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| Side B of the Phaistos Disc |
I came across the Phaistos Disc when I was writing The Odysseus Code and immediately associated it with the Phaeacians, those great mariners of Homer’s story. My natural inclination was to connect the disc with seafaring, and I’m surprised to be the first person to do so. Until now, other interpretations have been limited to what we know about Bronze Age Crete, and concentrate on Side A. My primary concern was with Side B.
Only one Phaistos Disc has been discovered, named for the seaport where it was found in the ruined Phaeacian palace. It is only 16.5 cm in diameter, made of baked clay and inscribed with lines and emblems on both sides. As yet, there is no universally accepted interpretation of its symbols or its use.
Archaeologists estimate its date from circumstantial evidence to 1700 BCE, but this tells us nothing about the origin of the symbols or when and where they were first used. I believe them to be much older and to belong to an era before the Phaeacians even settled on Crete. It is absurd to believe they ever made only one disk, and I suspect many, taken on board ships, have succumbed to the depths of the sea.
Having appreciated the sophistication of the Source Maps behind the Portolans, I applied the same criteria to the circular disc and saw it as depicting the round world, with a hemisphere on either side. Some images refer to nautical terms – beware of headland; a safe harbour; a winding river, and so on. Others are constellations used in navigation, yet also readable on a practical level. For instance, a motif in the shape of a bearskin can represent the Constellation Ursa Major, or imply a great place for trading (in skins and so forth), or may simply warn of bears in the area.
It appears the Phaeacians created their disc over many generations. Side B describes the journeys they made before they reached Crete, and Side A is a later addition. The positions of two symbols attributed to south circumpolar constellations give a very early date and a distant place for its origin.
The Odysseus Code and The Phaistos Disc: A Seafarer's Atlas both lead back in time. Both take a new look at world geography in an era of rising sea levels following the breakup of the Ice Age. We also reach a revised understanding of the Holocene Period prior to 3000 BCE.
Many symbols connect to a major catastrophe described in so many of our myths and legends. Interpreting this ancient artefact becomes relevant to our world today, with our melting icecaps and changing climate.
NAVIGATORS & CARTOGRAPHERS
In 1487 an Egyptian cartographer called Ibn ben Zara working in Alexandria produced a ‘World Map’ which had some interesting features. The detail and accuracy of the map was exceptionally good, though it showed many more islands in the Aegean Sea than exist today. Also, he had drawn the existing islands larger. Considering the accuracy of the rest of his World Map, it is strange that he made these ‘mistakes’ on his own doorstep.
It was a region I was particularly interested in, having sailed for many years in the Aegean and studied modern charts of the area. In comparing the size and shape of the islands on Hapgood’s transcription of this map in his book, Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings,[i] with a modern sea chart, it became clear that the shapes of Ibn ben Zara’s islands corresponded to the 50 metre depth line around the islands visible today, as well as other shallow areas under the sea. Now, any forger can make up more islands than are there, but no-one – especially before the days of echo-sounders – could fabricate islands in the shape of the 50 metre underwater contour that surrounds them! And why would they want to?
In correspondence to this, Ibn Ben Zara shows the British Isles as they would have appeared in the latter stages of the Ice Age, which accounts for the lower sea-level shown in the Mediterranean Sea. He is presenting a world as it was long before the date of his own work. So from where was he getting his information? It could only be from very ancient sea charts created when the water level was at least 50 metres lower than today, stored away in the Library of Alexandria as antiquities long after their creation. So some clever navigators and cartographers must have been around to make the original maps by surveying the land when they could see it! There are many other antique maps showing similar anomalies.
In 1339 the cartographer Angelino Dulcerto of the Catalan School of Cartography (which grew out of the Arab influence in Catalonia and the Balearic Islands), produced his ‘World Map’, which shows the British Isles as they would have been during the latter stages of the Ice Age. I compared Hapgood’s transcription of this map with present day soundings,[ii] and found that the odd shape of Cornwall shows the cartographer included 50 metres of underwater profile as part of the land area, conforming to the idea of the submerged mythical Land of Lyonesse. Also, various ‘imaginary islands’ conform to contours on the seabed, particularly on the Sole Bank. The seamount called Porcupine Bank coincides with the legendary island of Hi Brasil. The Hebridean Islands are all arranged correctly, though enlarged, and it even shows the Anton Dohrn Seamount as a large-as-life island. No-one could have accurately fixed these land formations within their correct oceanic area unless they could see them above the water.
These are just two examples of independent cartographers describing land as it was before the final breakdown of the Ice Age. The first World Map of Piri Reis shows similar features. In fact, almost all the portolans of the 14-1500s show late Ice Age conditions. When I transferred the important intersections of the lines on the Phaistos Disc to a modern map, I was interested to see that a number of places were not on the coastline of countries, but on the edge of the continental shelf just offshore, putting the disc into the same era as the source maps from which the portolans took their information.
The territory around the Poles was certainly unexplored prior to recent times. Antarctica, in particular, was undiscovered during the Middle Ages. Yet many of the portolan charts created in the Middle Ages show a continent in the extreme south of their globes, often called ‘Terra Incognita’. Incognita it may have been, but how did the cartographer know it was even there?
The academic world has consistently ignored the extraordinary information portrayed on the portolans, because they cannot fit it into their accepted view of the linear progression of civilization. To do so would turn history on its head – and heads might roll! No academic has come up with an alternative explanation for how or why these features of Ice Age conditions appear on maps created in the Middle Ages. Instead, they prefer to call them forgeries, or the fanciful imaginings of uneducated people.
Cartography over the centuries has relied on existing charts being updated by sailors’ reports. The old methods worked well while ships and seamanship were improving, but certain places no longer travelled to (such as the west coast of Ireland or the Scottish Isles) remained unaltered on the charts. So, well-meaning cartographers continually transferred the anomalous errors to newer charts. That is why the revival of cartography during the Middle Ages was regurgitating some very ancient cartographical information, believing it to be still correct. Only now we have more sophisticated means of studying it, can we appreciate the veritable goldmine of prehistoric geography we have uncovered.
North has been the focal point of navigation for around seven hundred years. But early cartographers orientated their maps to the South Pole, not the North Pole, implying their general sphere of interest was to the south. Even the Turkish sea captain, Piri Reis, who produced two World Maps and several Mediterranean Pilot Books in the 15th century, continued this tradition that went back thousands of years. My first attention was therefore on Side B of the Phaistos Disc, which I considered to represent the Southern Hemisphere, with Antarctica at its centre.
ANTARCTICA OF THE BUACHE PORTOLAN
There are two portolans that remind me of the Phaistos Disc. One is the Buache Portolan, drawn later than most by a Frenchman in the18th century, but before anyone could have mapped the icy zones of the Antipodes. His shape of the landmass of Antarctica is more or less correct in it dividing into two parts, one much smaller than the other. The smaller area comprises the Antarctic Peninsula with Palmer, Emsworth, and the territory down to Marie Byrd Land on the edge of the Ross Sea. The larger area encompasses Queen Maud Land and Wilkes Land with an extension out towards New Zealand.
Between these two areas he shows an interesting shape that he admits is ‘conjectured’ drawn as a triangle. He calls his triangle a ‘Glacial Sea’ complying pretty well with an area joining together the Weddell Sea and the Ross Sea. He also shows the Antarctic continent stretching out towards New Zealand, where the sub-Antarctic islands are the tips of mountains on the underwater Campbell Plateau.
I kept looking at his portrayal of the area of the South Pole because it seemed rather familiar. Then I realised with astonishment its similarity to the centre of Side B of the Phaistos Disc – not just the triangular shape of the centre, but including the surrounding sections. Why had he drawn Antarctica like that – a continent he had never encountered? Might he have seen a similar triangular shape at the centre of an extremely ancient map depicting Antarctica? He certainly did not know of the Phaistos Disc, which was discovered a hundred years after his death. But had he perhaps looked at another copy of the disc or a similar antique map?
Philippe Buache was a reputable geographer and cartographer, not in the habit of suffering from flights of fancy, but renowned for serious research. Buache’s depiction of the Antarctic land is much larger than Antarctica itself and includes the sea area around the continent. The corresponding area on the Phaistos Disc is similarly larger.
The centre of the Buache Map and the centre of the Phaistos Disc are so similar, I can only think that Buache took his information from a comparable source.
Pictogram 8; Queen-Mother Goddess (AE: 6 Woman)
This is the only image of a female on the disc, and there are only four sections where it occurs, so it must be more than an ordinary woman. I have designated it a queen, or the mother goddess. She does not appear to us as very beautiful, but she may well have been intended to be so, with her abundantly coiffed hairstyle, large eyes, pendulous breasts and fancy skirt.
She is always drawn as large as the section allows and I am reminded of the huge mother-goddess figures of Malta, whose tiny ankles would not be able to support the vast bulk of their bodies. Yet these rotund images evoke a sense of grace and refinement. Some of the Maltese statues are two metres tall: were they intended to be life-size, I wonder? Other reclining figurines would fit in the palm of your hand. The enigmatic culture of Malta dates back at least 6000 years.
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| Base of Maltese Mother Goddess Statue |
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| Peruvian Mummy |
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| Pictogram 9. Phaeacian Head |
The Queen-Mother Goddess is dolichocephalic with
her elongated skull, a trait she shares with the Crested Phaeacian Head
[Pictogram 9]
and the striding figure of Orion
[Pictogram 20]. Such skulls have been found within the Hypogeum in Malta.
The elongated skulls found in Peru also have very large eye sockets, another
feature they share with the Crested Phaeacian Head This picture[i]
is of a mummy with braided hair found at Chinchorro in Peru, which likewise is
similar to the head of the Queen-Mother Goddess, particularly in the hairstyle.
I initially thought she symbolised procreation. One hand points to her breast, the other hangs beside her stomach. Her role would have been to increase the depleted population in a post-catastrophe world, so she would have been revered and much cared for. But when I looked at the other sections in which she appeared and did a little research, I came upon a very interesting and controversial figure called Hotu Matu’a. The people of Easter Island claim he was their founding king. The people of Hawaii claim he was their king. The Maoris also claim him as their king. But older than all these traditions are the legends of the Waitaha of New Zealand, who are adamant that Hotu Matu’a was in fact a very influential and capable woman who commanded a fleet of double-hulled ocean-going catamarans!
In 1994 the few remaining Waitaha elders decided to make their ancient traditions known before their wisdom and history was lost forever. To this end, they related their earliest foundation legends to the New Zealand historian and archaeologist Barry Brailsford and in doing so ‘put the cat amongst the pigeons’ so far as other races are concerned. I could find virtually nothing about the Waitaha or their legends on Google, but all the others were screaming their rights to this person! Of course, a woman would not be allowed such an influential position in the masculine world-view of the last few millennia. However, the Waitaha information has come directly from the source and I could see how the other claims may have developed from a Hotu Matu’a lineage.
OTHER SECTIONS WITH SYMBOL 8
SECTION 15
includes the north-eastern part of New Zealand and covers a large part of the
Pacific Ocean heading out towards Easter Island. When the Maoris reached New
Zealand it was not an empty land. The Waitaha claim that their ancestors, the
Urukuru, a tall, fair-haired and blue eyed race, had been sailing between
Easter Island and New Zealand for a long time. One of them, a man called Kiwa,
landed on the shores of New Zealand during a terrible storm that wrecked his
ocean-going catamaran, so he settled there. From New Zealand he made many
voyages into the Pacific to map the ocean, which was much changed after the
catastrophic deluge that had wrecked his boat. Extensive lands had become
islands; islands had disappeared.
But the Urukuru were not the only people sailing about at the time! According to the Waitaha legends, Hotu Matu’a sent her ocean-going catamarans to re-map the oceans and to re-locate Easter Island after the Deluge. She was tall, and - unlike the Urukehu - dark, with black hair and brown eyes. She arrived at New Zealand from somewhere to the west. Australia lies to the west of New Zealand, though the aborigines are not renowned for their seafaring skills. The only other place to the west is the Kerguelen Islands, home of the Queen-Mother Goddess of the Phaistos Disc. It is a very long way across the Southern Ocean from there to New Zealand, but wind and currents would have made it a feasible journey. So, I wondered if perhaps the Queen-Mother Goddess of the Phaistos Disc was not the child-bearing herbalist-healer I had thought, but this imposing Commander of Ships, Hotu Matu’a?
The Waitaha legends tell us Hotu Matu’a and Kiwa married, and between their forays to rescue and relocate people on floundering islands of the Pacific following the great Deluge, they found time to produce ten offspring who continued their tradition of charting the oceans, and returned frequently to Easter Island. They taught their children the traditions of their ancestors when “the stars shone in a different sky and in a different pattern” suggesting a time prior to some terrible world-moving catastrophe.[i]
SECTION 36 includes a large area of the Pacific Ocean, the Central Pacific Basin, the Line Islands and the larger southern islands of the Hawaiian chain. This would be Hotu Matu’a’s area of operation in rescuing the islanders of the Pacific. Hotu Matu’a sent her ships to rescue 300 people including a number of ‘initiated men’ from the submerging land of Hiva and deposited them at Easter Island so that the wisdom of the ancient times could be maintained. For this and other rescues she became known as ‘The Net of the World’. So the people of Easter Island had strong connections with a person called Hotu Matu’a. Her sons continued to travel there, so it is not surprising to find the legend of a Hotu Matu’a king there.
In the Polynesian and Hawaiian Islands, the Mother Goddess has come down through history as Haumea, who instructed the people of the islands how to give birth. The name Hau-Mea could be a corruption of Hotu Matu’a. The Hawaiians claim that their king, Hotu Matu’a, populated Easter Island, but this is said to have been around 300-400 CE – quite a different era. Instead, there were probably memories of a Hotu Matu’a lineage.
SECTION 54 includes Canada. The many different native Indians tribes here were closely connected with the Earth and with nature, so naturally worshipped the archetypal Earth Mother.
Pictogram 20; Striding Man/Orion Constellation/Civilizer (AE designation 1,
Pedestrian)
We could take this simply as a pedestrian or walking man, but he looks as though he is striding out with a purpose, rather than just walking about. It is the constellation of Orion, sometimes called ‘Long Strider’, associated with Osiris who, with his mentor, Thoth, was at the foundation of the Egyptian civilization. They frequently depicted Constellation Orion as a striding man with a staff. (Note also the elongated headgear.)
The Egyptian figure corresponding to Orion is called Sah, the ‘Fleet-footed’ or ‘Long-strider’, presumably because he is portrayed in a walking posture. He is first depicted in Egyptian astronomic documents dating to the last centuries of the 3rd millennium. On the Dendera Zodiac (see drawing) a crested bird can be seen walking behind him ... That the figure of Orion should be envisioned in the form of a walking man is no particular surprise given the configuration of stars, but the common associated with a walking bird with a crest on its head must surely point to an inherited influence. [i]
Orion Constellation is visible throughout the world. Ancient navigators used Rigel (Orion’s left foot) and Betelgeuse (his armpit) in their celestial navigation. It lies at the northern end of the Eridanus Constellation (Symbol 1), which connects with the Southern Pole, and with Canis Major (Symbol 13), also in this section. Once again, we find a pictogram with two levels of meaning: the constellation itself useful in navigation, and the idea of legendary Civilizers.
On the Phaistos Disc, he often holds a staff-like object in front of him; usually the Acanthus flower (Symbol 19), and in these cases I have treated it as the Combined Symbol 20a, with a combined interpretation of: Civilizers and their Gifts to Humanity.
In various countries throughout the world, we find legends of mysterious men or groups of men, who brought civilized behaviour and agricultural methods to people who were living in a primitive hunter-gatherer environment following a major catastrophe. In the mythologies of South America, the Civilizer was Viracocha. Elsewhere, these Civilizers had distinct names: Osiris and Thoth in Egypt, Oannes in Mesopotamia, Agastya in Southern India, Fu Hsi in China. We will encounter them all as we travel through their specific areas of operation on the Phaistos Disc.
In later days, nations looked back to them as gods, but the legends give them very human traits. In South America, the locals described them as tall people, white skinned and bearded, quite different from the domestic folk; and wearing simple robes with a belt. These Civilizers often had associates who worked with them. In Egypt the group became known as the Shemsu Hor, ‘Shining Ones’, Disciples of Horus. In North India they were the Seven Sages.
Within each tradition, they explained the same practical matters to the communities: how to till the land, grow crops, cook food, and build houses. They also encouraged them in how to behave towards each other, how to make music, how to pray, and how to count the days and moons. They all seem to have come with a similar set of instructions, which could only have been derived from a previously established culture. The similar traditions throughout countries in unconnected parts of the world imply an underlying connection between all the Civilizers - a common inherited game plan. They had the same principles, the same aims, and comparable characteristics and abilities. So were they not all survivors of a previous civilization, destroyed in an earth-shattering cataclysm?
Historians cannot explain why people started farming their land and domesticating animals at the same time all over the world post Ice-Age - from Mesoamerica to China, Egypt to India, and the Andes to Mesopotamia - during what they have termed the Neolithic Revolution. Was it because of the work of a few ‘Civilizers’ who had survived a cataclysm that had thrown most people into a state of Stone Age survival?
... virtually every one [of the oldest cultures on Earth] recalls an advanced antediluvian world civilization whose messengers survived an unimaginable catastrophe and disembarked at strategic locations after the Younger Dryas to ... establish laws which led to the sudden flourishing of human civilization. These gods were described as humanoid yet of unusual appearance and physique, magicians whose island homes succumbed to titanic forces.[iii]
Another characteristic of the South American Civilizers, the Viracochians, was their routine of disappearing into the misty ocean, sometimes ‘walking into the sea’ or sailing away on ‘a raft of snakes’. So where did the Viracochians come from and to where did they return? This habit of vanishing into the ocean is interesting to us here, because this symbol is in a section of the disc covered by the Pacific Ocean where the only land is Easter Island.
Easter Island, with its huge enigmatic statues, the Moai, is the most likely place for them to have a base. Beneath the giant heads, excavators have unearthed whole figures with symbols on their backs, one said to be 40 feet tall. All this hints at a more archaic culture on these islands than was previously believed.[iv] In Section 3, we mentioned that the female commander of ships, Hotu Matu’a, brought to Easter Island 300 people, including seven ‘initiated men’ from the floundering island of Hiva following ‘the Great Deluge’. This connects them with a wisdom existing prior to the end of the last Ice Age. In antiquity, Easter Island must have been larger (because of stone quarries now submerged) and it is feasible that the entire area was an archipelago. The Waitaha traditions describe this ‘naval of the world’ as a group of islands.[v]
The style of the statues on Easter Island is very like those at Gobekli Tepe in Turkey, dated to 9600 BCE. In both cases the icons were buried – and, it would seem, purposefully. The dating of Gobekli Tepe was possible because the site had been deliberately covered over, so there was no overlying debris of later date to confuse the issue, but 9600 BCE is the latest possible date for them being buried, not the earliest date for construction of the site! But what could be the link between Easter Island and Turkey? If all this comes from an as yet unidentified civilization, it must have been one with world-wide influence and connection.
Historians consider the Rapa Nui to be the indigenous Polynesian people of Easter Island, who arrived around 700-800 CE at an uninhabited island, and they seem happy to look no further. The Rapa Nui may well have found Easter Island uninhabited, but the style of the Moai, their size, and that they were buried, all point to a period of history commensurate with Gobekli Tepe, thousands of years earlier.
This may be a sensible moment to consider the clearly elongated skull of the Civilizer, as well as of the Phaeacian Head and the Queen Mother-Goddess. In fact, the only modern human head on the Phaistos Disc is Symbol 45, which occurs near the North Pole. Section 13 (the previous one to this) contains the area of Paracas where archaeologists have found a great many elongated skulls.
We know of such long skulls from rather beautiful images of pharaohs and gods of ancient Egypt, but we find the physical evidence all over the world. Certain tribes deformed the heads of their children to conform to what they believed was a superior type of evolution, remembered from the characteristics of a previous nobility. However, this skull formation occurred naturally in a surprising number of varied parts of the world in archaic times.
Authorities have not just overlooked this evidence, but museum curators have actually hidden examples of this type of skull,[vi] because their existence does not fit with the assumed order of development of the human race. The problem is that the genuine long skulls (not the later, purposefully deformed heads) contain 25% more brain capacity than modern humans. This implies an intelligence existing in people on this planet who died out thousands of years ago, rather than developing into the homo sapiens we know and love today. A lot of the heads have auburn hair and some do not have the sagittal suture currently found in crania.[vii] Naturally, the skulls would have topped very much larger skeletons, many of which have turned up in archaeological digs, and similarly been ignored and discarded by those in charge. The elongated heads in the pictograms on the Phaistos Disc of the Civilizers, the Phaeacians, and their Queen-Mother Goddess point to the idea that all these people belonged to this archaic group, who were physically larger and probably more intelligent than modern humans.
[i] Freddy Silva, The Missing Lands Invisible Temple 2019
p.21
[ii] Bill Bryson At Home – A Short History of Private Life. Doubleday
2010
[iii] Freddy Silva The Missing Lands Invisible Temple 2019
[iv]
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/easter-island-head-bodies-293799
[v] Freddy Silva The Missing Lands Invisible Temple 2019
p.315
[vi] Reported in their books by
Graham Hancock in Malta 1997 and Brien Foerster in Peru 2010
[vii] The sagittal suture allows the
skulls of modern babies to move slightly as they travel down the birth canal.
Perhaps this was not necessary when the giant ‘mother-goddesses of places like
Malta gave birth!
[i]https://solariapublications.com/2011/04/09/hello-world/
[i] All information on the Waitaha legends is from Freddy Silva, The Missing Lands Invisible Temple 2019
[i] Picture credit: Brien Foerster Elongated Skulls 2015
[i] Charles H. Hapgood, Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings,
Philadelphia (NY): Chilton Books, 1966
[ii] Sarita Armstrong The Odysseus Code
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