A Tale of the Phaistos Disc |
"Shall I Compare Thee to a Backfill Pile?" April 27, 2000 |
by Bradley D. Steinberg |
Your March/April 1999 issue brought back a flood of memory. The introductory article by Nancy Wilkie, concerning her recent trip to Turkey, remarked of her having been with a group of Carleton College alumni and the group's "feeling for life" and "envisioning" at the various sites visited. Although I was not on that trip, I am a Carleton alumnus and in the Fall of 1998, was part of a group of bicyclists touring the southwest coast of Turkey. In the course of that trip I spent a great deal of time at the various archaeological sites throughout that area.
Reading on, I then came upon the article by James Wiseman and his intriguing examples and discussion of archaeologically oriented poetry, grounded in imagination and observation. I was particularly moved by the work of Loren Eiseley, to whom I've been drawn since my college days as a take-time-out thinker and, in more recent years, as a poet. Upon savoring this I moved on to other memories via the article on Knossos which brought me back to 1997 when I was privileged to visit Crete with another bicycle touring group and pedaled to the plethora of that island's archaeological sites. Naturally, one of the places visited was the palace at Phaistos, where I had the never to be forgotten opportunity of standing within remnants of the very room where the famous Phaistos Disc had been found in 1908. Having seen the disc in the Herakleion Museum and listening to a talk on its finding and the might-be of its varied meanings, I simply could not resist thoughts concerning its creator, what might have been on his mind, as well as other circumstances leading up to its creation. Needless to say, wandering Crete on a bicycle brought much to the fore and ultimately resulted in a piece of writing which I dubbed, "A Tale of the Phaistos Disc." The composition occurred during the course of the bicycle trip itself so I also had the additional pleasure of being able to share it with other members of the group who had experienced along the way some of its flavors and the imaginings of what might have occurred 1600 B.C. or thereabouts.
Finally, I want to express my thanks to you and the persons responsible for putting together this edition of the magazine. Starting with the cover of "The Parisienne," and thereafter being pulled into wonderful memories is to experience one of the more delightful aspects of growing older.
note on the following tale on the island of Crete in 1908 a disc of clay was unearthed at the ancient Minoan palace of Phaistos by an archeologist. it was 6" in diameter and approximately 3/4" thick and printed on both sides with 241 signs comprised of 45 separate pictograms and ideograms. it is the world's oldest printed script. the room in which it was found appears to have been a place where sacred or precious objects were stored, next to which was a guardhouse. each sign was printed separately from a small carved stamp of wood, or, possibly metal, in a sequence of phrases arranged in a spiral format. These signs, composed and impressed on the disc prior to 1600 B.C. by an unknown person, have never been found elsewhere and the content of the inscription has yet to be deciphered satisfactorily despite numerous attempts by experts. imagination finds such silence irresistable a tale of the Phaistos disc there was a time before harshness came and mountains barrened, well before Christ, before the conquerings forced people inward. it was a time Crete called herself: a crown whose earth was pure gold and rocks were diamonds when life was not yet written into words. in sum, a time before the need to invent Eden, when people were more, familiar with their silence when image makers dreamed into their images and one, who at a hired task in now forgotten language or perhaps for himself, just one man's way of putting things wrote a tale of life carefully spacing, placing to meter, like speech pictures, glyphs the events, moments, myths his mind had lived. His work, giving life to the mark of another keened him as observer; he was, after all skilled in putting things as image maker: carving signets, a signature identifying patrons as they wished to be known. so it was no great remove to flesh out images of other lives, even times; why then not onto a record of clay record his touch to the shape of things that moved his thought; his wish to be known by? what to tell by symbols chosen and their order was to keep no secret, much as the seasons told people what to do. the mark within him was to tell things that had emerged from sights sounds of his life; from earth, sky and the unseen from the fires burning low at night in the chill among stars; at the harvest, when the grain winnowed and the grapes became wine, bringing men together. it was to come from the quest the hunt, the disappointment; the desert and the drought of men and from those becomings of ships that brought and never arrived because... voices of gods manipulated, cursed, transformed; were timeless to men. He well knew men's ears lead to their hearts, as listeners shaped to tales and that the order of his imprint must contain closeness to men's lives and reach toward that mystery of beyond. i shall print of men and kings; the tall, jumping fish of the sea; of light jagged from the sky. with scent of lemon and olive trees, ancient before the face of all winds i shall fix unseen meanings of rain, streams before earth shakes and rock breaks; of a man's run up and with dry mouth, down a mountain pass; the mark of men upon a man who seeks and his mark upon the land, flocks, flowers that to the great disc of sun awaken, bloom open in morning and into years that swirl men toward death where all of us fall like the sun with its light becoming quiet light, shimmering trees and the sea that calms the night. it is to be a story seen; remain, remind like a prayer held gently in hand... a caress of this land. And by this stretch of a single mind the sealmaker outlived his time passing beyond the power of kings palaces, domains as exploration of thought wombed in clay exploded meaning this personal way; swirled feeling framed in a spiral good, to the last rosette. Upon showing it, he told it gave it to his friend. an offering over raki. a lovely telling smiled the priest. unique, a worthy archive. but hearing and seeing this device; this passion so recorded, permitting repeat of a soul's gift to others and by others to themselves, brought a piercing uneasiness of which the priest could not speak. and it came to pass, what the sealmaker had placed to be known to eye, ear and heart gods and fate had written and sealed otherwise. their conversation touching new intimacy, two men left a table satisfied while leaving us and the ages mystified. |
For more on Phaistos, see "Cretan Minoan Finds," April 15, 1998, and
"Saving Knossos," January/February 1999.
For more on the Phaistos Disc, see
Findings from
Phaistos.
© 2000 by the Archaeological Institute of America archive.archaeology.org/online/features/poetry/steinberg.html |
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