Sunday, July 16, 2023

An ancient bill of lading?

This is the Phaistos Disc...well one side of it anyways.
It was found in 1908 in the Minoan site of Phaistos, apparently no one knows what it was for.  Of course there is the usual anthropologist go to that is was a religious object as some think it could be a prayer inscribed on it.  Others feel it could be a game.  Why is every unexplained object unearthed always have to be a religious object?  The ones that get me are the obvious dildos.  Like okay Professor, have you never been to a sex shop?  Kink is not new.

The Minoans lived on an island, they were sea faring.  The built palaces so they must have had some level of expendable income--Wikipedia says anthropologists don't know the function of the palaces...uh, dudes have you not looked at a modern palace?  Maybe you should watch some MTV Cribs instead of breathing so much dust?

Let's look at a simple answer since apparently many of these disks have turned up since 1908.  So sea faring, island nation, probably had a lot of trade, it may be a simple answer but has anyone considered it could be a bill of lading to ensure all of a shipment arrived?  At this point in history you'd have had boats more than ships and sailors who probably wanted to be home with their families now and then.  Shipments would have hopscotched from port to port and boat to boat as they crossed the seas, so things would probably get separated or lost really easy.  To me the easiest answer is probably why no one can figure it out--have you ever looked at a shipping manifest?  It really could be as easy as:

"Hey Bob, this is what I packed in this batch
14 amphora of olives
2 casks of Myrrh
27 Scimitars--sorry 3 are back-ordered
1 bolt of silk for your wife
etc, etc, etc.
As always thank you for shopping with Discount Odds and Ends Direct your one stop supplier for everything."

 

Seriously, it really could be that simple a basic, water proof, reasonably durable--I mean it has survived 4000 years, bill of lading to ensure that everything made it from one boat to another at every cross-docking--something we still do to this day.  I often wonder why average everyday people aren't asked for input on stuff that archaeologists and anthropologists can't work out.

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