German Scientists: Europe's Oldest Script Found In Bulgaria (Minoan)

Sofia News Agency ^ | 5-18-2005

[blam]

German Scientists: Europe's Oldest Script Found in Bulgaria

Lifestyle: 18 May 2005, Wednesday.

Ancient tablets found in South Bulgaria are written in the oldest European script found ever, German scientists say.

The tablets, unearthed near the Southern town of Kardzhali, are over 35-centuries old, and bear the ancient script of the Cretan (Minoan) civilization, according to scientists from the University of Heidelberg, who examined the foundings. This is the Cretan writing, also known as Linear A script, which dates back to XV-XIV century B.C.

The discovery proves the theory of the Bulgarian archaeologists that the script on the foundings is one of the oldest known to humankind, the archaeologist Nikolay Ovcharov announced Wednesday.

Ovcharov, who is heading the archaeological expedition in the ancient Perperikon complex near Kardzhali, called the discovery "revolutionary". It throws a completely different light on Bulgaria's history, he said in an interview for the National Television.

[AnAmericanMother]

Sorry, that's what comes of typing off the top of your head. It's been almost 30 years since I took that Greek Archaeology course . . . I was thinking of the earlier disaster, possibly a Mycenaean invasion (although some think it was the eruption of Thera) that toppled the early Cretan palace culture around 1700 B.C. There had been a lot of cross-cultural exchange before that (hence the Linear B). Prof. Blegen thinks the Dorians came waltzing in somewhere around 1200 B.C. and destroyed the Cretan civilization utterly.

[monkey]

It is possible that Menes and Narmer were the same, but not certain. Here is a summary.

[monkey]

If you haven't been to Thera, it is well worth a trip. Beautiful, beautiful views. Also, there is a site currently being excavated that you can visit.

[AnAmericanMother]

Well, they're making some headway on the Etruscan, thanks to a few bilingual inscriptions. But you're right, it's a tough nut to crack.

They seem to be a good deal farther along with that than with the Linear A, though.

[AnAmericanMother]

My parents were just there on dad's WWII Victory Tour - he helped supervise the Greek elections just after the war, and he spent a lot of time travelling around to the islands with a couple of mules, ballot boxes, a sergeant, and an interpreter.

They went to Thera and took lots of pics (including of the new excavations).

We'll have to wait until the kids are older.

[monkey]

That's great, about your dad.

One nice thing about Crete is that the Iraklio museum is fantastic, well-organized but uncrowded. You can walk up to the Phaistos Disk and look at it as long as you like(one-on-one, so to speak). Not the Disneyland atmosphere of the Louvre or the British Museum.

[SunkenCiv]

a few related GGG / FR topics (reprised from the first one shown):

The Linear B Tablets and Mycenaean Social, Political, and Economic Organization
Lesson 25, The Prehistoric Archaeology of the Aegean
Revised: Friday, March 18, 2000 | Trustees of Dartmouth College
Posted on 08/29/2004 8:19:46 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1202723/posts

Inscription in Carian and Greek
Anistoriton | 27 Dec. 1997 | (editors)
Posted on 07/17/2004 6:20:07 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1173453/posts?page=10#10

Non-Attic Characters
University of California, Irvine, Thesaurus Linguae Graecae
September 7 2003 (rev 9-28-2003) | Nick Nicholas
Posted on 07/18/2004 6:43:19 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1173901/posts

The Argonaut Epos and Bronze Age Economic History
Economics Department, City College of New York
Revised May 14, 1999 | Morris Silver
Posted on 08/25/2004 10:30:51 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1199756/posts

Amazon Warrior Women
PBS | Current | PBS
Posted on 08/04/2004 8:51:53 PM PDT by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1185293/posts

So Who Is Buried in Midas's Tomb?
NYT | 12/25/2001 | JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
Posted on 12/24/2001 10:12:01 PM PST by a_Turk
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/596541/posts

The Truth About An Epic Tale Of Love, War And Greed (Troy)
The Telegraph (UK) | 3-24-2004
Posted on 03/25/2004 12:03:11 PM PST by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1105131/posts

Was There a Trojan War?
Archaeology | May/June 2004 | Manfred Korfmann
Posted on 07/29/2004 11:43:38 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1181498/posts?page=3#3

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Blam.

Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on, off, or alter the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list --
Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
The GGG Digest -- Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

[SunkenCiv]

Shamash and Enkidu who managed to copulate for 7 nights and 7 days without taking a break. The record is still standing.

For you, maybe. ;'D

[GSlob]

Well, if you (or anyone you know) could beat 168 hours record without so much as taking a restroom break - my hat would be off to you.

[GSlob]

"...but technically that was the pre-viagran record."
Thus it is even more impressive, since it was a natural supernatural accomplishment. All steroids, but no doping!

[SunkenCiv]

quibble -- no scrolls, clay tablets. But anyway... Your view is shared by others; that Linear A isn't decipherable because the body of inscriptions is too small. OTOH, there are some claimed decipherments, such as Barry Fell's (1977).

---

Uncracked Ancient Codes
(Lost Languages reviewed)
by William C. West

Linear A, undeciphered, tantalizes, because about 80 percent of its signs resemble those of Linear B. Its system of numerals seems to be fairly clear: On several tablets, a term for "total" appears at the bottom of a tablet that includes a series of numbers. The numbers add up to the total given, instilling confidence that we understand at least these units. Attempts to show that Linear A represents a known language of the Aegean world, however, have not been successful. All but a few scholars agree that the language of Linear A cannot be Greek, and the idea that it represents a Semitic language has been rejected by nearly everyone. An Anatolian language (perhaps Lycian) remains a possibility... Robinson's descriptions of such analysis, and his accounts of both successful and unsuccessful decoding attempts, are clear, provocative and stimulating.

---

Lost Languages: The Enigma Of The World's Undeciphered Scripts by Andrew Robinson

---

[SunkenCiv]

A royal seal pressed into clay, with a Minoan hieroglyphic inscription (?), found at Knossos. If these four characters are Linear A as they appear to be, using my best guesses from Barry Fell's work on Linear A, they represent the consonants lu - ak/ag - ke - su/yu (the slashes indicate that I'm not sure which sign to use). ESOP Volume 4, No. 77 (p 26) shows the first two symbols and two others, translated as lugal ("man royal") that is, King "ke su/yu". Figure from p 37, The Aegean Civilizations by Peter Warren, 1989, a volume of the The Making of the Past series. [first posted on my Ancient Times list on the Globe, October 9, 2000]

[Fedora]

It reminded me of this (can't remember what thread we discussed this on--I believe some questions were raised about the identification of some of the characters--but anyway here's a link on the same subject):

Greek alphabet was in use at 6000 BC

[Graymatter]

Google "Crete Rhodopes" for more info, but a while back I read that archaeologists found evidence of a Cretan presence in the Rhodopes Mts. in Bulgaria.

[Smokin' Joe]

They are if they were cheating on their taxes!

[CobaltBlue]

he spent a lot of time travelling around to the islands with a couple of mules, ballot boxes, a sergeant, and an interpreter.

What a cool story! Make sure you get it all down for future history!

[AnAmericanMother]

We have!

It's present in abbreviated form on Free Republic, an interview my daughter did for her sixth grade history class:

The FReeper Foxhole Presents An Interview with Lt. James McGhee - American Veteran - Jan. 14th, 2004

[monkey]

I've read that book; it's a good layman survey. Robinson mentions that one of the experts in epigraphy gets hundreds of supposed solutions to the Phaistos disk sent to him every year.

Those supposed decipherments highlight the problem of decipherment of an unknown language. How would you know if the decipherment is accurate? So far, there are no claimed decipherments of Linear A or the Phaistos disk or Rongo-Rongo that are taken seriously "in the field." But probably a different word than decipherment needs to be used if the language is not known, and the solution cannot be verified.

There were of course comical early "decipherments" of glyphs that have since been largely cracked, such as Egyptian and Mayan.

[Hemingway's Ghost]

BTTT