Phaistos Archaeological Site

This guide to the Phaistos Archaeological Site follows young Italian archaeologist Luigi Pernier, digging under Federico Halbherr on July 3, 1908, when he found a honey-colored clay disc half buried in charred bones and ash in a cellar room here. You'll hear how its stamped spirals of birds, ships and a walking man, more than forty different signs pressed into wet clay before firing, have no twin anywhere on Bronze Age Crete, and how scholars still can't agree whether it's a prayer, a calendar or a game. The guide also walks the palace itself, rebuilt after earthquakes at least three times, and points out the storeroom where the disc was found.