Disc Men

into the labyrinth. The labyrinth was a kind of maze created four Minos by the craftsman Dedalus, and within its elusive center lived the king's son, the Minotaur, a creature possessing the body of a man and the head of a bull. King Minos, his labyrinth, and his minutes or were all just stories, fables about gods and goddesses to help explain how Greece had come to be. However, to the ancient Greeks, they were more than just stories. They were legendary tales of good and evil, about deities that

were worshiped by the masses. And if you look at the ruins and remnants left behind by the early Greeks, you start to wonder if they ever really were stories at all. When English archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans found the Palace of Canosis, he called upon his knowledge of Greek myths to aid in his search. He named the ancient people who once lived there Minoans, after King Minos, and then worked for several years excavating a large palace at

the site. By nineteen o five, the work had been completed, and through it Sir Arthur had learned much about the people who once lived in what he called the Palace of Minos. But it wouldn't be until several years later in nineteen o eight, when an Italian archaeologist by the name of Luigi Parnier would find a new piece of a very perplexing puzzle. Louis g had been digging around in the basement of one of the buildings set off from the main palace, when he found a small disc

only six inches in diameter. The circular object featured over two hundred impressions of hyrid glyphs arranged clockwise in a spiral pattern. He called it the Face Dose Disc. As with many archaeological discoveries concerning ancient cultures, the first inclination was to write the face dose disc off as a fake. Many historical objects had been revealed as forgeries or hoaxes, and there was no reason not to think the same about this one. But surprisingly most scholars agreed it was legitimate.

One reason for that was the later discovery of an axe nearby bearing similar glyphs as the disc. The two forty two impressions or tokens were comprised of forty five numbered symbols, each one unique. These symbols stood for common things like person or child or arrow. Yet despite their clear pictorial intent, every actual decipherment of the disc had been unsuccessful. Amateur archaeologists had tried everything, turning the disc as they read it, proposing possible stories it might have told,

but nothing seemed to work. It was thought for decades that the disc might never be translated successfully at all if more symbols couldn't be found elsewhere, either increte or in the palace itself, or perhaps from where they originated. Because a scholar back in the nineteen twenties claimed the clay that had been used to form the disc hadn't come from crete at all, but from somewhere else in the a G and C. There may be more out there,

but we don't know where. However, in two thousand fourteen, two linguists claimed they broke the code. Dr Gareth Owens, a researcher from Crete, and John Coleman, a professor of phonetics at Oxford University, worked together for six years analyzing what Owens referred to as the first Minoan c d ram.

Early theories about the disc proposed that it had been a story to entertain readers, declaration of war, a game of some kind, or even a math amadical equation, but Owens and Coleman figured out the trick to deciphering it. They read it in a spiral direction, working their way from the outside edge to the center, and compared the glyphs to Cretan hieroglyphics as well as ancient Greek writings. What they came up with were three words, which translated

to pregnant mother, shining mother, and goddess. According to Owens and Coleman, the face those disc wasn't a story or a call to arms, but a prayer to a Minoan goddess. It might not be as riveting a conclusion as some had hoped for, but Thanks to the work of these two language experts, we now have a greater insight into an unknown religion of an ancient culture. Just don't ask me to try and read the disc it turns out

it's all Greek to me. Some people are just born within eight talent Mozart began composing when he was only five years old. Blaze Pascal, the French mathematician, wrote his first theorem when he was only eleven, and British philosopher John Stuart Mill had already learned to speak several dead languages by the time he was eight. Andrew was born in blooming Grove, New York, and he took a little

longer to find his calling. Born in eighteen twenty six, he had received only five months of formal classroom education by the age of seventeen. His father had been an alcoholic, and Andrew, along with his mother and sister, had to find work wherever they could to keep a roof over their heads. The young man was a cobbler's apprentice by trade, and found other odd jobs around town so his family

could stay afloat. He'd been in Poughkeepsie, New York in eighteen forty three when he attended some lectures on hypnotism from mesmerist J. S. Grimes. At the time, mesmerism was referred to as animal magnetism, and the prevailing theory was that every living thing on earth was born with the ability to influence other creatures. Some could even use that power to heal. Andrew believed that he possessed special powers,

specifically the ability to read minds. He explored these possibilities for the next three years, calling himself the Poughkeepsie Seer, as he practiced his own form of medicine. He used his psychic site to diagnose sick people and to speak with spirits from beyond the grave. In eighteen forty four, Andrew woke up in the Catskills, claiming he'd gone into a trance only hours before, where he spoke to Galen, the Greek physician considered to be the father of modern medicine.

Though relatively uneducated himself, that didn't stop Andrew from writing books about magnetic healing, many of which dictated to others while in a trance. His first book, Principles of Nature, sold one thousand copies in the week after its release. One reason for its success, Davis wasn't a scholar. He was a below average man born with above average skills, and that made him appealing to the masses. If he could become some kind of mental superhero, and so could

anyone else. Unfortunately, while his books were financially successful, they were a critical flop, especially among the intellectual crowd. Critics didn't take his work seriously, often citing factual errors as well as jargon filled ramblings better suited towards science fiction than credible textbooks. Things weren't looking good for Andrew Jackson Davis. He even had to run in with the author Edgar Allan Poe, who didn't care much for his brand of Shenanigans.

Poe wrote a short story just before his death called Milanta Tata that featured a character named Martin van Buren Mavis the two Keepsie Seer, a nice little dig at the man whose trance sessions had influenced another story of his, The Facts in the Case of m Valdemar. Poe had written that one the very same year he and Davis had first met, but Davis and Poe eventually fell out of favor with one another. The Poughkeepsie Seer had grown too positive for the Baltimore Native Zee. Davis had moved

past seances and spiritual contact. It wasn't just a medium anymore. He was a progressive thinker and the founder of a movement, one he coined in his magnum opus, The Great Harmonia. A concept was called the law of attraction, and it was much different from the law of attraction we know today. To Davis, the spirits he contacted during a seance would only be attracted to his attempts if they shared the

characteristics and intentions of the other living people present. Later on, as mesmerism fell out of fashion, the term evolved to be more about earthly prosperity for those with positive attitudes. But Andrew Jackson Davis gave us two more things before his death in nineteen ten, in the form of predictions

and his book Penetralia, published in eighteen fifty six. Davis wrote, look out about these days for carriages and traveling saloons on country roads, without horses, without steam, without any visible motive power, moving with greater speed and far more safety than at present. He said, these machines would move with the help of a mixture of gas and liquid that ignited safely within their shells. He also mentioned in the same book a type of machine that could automatically transcribe

words for him. He called it a soul writer. And he said, and I quote, it may be constructed something like a piano one brace or scale of keys to represent the elementary sounds, so that a person, instead of playing a piece of music, may touch off a sermon or a poem. In other words, the uneducated cobbler from upstate New York didn't just learn how to talk to the dead. He predicted the automobile and the typewriter decades before they were revealed to the rest of the world.

Quite the progressive thinker. Indeed, I hope have enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can learn all about it over at the World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.