Phaistos

American  

[fahy-stuhs] / ˈfaɪ stəs /

noun

1. an ancient city in S central Crete: site of Minoan palace; Linear A tablets and important pottery objects unearthed here.

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Example Sentences

The Phaistos Disc from Crete - a mysterious, fired clay disc from the Minoan civilisation - "closely mirrors the Indus script's challenges - its language is unknown, and only one known example exists".

From BBC • Jan. 16, 2025

In all six respects, the maker of the Phaistos disk had access to much less powerful technologies to combine into a printing system than did Gutenberg.

From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond

The explanation is partly that medieval European printers were able to combine six technological advances, most of which were unavailable to the maker of the Phaistos disk.

From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond

For historians of technology, the Phaistos disk is even more baffling; its estimated date of 1700 B.C. makes it by far the earliest printed document in the world.

From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond

In addition to all those technological drawbacks, the Phaistos disk was printed at a time when knowledge of writing was confined to a few palace or temple scribes.

From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond