Here’s what you’ll learn from reading this story:
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Archaeologists have uncovered a basalt tablet in the Lake Bashplemi region of Georgia with an unknown language engraved on its surface.
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The tablet had 60 characters on seven lines.
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Experts say the engravings show excellent craftsmanship, even if they cannot yet determine the origin of the language.
There’s a new language in town. Well, actually, it’s old, and the experts can’t even read it. But they are excited to find out more.
Archaeologists have discovered a basalt tablet about the size of a piece of paper with 60 characters of an unknown script expertly carved on its surface in the Lake Bashplemi region of Georgia—the same site where some scientists believe the first European, a 1.8-million-year-old hominin, was discovered.
According to a study published in the Journal of Ancient History and Archaeology.the tablet—which measured 9.4 inches by 7.9 inches—was made of local vesicular basalt and contained seven lines of writing.
“This tablet, which bears 60 signs, 39 of them different, raises the question of the origin of the Georgian, proto-Georgian script,” wrote the authors of the study. “While the basalt on which it is based is known to be of local origin, its meaning is unknown, and much remains to be done to decipher it.”
An initial comparative analysis carried out with more than 20 languages shows that the characters bear some resemblance to the written forms of the Semitic, Brahmanical and Northern Iberian languages.
“In general, the Bashplemi inscription does not repeat any script known to us,” wrote the authors, “however, most of the symbols used in it resemble those found in Middle Eastern scripts, as well as those of geographically remote countries such as India, Egypt, and Western Iberia.”
Some symbols may have taken inspiration from early Caucasian scripts—be they Georgian Mrglovani or Albanian alphabets—but there also seem to be links with Proto-Kartvelian, Near Eastern Phoenician, Proto-Sinaitic scripts. But without a direct connection to any other known pattern of writing, this new find could be a completely unknown language.
“The script, some of whose 39 characters are numbers and punctuation marks, could have been an alphabet,” the authors wrote.
The researchers believe that the new find bears the strongest resemblance to the Proto-Kartvelian script of the fourth millennium BC, which was used throughout Georgia and Iberia. But there are also similarities with Bronze Age Georgian symbols, including “some similarities with Phoenician, Aramaic, and Greek alphabets. [that] they are not surprising since their role in the region and their relationships with local writings are well known.”
The area in which this tablet was found is already a rich archaeological site, and adding a new language to the mix only adds to the intrigue of Bashplemi Lake.
The 60 total characters etched on seven horizontal rows also showed highly skilled craftsmanship, according to the study, and was done with advanced tools for the time. Researchers believe that the person who made the writing used a conical drill to describe the contours of each individual character and a “smooth and round tool” to finish the job.
Speculation as to what it all means—the authors hypothesize that the writing could explain “military dirt, an important construction project, or an offering to some deity”—is all that remains for now.
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