moses), and painted on the walls of buildings in ancient Sumer are humans with horns. The horns tell of their status as gods and goddesses. (Bull goddess and god of Susa, left, Minotaur, right, Minoan Queen Pasiphae by Picasso, below)

The idea of the bull-god is foreign to us, although it should not be. Even today in India the bull is sacred, and in Spain and Mexico bull sports are still popular, as are rodeos in the U.S. In Crete, the bull apparently was at the center of both religion and sport. This history of bull-worship clears up some of the mystery of the Cretan legend of the Minotaur, a bull-being at the center of the bull sports and the maze. It clears up some mystery about Zeus, the Greek god who often appeared as a bull. And it also shines some light on the worship of the bull-born Dionysis. Perhaps the bull was connected somehow to the idea of wealth.

Greece had almost forgotten, though the poet (Homer) had not, that the island whose wealth seemed to him even then so great had once been wealthier still; that it had held sway with a powerful fleet over most of the Aegean and part of mainland Greece; and that it had developed, a thousand years before the siege of Troy, one of the most artistic civilizations in history. Probably it was this Aegean culture—as ancient to him as he is to us— that Homer recalled when he spoke of a Golden Age in which men had been more civilized, and life more refined, than in his own disordered time. (Durant)

How long ago is 3,600 years? The Minoan world is so far in the distant past that the Greek poet Homer in 700 BCE called it ancient and forgotten. This fabulous civilization that ended so suddenly is often said to have engendered the myth of fabled Atlantis. From that dazzling, lost world we have the Phaistos Disk, something like a message in a bottle but excavated over 100 years ago beneath the ruins of a palace instead of washed up on a beach. (Left, Shield Ritual room with disks, spirals and shields, Knossos, Crete, click to enlarge)

To some people it seems unimaginable that a Bronze Age artist could create this incredible disk, and so of course it has been suggested it is a fake. How much more unimaginable it would be to the artist(s) that this great puzzle masterpiece could re-emerge in a world incapable of recognizing it, solving it, and then understanding it. The Phaistos Disk is a portal to this ancient world - a bridge between worlds - connecting us to the old world-view and original ideas long forgotten.