Mysterious alphabet found on 2,400-year-old tablet in Spain, experts say. Take a look
Looking at photos of a 2,400-year-old tablet recently found in Spain, a linguistic expert thought he recognized a symbol carved into the gray stone. It turned out to be a mysterious ancient alphabet.
Joan Ferrer i Jané, a researcher with the University of Barcelona focused on ancient languages, learned about the 2,400-year-old stone tablet through news reports, the Spanish National Research Council said in a June 11 news release.
The roughly 8-inch slate artifact was uncovered at the Casas del Turuñuelo, a set of well-preserved Tartessian ruins in Guareña. The Tartessians were an ancient Spanish culture that flourished from the ninth to sixth centuries B.C.
Initially, archaeologists identified the decorated tablet as a tool used by artists for practice sketches. Both sides of the tablet were covered in carvings of repeated faces, geometric figures and three warriors in a combat scene.
But Ferrer i Jané saw something else carved on the stone: a letter-like symbol.
He contacted archaeologists for more detailed photos and eventually identified an ancient alphabet carved on the outer edge of the tablet, officials said.
The alphabet, or script, has at least 21 symbols, officials said. Some symbols look similar to the modern Latin alphabet used in English, Spanish and several other languages. Other symbols are missing or undeciphered.
A photo shows the mysterious ancient alphabet. The first letter looks like an “A.” Other familiar-looking symbols include a “K,” “N,” “M,” “X” and “O.” Some of the more unfamiliar symbols are shaped like a hook, triangle, vertical wiggly line and basic tree.
Ferrer i Jané identified the carvings as a paleohispanic alphabet, officials said. Experts are not sure if this is another copy of a known alphabet or a completely independent script.
Paleohispanic alphabets were adapted from the earlier Phoenician writing system and used by ancient communities on the Iberian peninsula before the Roman Empire took over, officials said. These alphabets are generally divided into two categories — northern scripts and southern scripts — with several variations within each category.
The symbols carved on the Tartessian tablet from Guareña are most similar to a southern paleohispanic alphabet found in Castro Verde, Portugal, Ferrer i Jané said in the release.
But the 2,400-year-old tablet is broken. The end of the alphabet — anywhere from six to 11 symbols — is missing, officials said.
“It is a shame that the final part of the alphabet has been lost as that is usually where the most pronounced differences are found,” Ferrer i Jané said in the release, according to a translation from La Brújula Verde, a Spanish magazine.
A video shared by the research council on X, formerly Twitter, shows the decorated tablet.
Experts plan to continue studying the tablet in hopes of further decoding its carvings. They hope more inscriptions will be found when excavations continue at the Tartessian site in Guareña.
Guareña is a town that is a roughly 200-mile drive southwest of Madrid.
Google Translate was used to translate the news release and X post from the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC).
This story was originally published June 12, 2024 at 8:48 AM with the headline "Mysterious alphabet found on 2,400-year-old tablet in Spain, experts say. Take a look."
