What 𐇪 means
It is a picture name, not a translation. The shape resembles a flattened animal hide, with stubby legs and a ragged edge, so cataloguers labelled it “hide”, sign 27 in the standard numbering of the disc’s 45 signs by the archaeologist Arthur Evans. Whether it stood for a sound, a word or an idea is unknown. Some fonts draw it so it looks a bit like a cross or a small ghost; that is just the outline.
The Phaistos Disc was found in 1908 in the Minoan palace of Phaistos on Crete and is usually dated to around the 17th century BC. Both faces carry a spiral of about 240 signs pressed into the wet clay with punches, one punch per sign, which is why it is often called the earliest known example of printing with movable stamps. It is kept in the Heraklion Archaeological Museum.
Researchers compare its signs with Cretan hieroglyphs and Linear A, the other scripts of Minoan Crete, but no link is proven. Readings proposed for the disc range from a hymn or prayer to a calendar or game; none is accepted.
What does it mean if someone sends you 𐇪?
Almost always a reference to the disc or its mystery. People use it when writing about the Phaistos Disc, quoting a line of its signs, discussing a claimed decipherment, or simply as an ancient-looking decoration in a name or bio. It carries no agreed meaning of its own, so if a message seems to rest on it, ask what the sender intends.
Scholarly and curious: it belongs to archaeology talk and puzzle lovers, never to everyday chat slang.
Don’t read “hide” as a confirmed meaning; the disc is undeciphered.
Part of the collection
What it means when someone sends it to you
2 readingsSomeone is quoting or transcribing the Phaistos Disc.
Worth knowing
- The disc was stamped, not drawn: each of its 45 sign types came from its own punch, an idea not seen again in Europe for thousands of years.
- Because it is so short and unique, the disc has attracted countless amateur “decipherments”, none accepted by specialists.
Questions people ask
3Has the Phaistos Disc been deciphered?
No. It is the only text in its script, too short for reliable decipherment, and every proposed reading remains unconfirmed.
Why does 𐇪 face the other way from photos of the disc?
Unicode encodes these signs to run left to right, so its sample glyphs are mirrored from the disc, which is read in the opposite direction. It is the same sign.
Why do I see a box instead of 𐇪?
Your font lacks the Phaistos Disc signs. Install a font that covers them, such as Noto Sans Symbols 2 or Aegean; the character itself is unchanged.
More like this
10
How to type or find 𐇪
- Also called
- Phaistos sign 27 · hide sign · animal skin sign
- Search it as
- phaistos disc · phaistos disk · phaistos hide · animal skin symbol · oxhide · minoan symbol · ancient crete sign · 101EA
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
𐇪\101EACodes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.