PHAISTOS DISK - YOU CAN'T TOUCH THIS
Genius of this 3,600 Year-Old Pattern Recognition Maze
You can touch/drag this image of the Phaistos Disk overlaid onto Summer Solstice 500 BCE and colorizied blue by me.
Animation from the Bronze Age created on a Potter's Wheel
A Spinning World Disk
Tracing Side A Artifact Side A Artifact Side B Tracing Side B
Click the disks above to see larger images. Excavated 1908 in Phaistos, Crete, the Phaistos Disk is dated about 1,600 BCE. The artifact is terracotta pottery, about 6-1/4" diameter 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 A, 30 side B). The outside spirals have 12 line segments (24 outside); inside spirals have 18 (36 inside). Divided among the line segments and covering the disk are 240 pictograph impressions made with 48 miniature pictographs. 37 are created to appear identical and are repeated. 11 are unrepeated.
After sixteen years of profoundly studying this artifact, I have found eight hidden, significant patterns on the disk that are in plain sight and anyone
could have found them who thought to do what I did. I believe eight is the total count of the significant patterns to be found on the disk. Other geometric patterns/dimensional planes are also present on the disk, revealed by connected "identical" pictographs with lines.
  
I get my a clue to this eight-count total from the flower pictograph (left) in the center of side 1 of the disk that has 8 count em petals, from the figure 8 on the cheek of the astronomer-priest (left), from the figure 8 held in the claws of the hawk pictograph (left), and from the solution to the disk maze, shaped like a Figure 8 Shield, and from the total count of the rings of the spirals when the the two sides of the disks are merged together to accomplish the maze solution.
 Eight seems to be the "special" number of the Phaistos Disk, but what does the eight mean? When did humanity first begin to associate infinity with a horizontal figure 8? Could the Phaistos Disk be the memorial dedicated to that concept? To understand the meaning of eight within the context of the Phaistos Disk, I look to understand the religion of the Minoan people who, as far as history is concerned, were either an earth mother society or pagans or atheists or all of the above. They were influenced no doubt by the Egyptian religion which overshadowed everything and everybody in the Mediterranean area during the Bronze Age. My findings on the Phaistos encourage me to think the Minoans probably incorporated and transformed parts of the Egyptian religion to make it their own.
  Within this context of an Egyptian/Minoan religion, eight could be a reference to the Ogdoad, meaning 8th heaven or heaven-sphere wherein resides the god Osiris in infinity. The Ogdoad is the level to which a person hoped to ascend after death in order to be with Osiris. The Egyptians/Minoans probably conceived of the Ogdoad to be the star Sirius, the star so obviously disguished from all the other stars by its color, its size and its apparent movement. Sirius is the twinkling blue-white star 34 times brighter than our sun. The Egyptians set their Sothic calendar according to its movements. The Phaistos Disk may also be a Minoan Sothic calendar that reckons time according to the movement of this star.
The star Sirius, where lies the 8th heaven-sphere or Thoth's City of 8, is perhaps indicated by the central star on the Phaistos Disk (left, revealed by connecting all 15 disk/shield signs on this side). The Ogdoad/star lies above the Hebdomad, collectively the seven lower heavens, or the seven shields on the outer rim connected to produce the heptogram. These heavenly planes are above us in the stars, which are constellations of divine geometry as portrayed on the Phaistos Disk.
Just how far did this idea of the Ogdoad and the Hebdomad travel down in time? In modern mysticism of today, this Phaistos Disk Star/Heptogram design is part of Hermeticism, as described by Israel Regardie in The Golden Dawn, who seems to be looking at this design (above, left) when he writes:
"In the Egyptian sense, it is SIRIUS the Dog-Star, the Star of Isis-Sothis. Around it are the Stars of the Seven Planets each with its seven-fold counterchanged operation."
"Each of the [Seven] Planetary Spheres is a complete World containing a number of divine offspring, which are invisible to us, and over all of these Spheres the Star (Sirius) we see is the ruler." (Proclus, Commentary on the Timaeus of Plato, in Mead, Vol.3, p.198;)
 The geometric design of the Phaistos Disk that became the Hermetic Star in modern Hermeticism likely started as the myth about the birth of Zeus, and this may be the symbolic meaning of this design on the disk. When the goddess, whose name may have been Rhea to the Minoans (an anagram of Hera, the goddess of the Greeks of the Golden Age), gave birth to Zeus in a cave in Crete, she was protected by a circle of warriors banging on their shields (left) to prevent the father Chronos (Time) from hearing the cries of the baby and coming to eat him. Thus the Minoans made possible the birth of an Immortal.
The Minoans probably conceived of Rhea as being the star Sirius, the star called Sopdu by the Egyptians (and Sothis by the Greeks) who conceived of it as being the goddess Isis. On the Phaistos Disk Rhea/Isis is represented by the five-pointed star, and the warriors are the seven shields in the outer circle. It would seem the concept of the design incorporates the idea that the planets are shields that are guarding the great star Sirius. From this ancient idea may come the concept in modern mysticism of planetary shields. As the disk itself also appears to be a miniature shield, it might be the first idea of Earth's planetary shield.
 In this method of connecting the shields, one shield is unconnected. An alternate method of connecting the shields incorporates this shield into the design (below right). In the first design (below, left) the unconnected shield probably represents the earth. On this design all the heavenly bodies are accounted for: the earth, the star Sirius, the seven planets that included the sun and the moon. There is also the possibility that the unconnected shield is Sirius B, the companion star to Sirius A that is invisible to the eye. But with a telescope (left), the Egyptians and Minoans might have perceived its existance. On the second design, in which the spiral begins at the center of the star, the goddess Rhea represented by the star is giving birth to everything in heaven and earth. All of physical reality flows out of her in a spiral.
The Riddle of the Stone
 The seven dots within the shields of the disk form a hexagon and might represent the seven planets known at that time, including the sun and the moon and excluding Earth; they are Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Mercury and Venus. A round shield nearly identical to those of the Phaistos Disk is seen on the Riddle of the Stone, also known as the Vitriol Acrostic (below), which alchemists, after the 16th century, held in "superstitious reverence." (John Read, F.R.S., Through Alchemy to Chemistry)
 On the Riddle of the Stone, also a good name for the mystery attached to the Phaistos Disk, are various symbols for the seven planets. Top left are seven small circles representing the seven planets; top center are seven symbols, one for each planet; and at the bottom are various shields. Nearly identical to the shields on the disk is the round shield, bottom left, within which are seven dots of hexagonal arrangement representing the seven planets. To the right of this shield is the seven-pointed Hermetic Star, each of the seven points representing one of the seven planets.
The round shield to the right of the Hermetic Star contains the Ring Cosmos and Ring Chaos of Ring-Pass-Not (limits the spread of the fiery cosmos) and symbolizes the Limit of the Hebdomad, the material universe of the seven lower spheres or planets. The two outer shields of the Riddle of the Stone contain alchemical symbols in the form of mythical beasts connected by chains. They symbolize the planets as being "living creatures having bodies fastened by vital chains," which hold them to the "appointed task of their orbits." (Plato, Timaeus) These alchemists had a clear idea about the "intelligent design" of the universe and the internet connection of the planets, displayed so well here on The Riddle of the Stone.
 The "divine offspring" of the planets (see the quote above) are nonmaterial spheres or spiritual levels of planetary existence. This idea of our planet as having nonmaterial spheres or spiritual levels, like a planetary aura, takes us straight into our current mysticism regarding the upcoming event of December 21, 2012 in which the earth is either coming to an end or experiencing a planetary ascension or both. This special date, in which we are to see a unique planetary alignment, has been predicted by many ancient cultures, most famously the Maya. This design on the Phaistos Disk may in fact be an ancient astrological prediction of the upcoming significant planetary alignment (above, right). But western mysticism of the 16th and 17th centuries offers this interesting explanation of how the planet can regenerate itself via its nonmaterial spheres. The idea of these macrocosmic astral spheres has a microcosmic association with the spiritual idea of souls ascending to nonmaterial astral planes or Limbo at death.
The creator of the Riddle was Basil Valentine, the mysterious 16th century alchemist believed to have been a Benedictine monk. Alchemical enigmas such as the Riddle of the Stone were common and were meant to convey secret information to those initiated into the mysteries. A famous text enigma created by the mysterious alchemist The Cosmopolite involves the seven planets and supplies a link in the chain connecting the Phaistos Disk, Riddle of the Stone, and the Kabala Tree of Life. The Cosmopolite's text makes little sense without the information from modern Hermeticism (W. Marsham Adams in Mead) enabling the diagram of the planetary positions onto a design of a Kabala Tree of life (below right), which most people did not have.
The text enigma became famous because it could not be solved by the uninitiated. I solved it by looking at a design of the Kabala Tree of Life. I labeled the spheres according to the enigma to come up with the answer to the riddle. But to do this, I needed to be an initiate into the ancient mysteries, which should be obvious to the reader by now that I am. The Kabala Tree of Life is likely a straight descendant of the Phaistos Disk, the design having gained in complexity over the simple spiraling disk design. The Cosmopolite will now speak:
 "Look at the sky and the spheres of the planets. You will see that Saturn is the highest of all, succeeded by Jupiter and then by Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury and finally the Moon. Consider now that the virtues of the planets do not ascend, but descend. Experience itself teaches us that Mars can easily be converted into Venus, but not Venus into Mars--Venus being a lower sphere. Similarly Jupiter is easily transmuted into Mercury, because Jupiter is higher than Mercury. The former is the second below the firmament, the latter second above the earth. Saturn is the highest, the moon the lowest. The sun mixes with all of them, but is never improved by the inferior ones. Further you will note that there is a great correspondence between Saturn and the Moon, with the Sun midway between them. There is also a correspondence between Mercury and Jupiter and between Mars and Venus. In the midst of all is the Sun." (7)
Kabala Tree of Life is a direct descendant of ancient Egyptian mystery-myth having to do with the condition of the soul, the nature of consciousness, and realms of the immortal life. Ka is the Spirit Self, Ba is the Earth Self, and La is the union of the those opposites to produce the Immortal Self.
Star and Planets - Hermetic Star
Concealed on the Phaistos Disk is the singular image of the seven planets surrounding the fixed star of Sirius. This image is revealed by placing a point at each symbolic shield (below) and connecting all but one of the points with lines. By this method, a star inside a heptagram emerges. The outside edge of the Phaistos Disk is traced around the heptagram design because the points inside the shields are encircled. A shield is placed at each point to show the exact location of the shields on the disk. Revealed is the star Sirius with, perhaps, its companion star, Sirius B. Double every line and the point representing the companion becomes connected.
Designs related to the Phaistos Disk pent/hept pattern. Top left, Keys in the Enochian Language by John Dee (16th c. CE); second from left, Osiris altar, Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, 20th c.; third from left, ceiling of the tomb of Christian Rosenkreuz, 18th c. CE, Roscicrucian; fourth from left, Phaistos Disk Pictograph; bottom left, floor of the tomb of Christian Rosenkreuz, 18th c. CE, Roscicrucian; second left, Keys in the Enochian language, geometry design, third left, Hermetic Star of the Phaistos Disk.
The Inward Parts of the Earth
Around the edge of the Riddle of the Stone, which has been associated with the Emerald Table of Hermes Trismegistus, is a Shamanic message meaning "visit the inward parts of earth; by rectifying thou shalt find the hidden [Philosopher's] Stone."
What inward parts? The inward parts of the earth in the subterreanean chamber of the pyramid? I think the Minoan astronomer-priests participated in the religious rituals of the Isis-Osiris religion in Egypt, which was supposed to be convened inside the Great Pyramid. I am encourged to think this by the two images of the Great Pyramid on the Phaistos Disk, one an exterior image and the other an interior image showing a trap door leading to the subterranean chamber. (above left, revealed by connecting all 6 pyramid signs on side 1, and above right, all 10 fleece signs connected on side 1).
 So what were they doing in there? According to literature of a much later period from Greek sources, namely Plutarch, they were very much involved in finding a way out of this maze we find ourselves trapped in, this hotel California that we can check out of but can never leave. Or as the Hindus would say, this reincarnational dance of death. Are we dead-ended in this earthly maze or is there a way out? How do we escape this maze of the physical life? Do we book a voyage with the pharaoh on the Constellation Argo? (Left, revealed by connecting all 15 star/pomegranate signs) Or is this a "beam me up Scotty" scenario?  Some people insist this pictograph on the Phaistos Disk is a UFO. According to Minoan Daedalus we fly out of this maze on wings, and this also is the answer of the ancient Isis/Osiris religion; we ascend with the assistance of the winged god Horus, also symbolized as the Winged Disk. Marking the buildings of the informed afterlife in the ancient world, like blood marking Passover, the Winged Disk grants us escape. The Phaistos Disk is, I believe, among other things a Minoan version of the Winged Disk.
 How did the ancient astronomer-priests and priestesses plan their escape? The astronomer-priests and priestesses of the old religion, and it was very old indeed, dating perhaps from 8,000 BCE, convened deep within Cheops, perhaps even in the Subterranean Chamber, as indicated on the Phaistos Disk (right, trap door leading to down below with the pictograph of Isis/Rhea visible just below the door). In this pyramid that was perhaps built for them by Pharaoh Kephren, they performed initiations into the angelic legions of Thoth. Slowly revealed to the initiates, called Mortals, were the Divine Mysteries. The astronomer-priests and priestesses, called Beings of Light because they had seen Isis while they were still mortal, helped to elevate the initiate Mortals to the level of Intelligences, those who had received the god Thoth and begun to merge with him and thus were mortal no more. Again, the Minoans participated in the creation of an Immortal, this time created from mortal person to immortal person. The Alchemists of a later period of time would say they transmuted base metal to gold with their ceremonies. Alchemy began in Egypt, which was once called Chemmis. "They call Egypt Chemia," (G.R.S. Mead, Thrice-Greatest Hermes) or Chem-Egypt or Al-Chem-Egypt, hence Alchemy.
 The Select, as these devout were called, wore two hooded robes, The Robe of Isis, which they wore openly, and the Robe of Osiris, which they put away until the day they would walk with Osiris. (Left, the two Hoodwink of a Robe pictographs on the Phaistos Disk). To achieve the joining of the Mortals to the gods Thoth and Osiris, a Ritual of the Portal was performed during which time the god made himself visible to the astronomer-priests and priestesses. I think the creator of the Phaistos Disk was more than an initiate in this mystery-myth cult of the ancient Egyptians but was an Intelligence of the religion, perhaps even the leader of the Minoan astronomer-priests.
How does one merge with Thoth? How did the astronomer-priest and priestesses assist one to become no longer Mortal but Intelligent? First of all, I recognize these names of Thoth and Osiris to be culture-specific names of the spirit that moved among them. Whatever was immortal and infinite then is still immortal and infinite now but going under other cultural names than the ancient Egyptian names. If we could merge with them in the distance past and become immortal, we can also do it now. We just need a Select to intiate us and then guide us along this path. Without the assistance of the Select we have to hope that Thoth/Osiris will somehow find us wandering through this maze before the Minotaur finds us and eats us.
 That is really asking a lot, to be searched for and singled out in this most crowded disk of the world by a Divine Being who has not much else to do but look for us. There we are, left, just waiting for Thoth/Osiris to find us in the maze below. Shouldn't be that difficult, especially if we are also looking for Thoth/Osiris, in which case we can find each other. Pretend you are Thoth on high looking down on our world. Find the intiate (image left) in the crowded Phaistos Disk of the World maze below. (Just fyi, here is where genetic code is helpful, but lacking that info, use your eyes instead.)
If you like, send me an email and let me know how long it took you to find him. It tells me something about you and I will send it to you. 
How to Become Immortal
According to this ancient theology of Hermeticism, starlight is the key to both enlightenment and resurrection. When starlight enlightens the individual, the base metal of the original human being becomes precious gold. The old person ceases to exist and becomes an immortal person. Enlightenment regarding one's purpose for existence is in itself regenerative, and the path to immortality becomes clear. The word immortality invokes several meanings, all of them quite different.
In the Hermetic/Egyptian sense, immortality means engaging the Ba, the earth-self, in a merger with the immortal overself and spirit-soul, the Ka. The ba was a psychic force...Then it became the possessor of imperishable powers...(The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Egypt, Manfred Lurker, Thames and Hudson, publishers, 1974, p31). The ka was born with a person. Many representations show the god Khnum fashioning the child and its ka on a potters wheel. The ka accompanied a person like a kind of double, but when the person died the ka lived on. 'To go to one's ka' meant 'to die', since the ka then left its mortal house and returned to its divine origin. (Lurker, p73).
 In Egyptian-Cretan terminologies, the Ka-Ba, then, is the collective Being (Ka-Ba-La) who continues on after death in a soul vehicle called the Mer-Ka-Ba, Mer meaning "place of ascending." Tomb paintings and papyri of the New Kingdom show the ba in bird-form hovering above the mummy of the deceased. (Lurker, p31). Left, the ba of mummifed Ani hovers above while Nephthys and Isis in the form of hawks stand at either end.
In personal meaning, this moment, this now, is our Mer, our place of ascending. The Merkaba vehicle is comprised of beingness established by the earth-self, who intentionally united itself with the soul-self, the Ka. The beingness of the earth-self unites itself to the beingness of the soul self for purposes of achieving immortality. The merger begins as one begins to assimilate the starlight.
Human Brain Embeddedness of Starlight
 Human brain embeddedness of starlight, showing the development of the brain of an enlightened human being, according to the theology of the ancient Egyptians and apparently the Minoans of about 1600 BCE. (From The Lion Path: A Manual of the Short Path to Regeneration of our Times, Golden Sceptre Publishing, 1984, Musaios)
According to the religion represented by the Phaistos Disk, the starlight comes down to us from Sirius and other constellations in spiraling waves like DNA spirals that travel as geometrical packets of divine light and that bring us regeneration and immortality by activating the hypothalamus.
 We can learn much about this ancient world and its spiritual beliefs by closely studying this archeological artifact because it represents not only the Minoan ideas regarding living astronomy but also the spiritual ideas of the ancient worlds of Babylon, Egypt and Sumer. And from another concurrent, ancient civilization we can gain information about how we, as humans, assimilate the starlight into our human bodies for purposes of enlightenment and enhanced enjoyment of physical life.
This science of enlightenment is at least 4,000 years old. This image (above, left) from the Indus Valley is 400 years older than the Bronze Age Phaistos Disk. It portrays the Indian concept of the invisible chakra system that is the subatomic particle operating system of the human body. Of the chakra system and its spinning wheels of energy-light shown by these images, the writer Joseph Campbell said, "You won't find it on the operating table." (Transformations of Myths Through Time, Joseph Campbell)
The next image (above, right) is my color version of a 20th century image by Manly P. Hall, done in yellow to depict my experience of yellow light entering my head at night. As to the physical experience of this light as it enters the top of the head, we have an account from the detective novelist Philip Dick, who said that God fired a beam of pink light at his head. He described it as having his own mind entered by a transcendant, rational mind and that it was as though he had been insane all his life and now was become sane. He described the light as an artificial intelligence, something not of himself. These experiences involving the light would possibly be interpreted by the ancients as incoming starlight.
Indus Vally and Egyptian/Minoan System Combined in Digital Art
In mysticism of the Middle Ages to the present, the light has been described as too bright to behold and also as a bright white light that goes "Bang!" in the biofield. In Christianity, we are familiar with the conversion of St. Paul, who had his own experience with the light, and we know through song of those who have seen the light. In New Age literature, we know of being embraced by the light, and we have popular books by writers like Deepak Chopra that teach us about the chakra system and about what it means to us. These are all varied and interesting accounts of the enlightenment experience as well the spiritual technology regarding it, and all these accounts could conceivably be interpreted as personal interactions with starlight. Below, a modern depiction of the chakra system at work collecting the light.
  
Star Worship and The Star Sirius
  But why is the star Sirius especially selected to be the origin or source of enlightenment?
Sirius, a blue-white star 34 times brighter than our sun, with 8 times the mass, is 8.8 light years or 2.7 parsecs away in Canis Major. It is traveling at unbelievable speeds and heading straight for us. If any star in the sky is our destiny, it is Sirius. It has two dwarf stars as companions, Sirius B (Horus) and Sirius C. The image, left, shows Sirius B circled. In 1718, the astronomer Edmund Halley compared the position of Sirius with the position of background stars in the same field of view over time and discovered that it had moved. Beginning in 1834, the mathematician Friedrich Besel measured the exact position of Sirius night after night and discovered that Sirius does not travel in a straight line; it wobbles. He surmised that the wobble was caused by an invisible companion, Sirius B, orbiting around the star once every 50 years. The companion is a white dwarf star, a 'dead' star, as the astronomers say. Our sun will become a 'dead' star 5 billion years from now. As we look at Sirius, we are looking at the future of our own solar system. And everything that ever happened in and around that star is contained within the light that escapes from it, bringing us the knowledge of the creation of the universe. Contained within its light is that knowledge and those values of birth and creation. Sirius is our link to the origins of the universe.
To find Sirius, first find the North Star, Polaris which is directly north. Then, turn full around 180 degrees to face the south. Looking up you cannot miss Orion. It is a big constellation made up of bright stars of different colors. Identifying Orion is found by looking for three similar stars in a row which is Orion's belt. Follow the line of Orion's belt to the left to find the bright glow of Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky. Sirius is one of the closer stars, a little over 8 light years away. Our Sun is 8 light minutes away. This makes Sirius a half a million times farther than our home star. At magnitude -1.5, Sirius is often mistaken for a planet, but is rather a blue-white main sequence star. Its surface temperature of over 10,000 K, its luminosity 22 times that of the Sun and its distance of only 8.6 light years from Earth combine to secure its place as the brightest star.
 The Phaistos Disk represents starlight traveling in a spiral as it leaves the star Sirius. According to the ancient belief, one can follow that spiral back to its source and become immortal if one has, with conscious intent and spiritual guidance, received and assimilated its light.
The star appears to travel in a spiral through the constellations. Its predictable spiral movement was used to record the passage of time as a Sothic Calendar, an ancient Egyptian calendar. Within the spirals on the Phaistos Disk are pictured divine beings of light moving in streams that contain them collectively as a pantheon of gods and their divine properties. In this Bronze Age representation, the pictographs mirror, in an 'as above, so below' (macrocosm--microcosm) relationship, the movement of the star as it passes through the constellations and the movement of the starlight before arriving on the planet. Upon arrival, its light enters the minds of the Elect, the priests and priestesses of Isis and Osiris who anticipated the arrival of the Light and who elect to receive it. Their intent is the key that opens the inner portals to the reception of the light. (Right, from the Second Shrine of Tut-ankh-amun. Above the Horus/Osiris falcon can be seen the walking sign (and below left from the disk), showing that Horus/Osiris flew a long distance through other constellations to bring the regenerative starlight to the Elect.)
 They expected to receive this regenerative energy in the personification of the god-king Osiris, shown above as the falcon. Osiris, a winged being like an angel, is the One who brings enlightenment, regeneration and, ultimately, afterlife resurrection into his realms and the realms of his sister-wife Isis. Just as she prepared a reception and a feast for the arrival of Osiris, so does Isis do the same for the Elect. Forever more will the Perfect reside in the Dawn of the light of Sirius, rejoicing and awaiting the arrival of more of the Elect, the ones who teach the arts of civilization (proper respect for the gods, the sharing out of knowledge and wisdom, and the study and understanding of star lore). This is the world from which this disk comes to us and this is the world to which we must return if we are to understand it. But let us remember that the star still shines, it still passes in a spiral fashion through the constellations and it still delivers to us, the Elect who want to receive it, the regenerative properties of the eternal light of enlightenment.
 
Above, left: Papyrus of Amon-M-Sut; Above, right: Papyrus of Ta-Shed Khonsu
Left, Horus bridges the Limit or barrier to the higher realms to dispense the starlight to the newly deceased. Right, having received a quotient of light, the deceased is regenerated and the barrier to the higher realms is removed. (Credit to Musaios for the two images above, see pp. 45 and 47 of The Lion Path.)
 I overlaid the disk at the center of the flying disk/Isis wings with the Phaistos Disk to give an idea of what might have been intended by the creators of the Phaistos Disk. They may have intended it as a sacred flying disk or Behudi-ti, the Egyptian word for winged disk. From Behudi mostly likely comes the word Buddha, a modern name and incarnation of the ancient Divinity. The Flying disk, with serpents on both sides, is like serpent-bird symbolism for the indwelling ability of each human toward immortality, also a great teaching of the Buddha.
The Winged Disk comprises Merkaba (Place of Ascending[Mer] Spirit[Ka]-Earth Self[Ba]) concepts and ideas regarding our evolution to immortality through stages and also that we learn to fly to that heavenly abode of Sirius. The serpents on each side of the disk are goddesses, as is written in "The Legend of Horus of Behutet and the Winged Disk." Horus (Phaistos Disk at the center of the Isis wings) "placed by his side the goddess Nekhebet and the goddess Uatchet, in the form of two serpents." Connecting the fourteen Horus/Minyae pictographs, above left, on side one produces an image of the afterlife tunnel we "fly" through in our journey to the 8th Heaven and Osiris.
Click this link for an exploration of the religion of ancient Egypt, illustrated by the Phaistos Disk pictographs.
Origins of the Phaistos Disk
This disk comes from Minoan Crete, the ancient civilization famous for the Maze of Daedalus and for naming our
constellations. The disk is only 6-1/4" in diameter and 1" thick. It was found in 1908 at Phaistos, Crete, beside a tablet of Linear A writing of ancient Crete. 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 identical pictographs are connected by lines.
Taking a clue from this pictograph (left, man holding a shield with tiny circles in the shape of a hexagram), the connect-the-dots approach of
viewing the disk reveals in total eight significant and complex images, as well as numerous simple geometries, that are concealed on the disk.
Concealed on the disk and revealed by connecting identical pictographs with lines are:
pentagram inside a heptagon (possibly Sirius and seven planets), constellation Argo,
exterior view of a pyramid, interior view of a pyramid, and triangle inside two pentagons
(possibly sacred cave). The Pleiades may also be recorded on this disk.
Tracings of the two sides of the disk placed side-by-side reveal two mazes, one in the shape of a Minoan wave spiral and the other, when the sides are overlaid at the identical connecting line segments, a maze in the shape of a Minoan figure 8 shield.
How the Disk was Made - The God Khnum-Ra
 In ancient Egypt the god Khnum, one of the earliest gods, made the Ba or human bodies of children from clay on his potter's wheel. He also placed them in their mother' womb. This accounted for the origin of the human body of an individual, which came from out of this god. He was the consort of Heket, who breathed life into the children at birth. He was also thought of as the creator of other gods, so he became identified as the Ba of Ra, the human counterpart of the higher divine self or Ka. Ba was also the world for Ram (left, Phaistos Disk pictograph). The creator of the Phaistos Disk was perhaps embodying the spirit of Khnum-Ra when at the potter's wheel creating the disk.
As you can see, the pictographs on the disk appear to be identical. As example, the shields (left)
that appear fifteen times on this side of the disk are clearly intended to be identical. The same is true for all the pictographs that are
apparently identical. Therefore, an assumption was made and widely accepted by all who study the disk that the pictographs were made with
tiny stamps pressed into the clay disk. This would also conveniently account for raised pictographs on the disk. As they were stamped into the wet clay, the pictographs were
created raised above the disk, making the disk itself into a kind of stamp.
In many cases the pictographs are both raised above the disk and merged with it. In some cases they appear to be pressed into it.
Still, how else could the pictographs be elevated above the disk in such a way and how else could the pictographs be made to be identical? The answer has
to be use of an early printing press technology in the form of tiny pre-made stamps. But this theory, accepted for so many years by so many people, is incorrect.
Phaistos Disk Tracing, Side 1, Color Coded
 The printing press theory of using tiny stamps to the create the disk is incorrect.
Nor did the stamp theory ever explain the presence of the elevated spirals on both sides of
the disk. The pictographs left, cropped from an enlarged bmp image of the disk, show the pictographs were intended by its creater to be
identical but are not absolutely identical because the disk creator lacked the rudimentary printing press technology that has long been ascribed to the creation of the Phaistos Disk.
  As the
disk is only a little larger than a CD, the pictographs on the disk are tiny. When these two pictographs are reduced to a size that might appear on the disk, they do become "identical." But when
they are enlarged they are obviously the same but not identical.
  I cropped all the pictographs on the disk and displayed them so you can see that not a single one of them is identical to another. I displayed them on a page I entitled Aegean Art because obviously a very good artist created these pictographs and this disk. Only a good artist working in the genre of miniature art could create 241 individual pictographs to appear to be identical. It is very likely the artist excelled in the genre of miniature art during the Minoan period where art miniaturization which was so very popular.
  Miniature art in Minoan Crete included statues, figurines, ritual groups (below, left), incense burners, housewares, signet rings, shrine figurines, miniature goddesses, wagons (left), swings (right), shields, dresses, hats, hut urns (below) and much more.
So, the artist created 241 individual miniature pictographs. How did the artist get them onto the disk and why do the pictographs need to be identical? If an artist is making 241
pictographs to go onto a disk, then why would not the artist create unique pictographs? Ten of the pictographs on the disk are unique. Why hand-create 231 pictographs to look exactly like other
pictographs? If the disk was intended to contain a language script, why not etch that script into the disk rather than make so many tiny pictographs? But it seems the artist wanted to make identical miniature pictographs.
 If the artist had the idea and the knowledge to create unique stamps, then obviously s/he would have done so, if for no other reason than to make the pictographs truly identical and
also to save a monumental amount of time. Therefore, printing press technology in the form of tiny stamps into clay was not known at this time or, if it was known, this particular artist did not know it.
There is also the possiblity that the stamp technology was known but did not work well impressed into clay.
So how was it made? Here is my theory. The artist of the Phaistos Disk made at least 10 to 20 sketches of the disk designs prior to creating it. Perhaps the sketches were made using
papyrus or perhaps they were simply drawn into sand. Maybe they were created as other Phaistos Disks but did not come out right so were destroyed and the attempts continued until this disk was
finally created satisfactorily to the artist. Below are the four main sketches made the artist prior to creating the Phaistos Disk.
After the artist made the sketches, s/he created the 241 miniature pictographs from clay and set them aside. Then the round disk was created from the same batch of clay and then the artist lightly etched the spiral designs into both sides of the wet clay disk. Next, the artist pressed the pictographs onto one side of the disk in exact locations, following the pre-made sketches. When one side of the disk was finished it was turned over and laid down so those pictographs were pressed into the wet clay as the other side was being completed. Then the disk was turned again to lay on the second side and press those pictographs into the clay. The artist then made fine lines of clay for the spirals and placed them onto the disk one side at a time along the patterns already etched into the disk. (Below, Phaistos Disk with both spirals
removed and only the pictographs showing.)
Alternately, the artist may have created a way to elevate the disk while working on it. Depending on the wetness of the clay disk, the artist had a time frame to create it of probably two to 8 hours. This method of creating the disk also explains why the artist baked it rather than sun dried it, as baking it would ensure the pictographs were permanently merged with the clay disk. In the process of making the disk, many of the pictographs were unevenly merged into the disk and a close inspection of the disk shows smudging, particularly around the outer edges, indicating the disk may have taken some damage during this process or either the method of holding the disk upright left smudges along the edges. This method of making the Phaistos Disk seems very likely to me, especially since I have an idea of why the artist needed the pictographs to seem identical.
 The Phaistos Disk is a pottery art masterpiece and is, at the very least, an artist's triumph in the genre of miniaturization. Not only the pictographs are miniatures but also the disk itself is intended, I believe, to be a miniature Figure 8 Shield. Each side of the disk is a face of the shield, upper and lower, and on both faces are more designs so that the Figure 8 Shield itself is a world disk in miniature. The Phaistos Disk may have been intended as a shield design to create a shield. (Left, pictograph of the warrior holding the disk/shield)
Phaistos Disk Shield of Achilles Prototype
If the Phastos Disk was intended as a brilliant shield design, then I might even suggest it was the prototype
for the legenday Shield of Achilles, used by Achilles when he fought Hector. Below, left is a concept of the Shield of Achilles derived by Malcolm M. Willcock's reading of Homer's description of the shield in The Iliad, Chapter XVIII. At least the Phaistos Disk hints at the idea of a legendary shield as early as 1600 BCE, five or six hundred years before Achilles is supposed to have fought Hector at Troy. The bright spots on the Phaistos Disk (below, right) denote locations of the fifteen shields on this side of the disk.
  The two shields have much in common. Both have five circles, with the circles drawn in a wave spiral on the Phaistos Disk as befits a Minoan disk. Earth, sea, sun, moon and stars are indicated on the Phaistos Disk, as are cattle (1), ploughing (2), reaping (3), sheep (4), dance (5), vintage (6) and City at Peace (7) and City at War (8).
The pictographs on the disk need to seem identical because the artist intended that they produce additional images than are apparent on the faces of the disk. With the matching pictographs placed strategically to produce the images, many more meaningful designs could be contained on the artifact. Those designs reveal a world of information about the
Minoan and Egyptian civilizations. Over a period of the last 100 years many people have studied the disk
but without ever seeing the additional images contained by the disk, and for a good reason.
In retrospect, the disk is very simple but our presumptions and our distance from this
ancient civilization prevent us from immediately recognizing the patterns on the disk. We do not expect to see a
nearly 4,000 year-old connect the dots maze, so we do not see it, even after 100 years of collectively
looking at it. Had we first seen the disk in the connect the dots section of the Sunday comics of a newspaper,
we would have revealed some of the images before breakfast was over.
Phaistos Disk, Side 2
Phaistos Disk Tracing Side 2, Color Coded Overlay, Drag on top of the disk above
PHAISTOS DISK TRACINGS BY ME
THE PICTOGRAPHS THAT ARE REPEATED ON THE PHAISTOS DISK
APPEAR TO BE IDENTICAL
I CONNECTED THESE IDENTICAL PICTOGRAPHS WITH LINES LIKE CONNECT-THE-DOTS
Leaving none out and adding nothing
To Find These Images Hidden in Plain Sight
As you can see, this man is holding the disk as a shield at his belt. The Phaistos Disk may be a template for a
Bronze Age shield, perhaps the legendary shield that became known later on in history as Shield of Achilles. Or there is the possibility this
indicates stars in constellation Orion, such as Orions's Belt. Could this be a protypical Zeus holding the Disk of the World? If so, this idea is
seen later on in art many times, such as Giovanni di Paolo's masterpiece,
The Creation and
Explusion of Adam and Eve from Paradise.
Whatever it may be, this pottery art masterpiece contains a beautiful artistic design that, when colorized and animated,
seems modern and not at all 3,600 years old. Does this indicate the Minoans believed the Star Sirius, the mother Isis/Rhea, is shielding us? This is, perhaps, an image of our planetary shield.
I think the Phaistos Disk was created by
early Egyptian and Minoan astronomers.
 In this Phaistos Disk image of the picture perfect constellation Argo, the sails are a great pyramid that
sit atop the boat. This makes me wonder if the Egyptians conceived of the idea of the Great Pyramid as being in the sky and sailing along as
part of the Constellation Argo. That would help to explain the presence
of the boat at the Great Pyramid. Could the pharaoh have believed that the Great Pyramid would be his house afterdeath and that his
house would be taken up with him in it, at least in spirit, along with his entourage to Osiris, to sail with the god in his barque?
The constellation was also known as Barque of Osiris, that which conveyed the god Osiris through the heavens.
Through a transformation of myth, this became the Greek legend of Jason and the Argonauts who sailed across the heavens in the Argo as they
searched for the Golden Fleece (left, pictograph on the disk).
The next two images on the disk, interior and exterior views of the Great Pyramid, tend to confirm the above
ideas regarding the boat, the pyramid and the stars.
MINOAN WAVE SPIRAL AND MINOAN FIGURE 8 SHIELD
Left is a vase from Knossos dated 1500 BCE that displays Figure 8 Shields. The top of the vase is ringed with disks. Beside this vase is the same vase onto which I have super-imposed the Phaistos Disk, its two sides placed side-by-side, the connecting line segment highlighted.
The shields on the original vase appear to be composed of two disks. Each disk is filled with dots that might represent pictographs on the Phaistos Disk, and the disks are joined by a connecting line path. I wonder if the artist who made the Phaistos Disk also made this vase? If not, then perhaps this design, so carefully preserved by the Phaistos Disk, represents a legendary shield or maybe it represents the Phaistos Disk itself.
Below is the Phaistos Disk that I traced as exactly as I could and then created .gif transparancies of the disk. I added a drag and drop script to this
web page so that these two images are dragable. The two sides of the Phaistos Disk,
placed side-by-side this way, appear to be a type of maze.
HOW DO YOU SOLVE A MAZE?
The solution to a maze is the
uninterrupted path through an intricate pattern of line segments from a starting point to a goal.
The disk has a combined sixty line segments and two large spirals, each with five levels.
The starting point of this maze is the center of Side A (top disk with flower at the center),
the goal is the center of Side B (bottom disk with wave at the center). To solve the maze,
find the uninterrupted path through the line segments of all the spirals, from A to B and back.
OUT OF THE LOOP? SOLVE THE PHAISTOS DISK MAZE AND GET BACK IN
I believe the Phaistos Disk is a Bronze Age record of the ancient religion we now call Hermeticism. One side of the disk is Ba and the other side is Ka. Joining them together at the connecting line segments producs La, or the union of Ka and Ba. This union creates immortality represented by infinity or the figure 8. We see this figure 8 represented in art throughout the Minoan civilization, especially in their Figure 8 Shields. This entire civilization, like the Maya, considered themselves to be immortal.
Before reading the solution, notice that the images above are dragable and take a clue from this Phaistos Disk pictograph of a bald man
with the figure 8 on his cheek (astronomer-priest). An astronomer-priest would know about infinity.
The Minoan wave spirals (see below) are created by moving from the center of Side A and
crossing over to the center of Side B and back via the 4th level spirals on both sides. The matching
connecting line segments direct the movement from Side A to Side B but also prevent travel in the outer
spirals on either side. To see the Minoan Figure 8 shield and incorporate those spirals, merge the two
sides of the disk by overlaying the perfectly aligned connecting line segments. To achieve this, drag
the bottom image onto the top image and overlay the connecting line segments. Now all the spirals are
connected and the movement of the figure 8 shield is discovered.
Start at the center of Side A and trace the spiral around to the 4th level, cross over
to the outer spiral on Side B, cross from that outer spiral to the outer spiral on Side A, cross from the
outer spiral on Side A into the 4th spiral on Side B and travel to the center. Then make the same journey
in reverse, each time creating the movement of a figure 8.
Pattern #6 (left, Minoan Wave Spiral) and #7
(middle, Minoan Figure 8 Shield)
To emphasize the spirals, I erased the pictographs from the disk, leaving only the spirals
and line segments. Then I placed the two sides together at the matching line segments.
Wave spirals and Figure 8 shields in the art of Minoan Crete.
Now you can see how to start at the center of side 1, the side with the flower in the center,
and trace the spiral around to the 4th level, cross over to the outer spiral on side 2, cross from that outer
spiral to the outer spiral on side 1, cross from the outer spiral on side 1 into the 4th spiral on side 2 and
travel to the center. Then make the same journey in reverse, each time creating the movement of a figure 8.
The two sides of the disk connected create a flowing figure 8 wave spiral that
moves uninterrupted from the center of one side of the disk to the other and back again and incorporates
all parts of the spiral. In the horizontal position, it creates a Minoan wave spiral. In the vertical position,
it creates a Minoan figure 8 shield (right). (Left, Minoan pottery with
geometric orientation - wave spirals and figure 8 shields.)
Click to see Minoan wave spirals ceiling design with 8-petaled flower at the center
(as seen on Side 1 of the Phaistos Disk).
PATTERN #8 - PHAISTOS DISK PATTERNS COMPLETE THE HOLY TRINITY OF EARLY ASTRONOMY - SIRIUS, ARGO NAVIS, THE PLEIADES
 According to ancient beliefs, the axis of the universe is the Pleiades in Taurus. The idea is that our bodies are somehow intimately connected to a point far away in space, in the Taurus constellation of the bull. Did these astronomers use the lion to create an image on the Phaistos Disk of the Pleiades?
If they did, perhaps it comes from the Egyptian lion goddess Sekhmet, the inference being the Pleiades are goddesses.
We know the Pleiades as the Seven Sisters but perhaps the Egyptians and Minoans deified them so they were the
seven goddesses, or eight goddesses as there are eight lions on this side of the disk. The Pleiades on the
Phaistos Disk completes the ancient astronomy holy trinity of Sirius, Argo Navis, and Pleiades.
This nearly identical image of the constellation Taurus is revealed on the Phaistos Disk when these eleven walker pictographs are connected with lines.
...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...In those
days so great was their love of the holy mysteries, so high their virtue, that they left the earth below them, and in their deathless souls
became 'heaven-walkers' and knowers of things divine. (Thrice-Greatest Hermes, G.R.S. Mead)
The Author, Claire Grace Watson, M.S.T., Heaven-Walker and Knower of Things Divine
COPYRIGHT NOTICE
"Disk of the World, Phaistos Disk Maze of Daedalus,
Minoan Astronomer-Priests with Telescopes," Text and images copyrighted March 21, 1997-2010,
Claire Grace Watson, B.A., M.S.T., U.S. Copyright and under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998,
Claire Grace Watson, B.A., M.S.T. All rights reserved. Additional to these copyrights is TXu 692-656,
Isis and Osiris, The Phaistos Disk Deciphered, June 26, 1995, above images included, and
The Shadow Breakers, including 22 of these images, copyright 2005. No part of this book may be
reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without written permission from the author,
except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, including the web page itself and the html/dhtml
programming.diskoftheworld.com
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