Phaistos Disk – Minimum Viable Python

mystery disk

There is a clay disk of undeciphered symbols at the archaeological museum of Heraklion. For research purposes (perhaps), the symbols have been assigned unicode points, as follows:

unicode points for symbols from the Phaistos disk

However, when you use these unicodes, what actual shows up (at least at time of writing) is just empty squares.

Code

library(tibble)

ontos <- c("\U1F378","\U1F431")

ontos

[1] "🍸" "🐱"

Code

print("that's fine")

[1] "that's fine"

Code

ontos4 <- c("\U1F378","\U1F431", "\U101E2", "\U101D0")
ontos4

[1] "🍸" "🐱" "𐇢"  "𐇐"

Code

print("that's not so fine!")

[1] "that's not so fine!"

Code

catcodes <- tribble(
  ~unicat, ~description,
  "\U1F638","eyes smiling",
  "\U1F639","tears laughing",
  "\U1F63A","smiling",
  "\U1F63B","eyes hearts",
  "\U1F63c","smirk",
  "\U1F63D","kiss",
  "\U1F63E","frown",
  "\U1F63F","single tear",
  "\U1F640","scream!",
  "\U1F408","canonical cat",
  "\U1F431","schematic",
  "\U1F43E","paws",
  "\U1F378", "martini",
  "\U10090", "Linear B Ideogram 122 olive"
)

catcodes

# A tibble: 14 × 2
   unicat description                
   <chr>  <chr>                      
 1 😸     eyes smiling               
 2 😹     tears laughing             
 3 😺     smiling                    
 4 😻     eyes hearts                
 5 😼     smirk                      
 6 😽     kiss                       
 7 😾     frown                      
 8 😿     single tear                
 9 🙀     scream!                    
10 🐈     canonical cat              
11 🐱     schematic                  
12 🐾     paws                       
13 🍸     martini                    
14 𐂐      Linear B Ideogram 122 olive

Code

print("you can go literal, too!")

[1] "you can go literal, too!"

Code

catpictos <- "🍸 🐈 🐱 🐾 😸 😹 😺 😻 😼 😽 😾 😿 🙀 𐂐"

print(catpictos)

[1] "🍸 🐈 🐱 🐾 😸 😹 😺 😻 😼 😽 😾 😿 🙀 𐂐"

Code

message2 <- c("𐇐 𐇑 𐇒 𐇓 𐇔 𐇕 𐇖 𐇗 𐇘 𐇙 𐇚 𐇛 𐇜 𐇝 𐇞 𐇠 𐇡 𐇢 𐇣 𐇤 𐇥 𐇦 𐇧 𐇨 𐇩 𐇪 𐇫 𐇬 𐇭 𐇮 𐇯 𐇟")

print(message2)

[1] "𐇐 𐇑 𐇒 𐇓 𐇔 𐇕 𐇖 𐇗 𐇘 𐇙 𐇚 𐇛 𐇜 𐇝 𐇞 𐇠 𐇡 𐇢 𐇣 𐇤 𐇥 𐇦 𐇧 𐇨 𐇩 𐇪 𐇫 𐇬 𐇭 𐇮 𐇯 𐇟"

so, it turns out the reason for this is … no glyphs!

If you have a font that has them isntalled on your system, like Symbola (download), then you may be able to render these ancient standard (but undeciphered) little entities to your own satisfaction, but very little none of almost anyone else’s.