The artifact is terracotta pottery, about 6" in diameter and 1" thick, only a little larger than a CD, with 2 inscribed sides and 2 spirals per side, each spiral with 5 rings (10). The spirals are divided into 60 line segments (30 Side 1, 30 Side 2). The outside spirals have 12 line segments (24 outside); inside spirals have 18 (36 inside). Divided among the line segments and etched into the disk are 48 unique miniature pictographs, the same number as our ancient constellations, and most of them are replicated to create 240 pictographs. 37 are created to appear identical and are repeated various times. 11 are unrepeated.

To solve the maze, and experience the palindrome, overlap Side 1 onto Side 2 (red spiral on top of purple spiral) at the matching, connecting line segments. Next, start at the center of Side 1, then move counterclockwise. Cross over from Spiral 3, Side 1, to Spiral 5, Side 2 (green bug), and move clockwise. Cross over from Spiral 5, Side 2, to Spiral 4, Side 1 (pink bug) and move counterclockwise. Cross over from Spiral 4, Side 1, to Spiral 4, Side 2 (purple bug), move clockwise. Cross over from Spiral 4, Side 2, to Spiral 5, Side 1 (yellow bug), move counterclockwise. Cross over from Spiral 5, Side 1, to Spiral 3, Side 2 (orange bug), move clockwise and travel to the center of Side 2, creating the shape of a figure 8, twice. Return in the same pattern. (1, 2, 3 into 5, 5 into 4, 4 into 4, 4 into 5, 5 into 3, 2, 1)

The maze puzzle has been solved, the numerical palindrome math proof of infinity established, and the basics of the phi spiral revealed - certainly worth preserving for posterity in fire-hardened terracotta.

The solution to the Phaistos Disk, a maze puzzle from our perspective, offers a Mediterranean Bronze Age math proof of infinity, both graphically and mathematically, in the form of a numerical palindrome - 1235445321 - which, reading front to back and back to front, uses numbers to prove infinity or endlessness. In a demonstration of the Minoan mathematicians' (or at least this pottery artist's) understanding of paradox is the use of something finite, a line segment, to prove infinity, as a line can be divided infinitely.

Further, the math proof of infinity can be verified by the math function of natural addition of the crossover section of the numerical palindrome. 3+5+4+4+5+3 = 24 divided by 2 =12 (a division function, the total number of line segments on the outside spirals) multipled by 2 (a multiplication function, the number of sides) = 48 (a sum function, the total number of unique pictographs and constellations). Also, the entire palindrome 1+2+3+5+4+4+5+3+2+1 = 30 (the total number of line segments on each side of the Disk) x 2 (the number of sides) = 60 (the total number of line segments both sides of the Disk).

"And in these sixty spaces dwell the souls, each one according to its nature, for though they are of one and the same substance, they are not of the same dignity." (Plutarch)

This nearly-lost, antique, math-based mythology is preserved by Plotinus, philosopher founder of Neoplatonism, and Plutarch, philosopher priest at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, and the Phaistos Disk of Minoan Crete. Plotinus (1,300 years after the Phaistos Disk) and Plutarch (1,500 years after the Phaistos Disk) both give accounts of an ancient worldview involving a numerological outlook passed down from Crete.

This outlook involves the number-based origin of both the universe and humanity. Formed in the womb of the Minoan creation goddess, Rhea (Chaos), were 5 cosmoi (main divisions or layers of cosmic stuff, the 5 spirals each side of the Disk), and into these layers or firmaments formed 60 soul spaces (total number of line segments on the Disk) made of 60 types of soul-stuff, comprising 240 individual souls (total number of pictographs on the Disk) made of 48 "ark types" (ships of the sky or constellations and total number of unique pictographs on the Disk).

This is the Minoan math argument for both a mathematically constructed universe and for the divine nature of humanity, carefully preserved on the Phaistos Disk. Also passively preserved is why an artist would go to such lengths to create this artifact. The math proof would need to be preserved for subsequent generations so they would not get so lost in the maze of the material world that they lose all knowledge of their mathematically proven, and thus divine, origin.

The creation of the Phaistos Disk was not an attempt to create and preserve for posterity a masterpiece of art, although that is what happened en passant, but was an attempt to save mathematics from getting lost to the world. This would ensure that the generations to follow would have both the equipment necessary to navigate Chaos and to understand its divine function of giving birth to the world - to Order. The effort turns out to have been both unnecessary and necessary, as Pythagoras, Plutarch, and Plotinus got the knowledge anyway and broadcast it, but lost in time was the awareness of the importance of Minoan Crete in its development.

But it isn't just the mathematics that stands out in the math proof, but also the art. The Phaistos Disk puts the art in artifact as it creatively delivers complex information in a simple way, based on the Minoan love of mazes and their creation of our 48 original constellations by connecting stars with lines. And, it makes use of an invisible dimension to continue its revelations about the Minoan world via large, hidden pictographs. The hidden dimension, arguably its main revelation and certainly its most surprising one, begins with Argo, while Figure 8 Universe continues this investigation into the Figure 8 design of the Disk of the World, as shown above on this page, and also explores its history, and Maze of Daedalus investigates the ancient mythology that spurred the creation of the Phaistos Disk.

Nearly lost with the Disk is the antique science etched upon it, conceived of in a world so long ago that science and religion were mixed together in such a way as to render the universe a sacred conception, with purpose in existing and deliberate design, rather than a random explosion with no reason to be except chance.

The Phaistos Disk seems to be covered with hidden patterns of this geometry theology and number philosophy that preserves the science that built the Great Pyramid and that became the foundation of Western Science and Religion. This is the mostly forgotten and nearly lost antique science of Containment of Geometrical Arrangements. This "earthly" science was extended to early astronomy which involved the study of the properties of a circle (containment) and the geometry of a sphere (geometrical arrangements), for use in astronomy.

The circle/sphere of containment is the Phaistos Disk and the geometrical arrangements are the hidden pictographs created by connecting matching pictographs with lines, as in created constellations in astronomy. The Phaistos Disk is demonstrating the relationship of geometry with astronomy to show the sameness of the two sciences. Aligned this way, and used to diagram and interpret both earth and sky, these sciences together can produce an offspring, a kind of power that is Metaphysics, capable of occupying the mind of a savant like Pythagoras. This philosophy, transcendent of geometry, astronomy, and mathematics, engaged Pythagoras for the entirety of his life and created him as a mystic. It lead Plotinus to found Neoplatonism and it encouraged Plutarch to reside as a priest at Delphi, the name reminiscent of both Phaistos and Phi spiral.

In summary, the continued solution to this world-famous enigma involves using geometry to connect with lines the matching pictographs to produce hidden, larger pictographs, as in stars connected with lines to produce constellations. Because the pictographs are so tiny, they appear to be identical and can be isolated to demonstrate this Mediterranean Bronze Age science.

Through the use of this antique science, the disk delivers complex information in a simple way. Based on the Minoan love of mazes and the ancient method of forming constellations by connecting stars with lines, the disk conceals the constellation Argo and other related images that are revealed when matching pictographs are connected by lines.

Taking a clue from this unique, unrepeated pictograph (left, man holding a shield with seven tiny circles in the shape of a hexagram), the connect-the-dots approach of viewing the disk reveals, besides the numerous and common (to us) plane geometries expected to be seen, in total eight significant and complex images or larger pictographs concealed on the disk, that exact number foretold by the Figure 8 design, again forming a symmetry. This complex geometry is highlighted here, accomplished by removing the disk background and unused pictographs so only the matching ones remain, with the spiral faded into background. By this method is the invisible dimension revealed, populated with larger, more significant pictographs.

The Phaistos Disk may demonstrate the ancient philosophy of the "indwelling pattern" that became popular with the Sethian Gnostics of Early Common Era Gnosticism nearly 2,000 years later. The idea is that each individual has their own unique pattern that indwells them and determines who they become and what they do. But that pattern is invisible to the human eye, just as are the patterns hidden on the Phaistos Disk.

Images above from left to right: Constellation Argo, Star Sirius and Seven Planets, Great Pyramid Exterior, Great Pyramid Interior, Great Pyramid - Apex, Base, and Two Sides, Great Pyramid Warrior Perimeter, Right Triangle, Diameter

Euclidean Geometry is on the Phaistos Disk 1,300 years before the Greek mathematician and geometer Euclid. Where did Euclid get his plane geometry for which he is so famous if not from this Mediterranean Bronze Age science?

It does become evident via the Phaistos Disk that the Minoans had intimate knowledge of the Great Pyramid - the outside, the inside, from above, from below, from the side. Evidencing their knowledge of the Egyptian concept of Duat, they also knew of its existence high above in the stars as the sails of the constellation Argo.

"Philosophy [nature] is written in that great book which ever is before our eyes -- I mean the universe -- but we cannot understand it if we do not first learn the language and grasp the symbols in which it is written. The book is written in mathematical language, and the symbols are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures, without whose help it is impossible to comprehend a single word of it; without which one wanders in vain through a dark labyrinth." (Galileo)

48 Unique Phaistos Disk Pictographs

48 unique pictographs are distributed in the spirals in a seeming random way over both sides of the disk for 240 impressions. When all the matching pictographs are connected to themselves, every piece of Euclidean geometry emerges, 1,300 years before Euclid lived. Revealed are diameter, right triangle, cone, every kind of triangle, rectangles, polygons, parallel lines of same length and different length, and significant, large images of the Great Pyramid, inside and out, from below, from above and from the side, an image of the constellation Argo, an image of a spiral maze with a triangle at the center, an image of a big star inside a heptagram - maybe it is the star Sirius inside the seven planets, maybe it's the heliacal rising of Sirius, maybe it's the ancient symbol for astronomy, or maybe it's all of these! Did the Minoans have a geometry philosophy called Planeism?

Bronze Age geometry theology may have passed from Minoan Crete into mysticism to eventually became known as Sacred Geometry.

"...in those days [of ancient Egypt] of initiate kings and rulers and sages who occupied themselves with the Sacred Science, when the clear Aether spake face to face with them without disguise, or holding back aught, in answer to their deep scrutiny of holy things." (Thrice-Greatest Hermes, G.R.S. Mead)

Picture Writing

It is easy to see how a visionary artist familiar with this ancient science could envision the creation of a disk with other familiar forms - the boat, the star, the pyramid - and not just the natural geometrical arrangements (geometry) that would occur by connecting with lines the matching distributed pictographs on the disk. None of the pictographs are randomly placed on the Phaistos Disk. If the glyphs were hieroglyphs, as so many linguists are hoping for, then the ability to communicate additional pictographs would be lost because the glyphs would need to form sentences and could not therefore be precisely placed to form images.

Information about this ancient world would be completely lost in time because, in order to recall it, we would need to be able to speak or decipher the script. If we could not, then all would be lost. But a simple method of connecting familiar pictographs with lines would leave us able to comprehend their world because we would be able to see and understand the pictures without having to know the dead language, the idea being that geometry is universal, the stars are eternal, and the Great Pyramid is permanent. This Phaistos Disk method of transmitting information is brilliant.

A pictograph is an ideogram, conveying its meaning through what it resembles, unlike hieroglyphs that tell a story using alphabetic composition. Where hieroglyphs gain meaning by successive placement of the glyphs and represent words, pictographs gain meaning by selective grouping of the signs and convey ideas by what they resemble. Where script is a language that can be deciphered and read involving speech sounds, a pictograph is a symbol complete within itself representing an object or an idea.

These disk pictographs, for example, are what they seem to resemble; a pig, ?, an axe, water, ?, a fish, and a crab. What other meanings can they have? Grouped together this way they seem to be ideograms representing parts of a wide-spread ancient Egyptian mythology well-known to the Minoans and the Aegean world - the Isis-Osiris mythology. In this set, when Osiris's evil brother Typhon was out hunting pigs, he found the body of Osiris, that he had originally tossed into the Nile inside a coffin-chest, and chopped it into pieces with his axe, then threw it into the Nile River where one of the pieces, the phallus, was eaten by the sharp-snout fish and the Nile crab.

In the case of the Phaistos Disk the locations of the pictographs are specific placeholders to anchor images and/or geometries that create even larger pictographs conveying even larger ideas. In this respect, the Phaistos Disk displays an advanced, well-thought-out system of picture writing.

Picture writing potentially can convey much more information about a civilization than a script can because it shows both the archetypal or universally understood elements of any civilization and also the elements of a specific civilization. Picture writing speaks to everyone, and this makes it a better method of communication than script for many reasons. Script is abstract and has to be learned, making script writing a part of the social, financial and political fabric of a civilization.

Not everyone can understand script, but everyone can interpret picture writing. When one of the pictographs is deciphered or identified, then something about the civilization is deciphered or identified, and from this can come much information about the people, about how they lived, what they believed in, and how they expressed it. Arrange the pictographs differently and they mean something different. Place them in certain geometrical arrangements and, again, the meaning changes.

Continuous Representation Narrative Art

Although the Phaistos Disk does not display a hieroglyphic narrative, this Bronze Age, pottery art masterpiece might record an ancient mythology, story or event by use of the narrative technique "continuous representation," the depiction of successive incidents or scenes within a single composition by artists telling a story with their art. It began in Mesopotamia and was fully developed in Minoan Crete in their mosaics.

The disk seems to be a fantastic example of continuous representation in art but instead of several successive scenes as in the Maze of Daedalus there are successive pictographs or ideograms. In some instances, groups of pictographs and even line segments are exactly repeated or continuously represented, indicating a careful selection on the part of the artist(s) in using certain pictographs to anchor certain images and geometries in order to create continuous representation. This would afford additional meaning for this brilliant picture writing language. These line sequences are repeated - continously represented - on the Phaistos Disk.

Phaistos Disk pictographs color-coded

"Narrative art is art that tells a story, either as a moment in an ongoing story or as a sequence of events unfolding over time. Some of the earliest evidence of human art suggests that people told stories with pictures. However, without some knowledge of the story being told it is very hard to read ancient pictures because they are not organized in a systematic way like words on a page, but rather can unfold in many different directions at once." (Wikipedia - "Narrative Art")

Minoan Calendars: Zodiac Stellar, Lunisolar, Sothic, 366-Day-Year

In addition to hidden patterns, the Phaistos Disk may preserve an ancient calendar with multiple uses. The Disk might be a zodiac stellar calendar based on star groups. Star groups might be arranged in groups of 12, along the outer edge in the same location as the lunar months. These might be the 12 constellations we are familiar with today that are generally accepted as identified by Minoan Crete. 18 more spiral out from the center of Side 1 and Side 2, for a total of 36 groups or decans, each one rising above the dawn horizon for 10 days, totaling 360 days. The star groups spiral into the center as they begin their move into the underworld of Tartarus/Hades (go below the horizon) for 70 days/signs before they appear again.

18 star groups spiral into the center (18 line segments of the inner spirals) as they move into the underworld of Tartarus/Hades (go below the horizon) for 70 days before they reappear. 70 is the exact number of pictographs, beginning at the crossover from Side 1 to Side 2, countingfrom the first pictograph met with in spiral 4, the dog, "dog star," an ancient symbol for Sirius. Therefore, each one of these pictographs represents a day in which the star Sirius, seen rising with the sun on Side 1, has now disappeared from the sky on Side 2. Heliacal rising of Sirius will occur again at the flower on Side 1 in an infinite cycle, as represented by the infinity symbol created when the two sides of the Disk are joined together at the matching, connecting line segments.

Observation of the movement of star groups would let the Minoans tell time at night because the decans would rise 40 minutes later each night. When reckoning time at night, only 12 decans (and annual divisions) were used (our signs of the zodiac), delineated by the 12 line segments along the edge of the Disk, although 18 were taken into account, those delineated in the center of the Disk by the 18 line segments. With the addition of a 10 day intercalary month every two years, a 365-night stellar year can be accounted for.

Set these calendars to the first sighting of Sirius each year to keep them current. The Sothic (Sirius) year lasted from one sighting of Sirius in the dawn of a new year until the next year on the same day. With these calendars working together, and with Oceanus, the World Ocean encircling the world (the wave spirals below) and connecting these calendars together in a neverending wave spiral, infinity is accounted for, represented by the infinity symbol created by interlocking both sides of the Disk.

Long after the Phaistos Disk was created, the Greeks gave the name Helios to the god of the measurement of time. He had several sister goddesses called Horae, goddesses of the cycles of Time who reigned over the revolution of the constellations by which the passing seasons were measured. The Horae were honored by farmers, who would hoe the ground, plant and tend their crops according to the location of the stars in the skies. (The Horae, right, hold pomegranates/stars, and left on the Disk.) Because the Horae surrounded the throne of Helios, this method of timekeeping is a heliocentric horae-scope or horoscope, meaning to observe time or the seasons. This method of keeping "star" time might point to the Sothic calendar, a wide-spread Egyptian method of keeping time by tracking the star Sirius instead of the sun.

Minoan Lunisolar Calendar

If the two sides of the Phaistos Disk have application as Minoan integrated calendars, taken together they might be a Lunisolar calendar with 12 months and, every two years, the periodic intercalation of a 13th month, the interlinking line segments. Side 1, the solar calendar, keeps track of the three seasons, each of four months duration, along the 12 line segments of the outer edge. A count of the daylight hours or divisions of each day could also be kept on this side of the Disk, counting 12 divisions/hours along the outside edge with the 12 months and the seasons of the year.

Side 2, the lunar calendar, keeps time in lunar months (moonths), a moonth being the time between the four phases of the moon - new, waxing, full and waning. The lunar calendar has 12 moonths of 30 days for a 360-day year. The first month and new year might begin in the summer on the heliacal rising of star Sirius in 1600 BCE, approximately the equivalent of our July 1. Alternately, the Minoans may have had 30 months of 12 days – the 30 line segments each side, 12 of them on the outside spiral. Every two years the 13th month would occur and it would be only 2 days shorter than the others.

The combined Lunisolar calendar might have worked this way; one month solar, one month lunar, moving from side to side of the Disk, until 24 months had passed, at which time the intercalary or 13th month would begin the biennial festival of Dionysus in Minoan Crete in which the drama of his life was re-enacted.

When did the first logic of infinity occur to us collectively and when was it first represented as a horizontal figure 8? Could it have been during the Minoan civilization? The integrated calendars may not have been intended to work this way, but if we wanted to keep time in these different ways we could if we had the Phaistos Disk. And we could even have a Sothic calendar.

Minoan Sothic Calendar

Sothic is the Greek word for Sirius, which the Egyptians called Sopdet or Sopdu. A Minoan calendar/Phaistos Disk would be unique in that it may have solved the problem of keeping accurate time when tracking star Sirius.

Sirius rose with the sun on about the same day every year, July 19th, the sun perhaps represented by the 8-petaled "Flower" at the center of Side 1. Just like we add one day in February every leap year to make our calendar and our sun work in conjunction, the Egyptians added 5 days at the end of their year and tracked the movement of a star rather than the sun. The star's movement is so close to that of the sun that the star calendar worked the same as a sun calendar. One is a lunar calendar and the other is a solar calendar.

Just as night follows day, night perhaps represented by the "Star" at the center of Side 2, the Egyptians and perhaps the Minoans had calendars with solar months and lunar months. Before electricity and without bright lights to obscure the night sky, our relationship with it was much more intimate than it is today.

All Sothic calendars were known to have 12 months of 30 days. Some Sothic calendars may have had 30 months of 12 days. Both presented the Egyptian timekeepers with a problem -- a year of 360 days -- so they had to add 5 days at the end of the year to have a 365-day year so that the calendar would work right.

The Egyptians had a whole mythology that went with these 5 extra days/gods, which were festival days in Egypt and perhaps Crete, when the birth of these gods was celebrated. With the extra 5 days added, the Egyptian Sothic calendar would start again the following year on or about the same important day -- the heliacal rising of Sirius -- the day the star first rises with the sun. But the Sothic cycle was 1468 years because that is how long it takes for the calendar to recoup that day that was lost every 4 years from having a 365 day year.

The Phaistos Disk may be a Sothic calendar that keeps accurate star time, and it may be the only physical one in existence. There may be something unique about this Sothic calendar. Instead of having 12 months of 30 days, it may have alternating months of 30 and 31 days, (counting the connecting line segment as a day of the month rather than an intercalary month) more like our calendar than like the Egyptian calendar. Around the outside edge of the Disk are the 12 solar and the 12 lunar months. The solar months have 31 days and the lunar months have 30 days. The 2-sided Disk/calendar represents a two-year period, at the end of which was held the festival of Dionysus in which his life was celebrated.

This method of keeping time would be incredible if you consider what is known about Sothic calendars. It means that the Minoans may have figured out how to adjust a Sothic calendar so it kept proper star time and avoided the "Sothic cycle" of 1468 years.

Minoan 366-Day-Year

When you look at our calendar you see something odd about it. The months don't alternate 30 and 31 days every time, and February has only 28 days. Then, every four years we add a day to make up for the fact that our year is really 365 and 1/4 days, and that ends our cycle. Our calendar is only off by a 1/4 of a day each year and we are unaffected by that as long as we correct periodically.

The Minoans may have taken exactly the same approach. The difference is, while the Egyptians had years of 360 days and we have years of 365 days, the Minoans may have had years of 366 days. Rather than add 5 days at the end of the year and then have a calendar that rights itself every 1468 years, the Minoans may have had alternate months of 30 and 31 days. Then, they subtracted a day at the end of every two years, and that kept them within a 1/2 day of accuracy and ended their cycle. Instead of adding 5 festival days at the end of the year, like the Egyptians and their civil calendar, they may have celebrated them along with the Egyptians as festival days that occurred for them at the beginning of their year with the heliacal rising of Sirius. Then, every 2 years they held their own festival of Dionysus on the "subtracted" day, a day that didn't exist at all because it wasn't on their calendar - perfect for a wild, Dionysian bacchanal!

By their subtraction method of timekeeping, the Minoan calendar would be simple and correct. If it really worked this way it would have given them a huge advantage over the rest of the Aegean world and might explain in part their fantastic civilization. Their calendar would always have been a little ahead instead of a lot behind. Additional to their world view might have been the enlightened idea that time and the stars are dieties we can shape, using our imagination and the tools of geometry, to become more than mere subjects of them.

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"For further research and investigation into the Disk and its cosmic significance, I highly recommend Watson's work. I believe that her insights into this enigmatic artifact will, in time, prove to be the most accurate." (Peter Sterling, Harp Magic)

Copyright Notice - Disk of the World - Text and images copyrighted March 21, 1993-2025, Claire Grace Watson, B.A., M.S.T., U.S. Copyright and under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, All rights reserved. No part of this web page may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.