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December 15, 2018, Filed Under: Archives Updates

The Phaistos Disk: A New Way of Viewing the Language behind the Script

Make time in your holiday schedule for the upcoming talk by Brent Davis on the Phaistos Disk!

When and Where: Monday January 14, 2019.

12 noon – 2 PM in WAG 116 Seminar Room

This talk outlines a new linguistics-based method of investigating the languages behind the undeciphered members of the Bronze Age Aegean family of syllabic scripts. Using this new method to compare the script on the Phaistos Disk against Linear A reveals a statistically significant similarity in the behavior of the homomorphs in the two scripts, strongly suggesting that both scripts encode the same language.

Brent Davis is a Lecturer (US: Asst. Prof.) in archaeology at the University of Melbourne, Australia. He received his undergraduate degree in Linguistics from Stanford, and in 2011 completed his PhD at the University of Melbourne on Minoan ritual vessels and Linear A.

With a background in both archaeology and linguistics, his interests include not only the cultures of the ancient eastern Mediterranean, but their languages and scripts as well, particularly their undeciphered scripts. He has published numerous articles and chapters on ancient cultures and scripts, as well as on archaeological theory, and has undertaken more than a decade of archaeological fieldwork in Israel at Tell-es Safi/Gath, the site of a major Philistine city.

Brent’s superb monograph Minoan Stone Vessels with Linear A Inscriptions. Aegaeum (Annales d’archéologie égéenne de l’Université de Liège et UT-PASP) 36 Leuven; Liège: Peeters, 2014. Pp. xxiv, 421. ISBN 9789042930971 was reviewed comprehensively by UT’s own Aren Wilson-Wright and Tom Palaima in Bryn Mawr Classical Review: http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2015/2015-11-36.html .

Updated on December 15, 2018 by Garrett R. Bruner. garrettbruner@utexas.edu
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PASP Visit Reports

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  • Tom Palaima in Copenhagen, September 2022
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  • Report on Visit – Regina Dürig and Christian Müller
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  • Report on Visit – José Luis García Ramón
  • Report on the Activities at PASP – José Melena

PASP Archives Updates

  • Honoring Yves Duhoux: A Tribute
  • Personal and PASPian Perspectives on ‘Mysteries Revisited’ : Alice Kober, John Franklin Daniel, Michael Ventris and Emmett L. Bennett, Jr. as Founders of Scientific Research on Aegean and Cypriote Scripts
  • Linear B Down Under: An Exhibit on Decipherment at Macquarie University, Sydney
  • Bob Dylan and the Next Generations
  • Dylanology I, II, III
  • Brent Davis (University of Melbourne): Syllabotactic Analysis of Linear A and Cretan Hieroglyphic
  • MASt@CHS Spring Seminar, April 16, 2021: Summaries and Discussion
  • Winter 2021 MASt@CHS report with contributors Michele Mitrovich & Jared Petroll
  • Islands of the Blessed
  • All Bennett Correspondence Now Online – A Report
  • Journey to Alice – Exploring the blanks of Alice Kober’s life within creative writing
  • The MASt@CHS project
  • This is Retaliation, Not Justice: Speaking Out After 9-11-2001 by Tom Palaima
  • “Ciphers”, a new play by Bernadine Corrigan about Michael Ventris and Alice Kober, with introduction and suggested background readings by Tom Palaima and an excerpt chosen by the playwright
  • A Love Letter to Cyprus and Its Coffee by Cassie Donnelly
  • Commemorating John Chadwick’s 100th Birthday by Tom Palaima
  • PASP Semester in Reflection, Spring 2020
  • PASP Publications Page Update
  • Tom Palaima – Emmett Bennett Correspondence Online
  • Updates to PASP Publications Index
  • Stanley Lombardo visits PASP and University of Texas
  • Michele Mitrovich Awarded AHEPA Scholarship
  • On the Trail of Cypro-Minoan by Cassandra Donnelly
  • PASP featured in SAA Archival Outlook May/June 2019
  • Summer Travels Recap. 2019.
  • Clay Time: A Workshop in Late Bronze Age Scripts. By Cassandra Donnelly
  • Archivist: A Connective Branch in the PASP Ecosystem by Sarah Buchanan
  • A Semester in Review by Zoé Thomas
  • The Phaistos Disk: A New Way of Viewing the Language behind the Script
  • “Beauty in clay: Aesthetics and script in Mycenaean Greece” by Dimitri Nakassis
  • CREWS Fellowship Awarded to PASP Researcher and Classics PhD Candidate Cassandra Donnelly
  • William C. Brice – Scripta Minoa III Correspondence Now Online
  • Aegean Scholarship at UT accessible at Texas ScholarWorks by Kevin S. Lee
  • Paintings and Poetry in Linear B – The Nikos Samartzidis Collection
  • William C. Brice Collection material online
  • Visit Report by Regina Dürig and Christian Müller
  • “Dear Bennett, Dear Miss Kober” by Kevin Lee
  • Emmett L. Bennett – Correspondence Online

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  • Honoring Yves Duhoux: A Tribute
  • Personal and PASPian Perspectives on ‘Mysteries Revisited’ : Alice Kober, John Franklin Daniel, Michael Ventris and Emmett L. Bennett, Jr. as Founders of Scientific Research on Aegean and Cypriote Scripts
  • Linear B Down Under: An Exhibit on Decipherment at Macquarie University, Sydney
  • Bob Dylan and the Next Generations
  • Dylanology I, II, III
  • Brent Davis (University of Melbourne): Syllabotactic Analysis of Linear A and Cretan Hieroglyphic
  • MASt@CHS Spring Seminar, April 16, 2021: Summaries and Discussion
  • Winter 2021 MASt@CHS report with contributors Michele Mitrovich & Jared Petroll
  • Islands of the Blessed
  • All Bennett Correspondence Now Online – A Report
  • Journey to Alice – Exploring the blanks of Alice Kober’s life within creative writing
  • The MASt@CHS project
  • This is Retaliation, Not Justice: Speaking Out After 9-11-2001 by Tom Palaima
  • “Ciphers”, a new play by Bernadine Corrigan about Michael Ventris and Alice Kober, with introduction and suggested background readings by Tom Palaima and an excerpt chosen by the playwright
  • A Love Letter to Cyprus and Its Coffee by Cassie Donnelly
  • Commemorating John Chadwick’s 100th Birthday by Tom Palaima
  • PASP Semester in Reflection, Spring 2020
  • PASP Publications Page Update
  • Tom Palaima – Emmett Bennett Correspondence Online
  • Updates to PASP Publications Index
  • Stanley Lombardo visits PASP and University of Texas
  • Michele Mitrovich Awarded AHEPA Scholarship
  • On the Trail of Cypro-Minoan by Cassandra Donnelly
  • PASP featured in SAA Archival Outlook May/June 2019
  • Summer Travels Recap. 2019.
  • Clay Time: A Workshop in Late Bronze Age Scripts. By Cassandra Donnelly
  • Archivist: A Connective Branch in the PASP Ecosystem by Sarah Buchanan
  • A Semester in Review by Zoé Thomas
  • The Phaistos Disk: A New Way of Viewing the Language behind the Script
  • “Beauty in clay: Aesthetics and script in Mycenaean Greece” by Dimitri Nakassis
  • CREWS Fellowship Awarded to PASP Researcher and Classics PhD Candidate Cassandra Donnelly
  • William C. Brice – Scripta Minoa III Correspondence Now Online
  • Aegean Scholarship at UT accessible at Texas ScholarWorks by Kevin S. Lee
  • Paintings and Poetry in Linear B – The Nikos Samartzidis Collection
  • William C. Brice Collection material online
  • Visit Report by Regina Dürig and Christian Müller
  • “Dear Bennett, Dear Miss Kober” by Kevin Lee
  • Emmett L. Bennett – Correspondence Online