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Archaeological research carried out at the La Peña del Castro site, located in the municipality of La Ercina, in the province of León (Spain)... Researchers from the University of León have identified an inscription belonging to the Celtiberian alphabet, engraved on a small object linked to the textile activities of the settlement. This object is a spindle whorl, a counterweight used in spinning spindles, dating back to the 1st century BC.This finding is significant because it represents one of the earliest examples of alphabetic writing documented in the province of León and in the northern Iberian Peninsula. One of the...

One of the enduring consequences of the era of Phoenician influence -- which had by around 800 BC progressed from trading outposts to full-blown colonies in southern Spain -- was the adoption of alphabetic writing by the native population, first in the south-west. The number of known Tartessian inscriptions on stone is now about 90 and steadily rising with new discoveries. Concentrated densely in southern Portugal (the Algarve and Lower Alentejo), there is a wider scatter of fifteen over south-west Spain. The best exhibition of the inscriptions is on view in the new and innovative Museu da Escrita do Sudoeste,...