The Battle of Naxos

Abstract

During that exciting fortnight that followed in Washington, DC, in 1984, Taki and I enjoyed spirited and never-to-beforgotten discussions with many prominent epigraphers and journalists. All waxed enthusiastic about what the decipherment of the Phaistos Disk had revealed:

• Crete’s celebrated Phaistos Disk comprises Europe’s oldest documented literature.

• The Disk contains the first mention in history of the Greeks and Libyans, two Mediterranean peoples who still play major roles in international affairs nearly 4000 years later.

• “Pre-Greek” in the ancient Aegean now had to mean “pre-Minoan Greek,” making prehistory history and extending the Hellenic threshold back into the third millennium B.C.