Phaistos

The Phaistos Disc from Crete - a mysterious, fired clay disc from the Minoan civilisation - "closely mirrors the Indus script's challenges - its language is unknown, and only one known example exists".

One was the Disc of Phaistos, a clay artifact, six inches in diameter and festooned with mysterious symbols, that was discovered in 1908 in Crete; another was the Snake Goddess of Knossos, which was found about the same time and, like the Disc, put on display in Crete at the Heraklion Archaeological Museum.

Mr. Eisenberg, an expert on forgeries, wrote in 2008 that the Disc of Phaistos and its undeciphered symbols, not connected to any known script, were faked by Luigi Pernier, the archaeologist who said he had discovered it in a dig at the Knossos Palace 100 years earlier.

On July 3, 1908, archaeologists excavating the ancient Minoan palace at Phaistos, on the island of Crete, chanced upon one of the most remarkable objects in the history of technology.

For historians of technology, the Phaistos disk is even more baffling; its estimated date of 1700 B.C. makes it by far the earliest printed document in the world.