Customer Reviews

The Bronze Age Computer Disc

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The book is easy and enjoyable to read, even for those without an archaeology background. It also combines some good social description with an intriguing hypothesis: that ancient Crete, with a simple round stone, could calculate time, distance and position as accurately as any watch, calendar or map that would be developed in the next 2,000 years. Neverthess, I found the proof a bit lacking in substance and heavy in supposition.

The author aims to prove the use of circular pattern on the Phaistos disk, but manages to come up with circular evidence. Pardon the pun, couldn't resist. The basic observations are valid and useful, such as the 30 fields on one side and 31 on the other, but his conclusions beyond this are essentially unsubstantiated. For example: He is assuming a certain number of degrees on the circle (366), and a certain number of arc-seconds per degree, and furthermore that the length measure is a foot, and that there are 36.6 feet per arc-second. If it is so, then the result corresponds to within a kilometre with the circumference of the Earth, which is remarkble. Since it is remarkble, he concludes that it must be true, which is of course a circular argument to say the least. The book is full of similar units and measures that are unsubstantiated. I can not recommend it.

The Bronze Age Computer Disc impressed me greatly. As much as a detective story into the ancient past it is a rich and fascinating travelog of a little understood and fabulous ancient culture - the Minoans. The book shows how the mysterious symbols of the Phaistos Disc, found in Crete at the beginning of the 20th century, can be used to demonstrate a fantastic system of measuring time, space and distance, that existed as early as 3,500 BC in the Far West of Europe. This book is an easy to follow read, beautifully crafted, and with parenthesis to sift out the mathematics for people who are willing to take the author's word. The Bronze Age Computer Disc ends with a promise of many more revelations to come. I honestly cannot wait. Within the book lie some of the most incredible assertions regarding our ancient ancestors ever proposed.

This book ignores a large number of cuneiform texts from Babylonia. So it does not hold up. I would have thought there is enough here for an article but not for a whole book.