A 2,400-year-old tablet unearthed in Spain appears to have an alphabetical sequence of 21 signs inscribed on it, 400 years before the famous Rosetta Stone.
The National Scientific Research Council (CSIC) made public the 8-inch slate last week, discovered at Casas del Turuñuelo, an anthropological excavation site believed to have been a sanctuary or temple for the lost Paleo-Hispanic society called Tartessos.
The CSIC explained that the tablet also represents “a frame on which figures of warriors” members of an advanced civilization that mysteriously disappeared were found.
But as a CSIC researcher, Esther Rodríguez González, leader of the excavation, pointed out, “the volume of information it contained was even greater” and may still prove to be evidence of an independent and completely new southern Paleo-Hispanic alphabet.
A 2,400-year-old tablet (above) unearthed in Spain appears to be inscribed with an alphabetical sequence of 21 signs, predating the famous Rosetta Stone by 400 years. Above, an effort to extrapolate the missing pieces of the alphabet on this newly discovered tablet
The Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) made the 8-inch slate public last week, after it was discovered at the Casas del Turuñuelo, an anthropological excavation site (pictured) believed to have been a sanctuary or temple. for a rich paleohispanic. culture known as Tartessos
The engravings on the tablet, which date from approximately 600 and 400 BC. C., appear to show repeated and superimposed illustrations of faces, geometric shapes, and three warriors in a combat scene, as officials revealed in their preliminary photographs.
Archaeologists who have reviewed the tablet now theorize that it was like a notepad or sketchbook, used by artisans to practice these images and symbols before engraving a finished product in more valuable materials such as gold, ivory or wood.
The Tartessian culture, sometimes compared to the mythical city of gold, ‘El Dorado’, and occasionally discussed alongside accounts of mythical Atlantis, is believed to have flourished between the 9th and 6th centuries BC.
“Their sophistication was remarkable,” as archaeologist Richard Freund of Christopher Newport University told the travel site. dark atlas in 2021.
While it is known that the wealthy Tartessians were a mix of indigenous people and Greek and Phoenician colonizers, it is still unknown whether they were a large city-state, an entire nation, or something in between.
Experts have speculated that an earthquake or tsunami could have caused its disappearance.
The excavations at the Casas del Turuñuelo have been underway for at least six years, according to CSIC officials.
The engravings on the tablet, which date from approximately 600 and 400 BC. C., appear to show repeated and superimposed illustrations of faces, geometric shapes, and three warriors in a combat scene, as officials revealed in their preliminary photographs. Archaeologists theorize that it was a sketchbook.
The excavations in the Casas del Turuñuelo, where the tablet was found, have been underway for at least six years, according to CSIC officials.
Paleo-Hispanic written languages are currently divided into two styles or families, one common to the northeast of Spain and another common to the south, which archaeologists have only seen in fragments before, speculating that more could exist.
Researcher at the University of Barcelona Joan Ferrer i Janewho examined the tablet, said that it resembles “other traces consistent with signs of a known sequence” from two earlier Southern dialect tablets from this period.
The Turuñuelo or Guareña alphabet on this new tablet represents the first 10 signs of the alphabet also seen at an archaeological site, Espanca, in Castro Verde, Portugal.
‘This alphabet (from Espanca) has 27 signs and is the only complete one we know to date. Another was found in the excavation of Villasviejas del Tamuja but it is very fragmented, it only has some central signs,” says Ferrer i Jané in a CSIC statement.
‘Guareña would be the third and would provide a lot of information,’ he added.
University of Barcelona researcher Joan Ferrer i Jané, who examined the tablet (pictured), said it resembles “other traces compatible with signs of a known sequence” from two earlier southern dialect tablets from this culture.
Unfortunately, the broken state of the tablet has obscured part of its alphabet, which Ferrer i Jané hopes to reconstruct with other artifacts from the region.
‘At least 6 signs or letters would have been lost in the divided area of the piece, but if it were completely symmetrical and the signs completely occupied three of the four sides of the plate, 32 could be reached’, Ferrer i Jané noted (in Spanish, here translated).
‘So the missing signs or letters could number up to eleven or perhaps more if a possible sign, ‘Tu’, isolated in the side room, was part of the alphabet,’ he noted.
“It is a shame that the final part of the alphabet has been lost, since that is where the most pronounced differences tend to be,” according to the researcher who works in information software engineering and ancient languages at the university.
Those missing letters could well be what makes the tablet a new sister language to the other type or partially understood southern Paleohispanic family.
The team of CSIC collaborating archaeologists reports that they intend to continue working on the slate, along with new excavations at the ruins of Casas del Turuñuelo in Guareña, approximately 200 miles southwest of Madrid.
