Weird Wednesday - Phaistos Disc and Rongorongo

Phaistos Disc - Side A
(click to supersize)

For some reason, I am fascinated by mysterious, undeciphered writing (check out Weird Wednesday - The Voynich Manuscript.) Today, we have not one, but two good mysteries from the Mythik Story Idea List And Weird Things File :)

The Phaistos Disc is, oddly enough, an approximately 3600 year old disc-shaped clay artifact discovered in Crete in 1908. Although the dating is imprecise, and some archeologists do think it is a hoax, it is generally accepted by the scientific community as the real deal.

It has symbols or "signs" in a spiral pattern on both sides. There are 45 unique signs that make up its "alphabet," and there are a total of 241 "tokens" made up of the signs. Many of the signs seem to represent people, faces, and objects such as weapons and tools. The signs have been compared to the symbols in Linear A and Anatolian and even Egyptian Hieroglyphics. There is even a theory that it may be the result of the world's first printing press. But so far, nobody has been able to come up with a conclusive translation.

Phaistos Disc - Side B
What do you think? Is it a recipe? A board game? The headpiece to the Staff of Ra?
Or perhaps an Anti-Gravity Pyramid Builder Instruction Manual?

That doesn't mean everybody and their dog hasn't attempted to decipher it, though. So go ahead, get out your handy Indiana Jones Ancient Language Decoder Book and give it a shot. Let me know what you come up with :)

If you get stuck with the Phaistos Disc, you can always try your hand at decoding Rongorongo. This mysterious script comes from the equally mysterious Easter Island. It first became known in the late 19th century, but by then it seems anybody who knew how to read it had died off (or been killed.)

Rongorongo

To make matters worse, the pieces of wood containing the writing were often used as firewood or used to wind fishing lines. If you want to take a crack at reading it, it is theorized that you read from left to right, beginning at the bottom, then rotate it 180 degrees and continue the next line.

Some of the characters appear to be people and animals, and the writing was engraved with a shark's tooth. Nobody knows for sure how to read it, of course, but one surviving fragment is believed to be a lunar calendar.

What do you think?