Tărtăria tablets

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The Tărtăria tablets

The Tărtăria tablets are three tablets, discovered in the Kingdom of Hungary [Tatárlaka] today Romania in the 19th Century by Zsófia Torma, which date to around 5300 BC. They bear incised symbols, the Vinča signs, that have been the subject of considerable controversy among archaeologists, some of whom claim that the symbols represent the earliest known form of writing in the world. Old Hungarian Script (Rovásírás) shows high similarity to those seen on the tablets.

Discovery

The tablets were re-found in 1961 at about 30 km (19 mi) from the well-known site of Alba Iulia. Nicolae Vlassa, an archaeologist at the Cluj Museum, unearthed three inscribed but unbaked clay tablets, together with 26 clay and stone figurines and a shell bracelet, accompanied by the burnt, broken, and disarticulated bones of an adult male. Two of the tablets are rectangular and the third is round. They are all small, the round one being only 6 cm (2½ in) across, and two—one round and one rectangular—have holes drilled through them. Vlassa seared the originally unseared clay tablets, he falsified them. Since his act, the exact dating is no more possible.

All three have symbols inscribed only on one face. Similar motifs have been found on pots excavated at Vinča in Serbia and a number of other locations in the southern Balkans. The unpierced rectangular tablet depicts a horned animal, another figure, and a branch or tree. The others have a variety of mainly abstract symbols. The purpose of the burial is unclear, but it has been suggested that the body was that of a shaman or spirit-medium.

Dating

The tablets are generally believed to have belonged to the Vinča-Turdaș culture, which at the time was believed by Serbian and Romanian archaeologists to have originated around 2700 BC. Vlassa interpreted the Tărtăria tablets as a hunting scene and the other two with signs as a kind of primitive writing similar to the early pictograms of the Sumerians. The discovery caused great interest in the archeological world as it predated the first Minoan writing, the oldest known writing in Europe. Clay Bread, Slates or Tablets with Signs and Symbols

Magda LAZAROVICI Institute of Archaeology "Al. I. Cuza" University, Iasi

In this article we intend to analyze some clay objects from the Cucuteni-Tripolye cultural complex (Lazarovici C.-M. 2006) named as breads, or slates that might be interpreted as well as tablets. Some of them contain signs and symbols. Seven pieces have been discovered until now at Scanteia. Three, maybe four of them have signs or symbols. Similar pieces have been found in other Cucuteni A sites, such as Trusesti, Habasesti or Toflea. It is possible that other similar pieces belong to different other sites, but until now these have not been in our direct attention. Pieces from Habasesti seem to be without any sign or symbol, but those from Trusesti and Toflea contain such elements. During Cucuteni B phase such pieces are present only at Ghelaiesti-Nedeia.

In the recently published Encyclopedia of Trypillya Civilization (2004), other similar pieces, simple or with signs and symbols, have been presented in a very suggestive way. With this occasion we intend to focus more on the context of the discovery, to analyze the signs and symbols and to sketch some hypotheses related with the use of these sorts of pieces in the Cucuteni-Tripolye cultural complex. Nicolae URSULESCU (paper read by Felix Tencariu) Director,Center of Interdisciplinary Archaeohistorical Studies, Faculty of History, Archaeology Department, "Al. I. Cuza" University, Iasi

Nicolae URSULESCU and Felix TENCARI

Among the artifacts discovered in the Precucuteni site of Isaiia which hold a special signification, seventeen objects stand out through their incised signs, which represent something different than the usual decoration. This paper analyzes in detail these artefacts in order to reveal their signification. The spatial analysis shows that this kind of discovery is present in every dwelling, in very small numbers (usually one or two), especially in the vicinity of ovens or hearths, a fact which underlines their cultic significance. Of the objects inscribed with signs, there are nine pots, five miniature thrones, two clay tablets and one clay statuette. On the pots, the signs are inscribed on the bottom (in six cases), or on the upper flat side of lid handles (in two cases). Considering the rarity of the miniature thrones, one notices the high frequency of inscribed signs on their seat; in one case the signs are present also on the invisible side (the base). At the cult complex of Isaiia, such signs are present on two of the thirteen miniature thrones found there and on one of the twenty-one statuettes. This represents further evidence for attributing a special character to these signs which are found only on certain artefacts.

On ten of the analyzed artefacts we identified one sign, while the rest of the artefacts contained compositions of signs which, in some cases, are considered to be mythograms.

A certain thematic variety has been noticed, but the solar motif is the most frequent, expressed in either an abstract or realistic manner. Also identified are schematic anthropomorphic silhouettes; the trident; the grid; concentric arches; the Y sign Y and various compositions. In general, the signs on the ceramic artefacts from Isaiia do not have analogies with the already published signs from the Precucuteni culture, but rather with those from the areas of Vinca, Turdas and Boian-Gumelnita cultures, with which the bearers of the Precucuteni culture had close relations.

In conclusion, the authors consider that the Precucuteni culture has to be placed among the Eneolithic civilisations in Romanian territory where the presence of symbolic signs on ceramic artefacts is testified. An exhaustive publication and a rigorous systematisation of the symbolic signs on Precucuteni ceramic objects are necessary in order for their real significance to be established. However, subsequent radiocarbon dating on the Tărtăria finds pushed the date of the tablets (and therefore of the whole Vinča culture) much further back, to as long ago as 5500 BC, the time of the early Eridu phase of the Sumerian civilization in Mesopotamia. Still, this is disputed in the light of apparently contradictory stratigraphic evidence.

If the symbols are indeed a form of writing, then writing in the Danubian culture would far predate the earliest Sumerian cuneiform script or Egyptian hieroglyphs. They would thus be the world's earliest known form of writing. This claim remains controversial.

Interpretation

The amulet (retouched)

The meaning (if any) of the symbols is unknown, and their nature has been the subject of much debate. Scholars who conclude that the inscribed symbols are writing base their assessment on a few conclusions, which are not universally endorsed. First, the existence of similar signs on other artifacts of the Danube civilization suggest that there was an inventory of standard shapes of which scribes made use. Second, the symbols make a high degree of standardization and a rectilinear shape comparable to archaic writing systems manifest. Third, that the information communicated by each character was a specific one with an unequivocal meaning. Finally, that the inscriptions are sequenced in rows, whether horizontal, vertical or circular. If they do comprise a script, it is not known what kind of writing system they represent. Some archaeologists who support the idea that they do represent writing, notably Marija Gimbutas, have proposed that they are fragments of a system dubbed the Old European Script.

Others consider the pictograms to be accompanied by random scribbles. Some have suggested that the symbols may have been used as marks of ownership or as the focus of religious rituals. An alternative suggestion is that they may have been merely uncomprehending imitations of more advanced cultures, although this explanation is made rather unlikely by the great antiquity of the tablets—there were no literate cultures at the time from which the symbols could have been adopted. Colin Renfrew argues that the apparent similarities with Sumerian symbols are deceptive: "To me, the comparison made between the signs on the Tărtăria tablets and those of proto-literate Sumeria carry very little weight. They are all simple pictographs, and a sign for a goat in one culture is bound to look much like the sign for a goat in another. To call these Balkan signs 'writing' is perhaps to imply that they had an independent significance of their own communicable to another person without oral contact. This I doubt."

Another problem is that there are no independent indications of literacy existing in the Balkans at this period. Sarunas Milisauskas comments that "it is extremely difficult to demonstrate archaeologically whether a corpus of symbols constitutes a writing system" and notes that the first known writing systems were all developed by early states to facilitate record-keeping in complex organised societies in the Middle East and Mediterranean. There is no evidence of organised states in the European Neolithic, so it is likely that they would not have needed the administrative systems facilitated by writing. David Anthony notes that Chinese characters were first used for ritual and commemorative purposes associated with the sacred power of kings; it is possible that a similar usage accounts for the Tărtăria symbols.

See also

• Gradeshnitsa tablets
• Prehistoric Romania

Bibliography

• Haarmann, H. 1990 Writing from Old Europe. The Journal of Indo-European Studies 17
• Makkay, J. 1969 The Late Neolithic Tordos Group of Signs. Alba Regia 10, 9-50
• Makkay, J. 1984 Early Stamp Seals in South-East Europe. Budapest
• Winn, Sham M. M. 1973 The Sings of the Vinca Culture
• Winn, Sham M. M. 1981 Pre-writing in Southeast Europe: The Sign System of the Vinca culture. BAR

External links

• "Signs on Tărtăria Tablets found in the Romanian folkloric art", by Ioana Crişan.
• "Milady Tărtăria and the discovery of the Tărtăria Tablets", by Marco Merlini