Publisher's Synopsis
The Phaistós disc is the oldest literary work of "Europe" The complexity of the hieroglyphic representation on the Phaistós disc reveals an extremely refined cultural and artistic quality. In the writer's opinion, it is of fundamental importance as indeed it represents the oldest European literary expression. It conveys a message that has come to us from the depths of time, from the beginnings of Western culture and marks the boundary between a before and an after, between prehistory and history. The search for Ariadne's thread in the quest to understand the meaning of what is transcribed there is therefore an imperative historical and cultural necessity This research was able to demonstrate how the hieroglyphic sequence of the Phaistós disc unfolds in a linear direction along the path of the spirals, starting from the centre towards the periphery, that is, from left to right; to end finally with the line marked with five stylus dots. The current vulgate on the right-to-left writing direction, from the outside towards the centre of the disc, deduced from 2 or 5 overlappings, is definitively overcome by two details never considered up to now: 1) the deformation of some signs, caused by the punching of the sign on their right; 2) the retouching-scratch of the intersection line between A XIV and A XIII, with the series of parallel scratch interrupted by the countersinking of the five dots, placed on the presumed opening line, which the photographic enlargement reveals instead to be the text closing line. In March 2018, by means of photographic enlargements, the author finally discovers on the Phaistós' disc a detail never considered by anyone, which proves in an incontrovertible way the direction of writing from left to right, from the centre to the periphery of the disc. Further and significant confirmations of the right-handed direction of writing are the word corrections, constantly retouched on the right end of the same. To this is added a detail hitherto never noticed by anyone: the combination of a two-factor system regarding the oblique stroke and the hypothesis of Minoan verses and strophes: a) ternary setting of the phrases/verses (sections) constituting a strophe, b) cadence of the oblique stroke coinciding with the initial part to the left of these sections (verses and strophes).
