Le guerrier, le chat, l’aigle, le poisson et la colonne: la voie spiralée des signes. Approche sémiologique, structurale et archéologique du disque de Phaistos

Serge Collet

City: Oxford

Year: 2017

Publisher: Archaeopress

Series: Praehistorica Mediterranea 6

Description: Paperback, 91 p., 6 b/w tables, 2 colour figures, 15 x 21 cm

Abstract

The Phaistos Disc is one of the most studied documents of Minoan civilization, enticing scholars and simple enthusiasts with the mysterious aura that envelops it and with its singularity among Minoan scriptures. It has entered the collective imagination, both at academic and popular levels. Archaeologists digging at Phaistos are often asked ‘Where was the Disc found?’ Representations of the Disc can be found abundantly in popular culture, from appearances in Mickey Mouse comics to props amidst the curios on the tables of television magicians.

It is this very overexposure that risks undermining the understanding of an object that is, first and foremost, an archaeological artefact found in a chronological and cultural context. Much has been said and much has been written about the Disc. Collet brings a new approach. It is not a deciphering but an interpretation, a depiction of the Minoan Weltanschauung through the symbols on the Disc and their connections with reality. This begins with the spiral-shaped construction of the inscription and its possible temporal allusions, and moves on to a structuralist view of use of the signs, in which the repetitions take on almost ritual significance. Hence it is a pictorial interpretation rather than syllabic, whereby the pictograph is not intended as a rigid reproduction of logical discourse, but rather a path.

Contents

Premessa [7-9]

Foreword [11-13]

Ι. Du pouvoir des signes comme entités relationnelles [15-19]

ΙΙ. La spirale et le ruban des signes [21-22]

III. Le bricolage inconscient et savant des séquences de signes pictogrammes [23-27]

IV. La voie des pictogrammes [29-44]

V. De L’analyse des atomes de signification à celle des groupements de signes [45-52]

VI. Engouement- enjouement pour une spirale de signes [53-54]

Bibliographie [55-58]

Abstract [59-60]

Liste des figures et des tableaux [61]

Figures et tableaux [63-78]

EXCURSUS

De la sémiologie à de nouveaux questionnement archéologiques [79-81]

Retour sur quelques signes, remarques techniques et archéologiques sur le Disque de Phaistos [81-86]

Destructions naturelles et ripostes rituelles [86-89]

Bibliographie complémentaire [89-91]