Glyphbreaker (Culture)

Here is an interesting book. The author is famous for his decipherment of Easter Island's `rongorongo' script ... but the content, a new translation of the mysterious Minoan Phaistos disc, is the stuff of a million crackpot theories. Written in an engaging and immediate style, the book is certainly a good read. The information it provides about the decipherment of Linear B and also about the Easter Island script is interesting. Yet the translated content of the Phaistos Disc is disappointing - a rather repetitive `Call-to-Arms', mobilizing Minoans and Mycenean Greeks to resist a naval invasion. And, above all, as one knowledgeable critic puts it, "even if he's right, how could he prove it with a sample of one ?"