Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

Special Discussion

From the Editor

As its theatrical release date slowly approaches, I have been revisiting the movie trailers to the upcoming film: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. In the process, I noticed something very interesting in one of the most recent of trailers and that relates to a disc held by Indy himself.

A close up of this disc revealed that it was written in either the Minoan Linear A or Mycenaean Linear B scripts, which I find fascinating. I guess I should not be surprised though. These kinds of details are present throughout the franchise. For instance, in Raiders of the Lost Ark, the medallion (or the headpiece to the Staff of Ra) was inscribed by ancient Canaanite script which would have been common in the Levant during the 11th century BCE and later.

Another interesting observation is the disc itself and how it bears a slight resemblance to the Minoan Phaistos disc. Is this intentional? Probably.

Linear A was first introduced by the ancient Minoans and is considered to be the earliest form of writing in all of Europe. It is a syllabic script (each character represents a syllable) and not alphabetic. The Mycenaean Greeks adopted this form writing, which is referred to as Linear B. There also exists a variant used on the island of Cyprus known as Linear C. And while the Minoan language is an Indo-European language, it is unrelated to the language spoken by the Mycenaeans which was a very early form of Greek.

What does the use of this Aegean script mean [in the film] though? I don’t know. The trailers make multiple references to Archimedes, who existed a thousand years after this script fell out of use. I am intrigued to see the connection.