“We can now ‘read’ and ‘hear’ 90% of the Disk. This is what I would dearly like to share with TEDx”.

This is the statement of Dr. Gareth Owens on his forthcoming presentation on Minoan language matters (focusing on the Phaestos Disk) in the framework of TEDxHeraklion.

Currently one of the most important researchers within the field of Bronze Age Aegean scripts and languages, Owens lives and works in Crete for the past 25 years. A UCL graduate (Classics & Ancient History), he arrived in Crete as a State Scholarships Foundation (IKY) scholar back in 1988, to perform research on Linear B script material from Knossos and the Archaeological Museum of Heraklion, in the University of Crete. Twenty five years later, he lives in Crete, working for the local Technological Educational Institute (TEI) (as an Erasmus Programme coordinator), and having received a Phd from the National Kapodistrian University of Athens on the Structure of the Minoan Language. For the last five years, he focuses on the language and script of the Phaistos Disk -considered by many as the Holy Grail of Minoan archaeology-, cooperating with Prof. John Coleman (Oxford).

Dr Owens’ presentation is to take place February 8, in Cretaquarium-Thalassocosmos, the venue for TEDxHeraklion.