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.

---

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

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

As a result, the Phaistos disk’s printing technology was much clumsier, and offered fewer advantages over writing by hand, than Gutenberg’s printing press.

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

The Phaistos disk anticipates humanity’s next efforts at printing, which similarly used cut type or blocks but applied them to paper with ink, not to clay without ink.

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

On July 3, 1908, archaeologists excavating the ancient Minoan palace at Phaistos, on the island of Crete, chanced upon one of the most remarkable objects in the history of technology.

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