Symbols found upon Vin?a culture artifacts
A modern drawing of a clay vessel unearthed in
Vin?a
, found at depth of 8.5 meters.
The
Vin?a symbols
or
Vin?a?Turda? signs
,
Old European script
,
[1]
Danube script
[2]
(among other names
[a]
) are a set of untranslated symbols found on
Neolithic era
artifacts from the
Vin?a culture
and other related "
Old European
" cultures of
Central
and
Southeastern Europe
.
Whether this is one of the earliest writing systems or simply symbols of some sort is disputed.
They have sometimes been described as an example of
proto-writing
.
The symbols went out of use around 3,500 BC.
Discovery
[
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]
In 1875,
archaeological
excavations directed by the Hungarian archaeologist Baroness
Zsofia Torma
(1840?1899) at Tordos (present
Turda?
, Romania) unearthed marble and fragments of pottery inscribed with previously unknown symbols. At the site, on the Mure? river, a feeder into a tributary of the Danube, female figurines, pots, and artifacts made of stone were also found.
In 1908, a similar cache was found during excavations directed by Serbian archaeologist
Miloje Vasi?
(1869?1956) in
Vin?a
, a suburb of
Belgrade
(
Serbia
), some 245 km from Turda?.
[8]
Later, more such fragments were found in
Banjica
, another part of Belgrade. Since 1875, over 150 Vin?a sites have been identified in Serbia alone, but many, including Vin?a itself, have not been fully excavated.
The discovery of the
T?rt?ria tablets
in Romania by a team directed by Nicolae Vlassa in 1961 revived debate regarding the inscriptions. Vlassa believed them to be
pictograms
. Other items found at the site of the discovery were subsequently
radiocarbon-dated
to before 4,000 BC,
[b]
around 1,300 years earlier than the date Vlassa expected and pre-dating the writing systems of the
Sumerians
and
Minoans
. However, the circumstances of their discovery and authenticity of the tablets themselves is disputed.
The
Gradeshnitsa tablets
are clay artefacts with incised marks. They were unearthed in 1969 near the village of
Gradeshnitsa
in the
Vratsa Province
of north-western
Bulgaria
. The tablets are dated to the 4th millennium BC and are currently preserved in the History Museum of Vratsa.
[12]
[
better source needed
]
Corpus
[
edit
]
Fragment of a clay vessel with an M-shaped incision.
Potsherd
bearing an inscribed mark belonging to the corpus of Vin?a symbols.
One of the
Gradeshnitsa tablets
.
Although a large number of symbols are known, most artifacts contain so few symbols that they are very unlikely to represent a complete text.
Most of the inscriptions are on pottery, with the remainder appearing on ceramic
spindle whorls
,
figurines
, and a small collection of other objects. The symbols themselves consist of a variety of abstract and representative
pictograms
, including
zoomorphic
(animal-like) representations, combs or brush patterns and abstract symbols such as
swastikas
, crosses and
chevrons
. Over 85% of the inscriptions consist of a single symbol. Other objects include groups of symbols, of which some are arranged in no particularly obvious pattern, with the result that neither the order nor the direction of the signs in these groups is readily determinable. The usage of symbols varies significantly between objects; symbols that appear by themselves tend almost exclusively to appear on pots, while symbols that are grouped with other symbols tend to appear on whorls. Quantitative linguistic analysis leads to the conclusion that 59% of the signs share the properties of pottery marks, 11.5% are part of asymmetric ornaments typical for whorls of the Vin?a culture, and 29.5% may represent some sort of symbolic (
semasiographic
) notation.
A database of Vin?a inscriptions, DatDas, has been developed by Marco Merlini:
DatDas organizes a catalogue of 5,421 actual signs. These are recorded from a corpus of 1,178 inscriptions composed of two or more signs and 971 inscribed artifacts (some finds have two or more inscriptions).
Dating
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These findings are important because the bulk of the Vin?a symbols were created between 4,500 and 4,000 BC, with the symbols on the T?rt?ria clay tablets possibly dating back to around 5,300 BC (controversially dated by association).
This means that the Vin?a finds predate the proto-Sumerian pictographic script from
Uruk
(modern
Iraq
), which is usually considered to be the oldest known writing system, by more than a thousand years. Analyses of the symbols showed that they have little similarity with Near Eastern writing, resulting in the opinion that these symbols and the Sumerian script probably arose independently.
[
citation needed
]
Interpretations
[
edit
]
The nature of the symbols is unknown. Attempts to interpret the symbols have been made, but have not led to any agreement among scholars. It is unlikely that they represent a writing system. However, use of
proto-writing
systems featuring
ideographic
symbols may date as early as the
Lower Paleolithic
. The Vin?a symbols may have served a range of purposes, such as representing ownership, individual or communal identities, or themes of a sacred or religious nature.
Property
[
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]
Some researchers, such as
Milutin Gara?anin
[
sr
;
fr
]
and
Dragoslav Srejovi?
, have suggested that the symbols were
potters' marks
or owners' marks, meaning "this belongs to
X
".
Some symbols, principally those restricted to the base of pots, are wholly unique and such signs may denote the contents, the provenance or destination, or the manufacturer or owner of the pot. However, some of the symbols have been repeatedly found throughout the territory of the Vin?a culture, dated hundreds of years apart, and in locations kilometers away from each other.
[
citation needed
]
Numerals
[
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]
Inscribed object from the
Karanovo culture
.
Some of the "comb" or "brush" symbols, which collectively constitute as much as a sixth of all the symbols so far discovered, may represent a form of
prehistoric counting
. The Vin?a culture appears to have traded its wares quite widely with other cultures, as demonstrated by the widespread distribution of inscribed pots, so it is possible that the "numerical" symbols conveyed information about the value of the pots or their contents.
[
citation needed
]
Other cultures, such as the
Minoans
and
Sumerians
, initially developed their scripts as accounting tools; the Vin?a symbols may have served a similar purpose.
[
original research?
]
Religious symbolism
[
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]
The symbols may have been used for ritual or commemorative purposes.
If this was so the fact that the same symbols were used for centuries with little change suggests that the ritual meaning and culture represented by the symbols likewise remained constant for a very long duration, undergoing little further development during that time. However, the use of the symbols seems to have been abandoned (along with the objects on which they appear) at the start of the
Bronze Age
, suggesting that the new technology brought with it significant changes in social organization or population, and beliefs.
[
citation needed
]
The anthropologist
Marija Gimbutas
interpreted the inscribed objects as
votive offerings
.
One argument in favour of the ritual explanation is that the objects on which the symbols appear do not seem to have had much long-term significance to their owners ? they are commonly found in pits and other refuse areas.
[
citation needed
]
Certain objects, principally figurines, are most usually found buried under houses. This is consistent with the supposition that they were prepared for household religious ceremonies in which the signs incised on the objects represent expressions: a desire, request, vow, etc. After the ceremony was completed, the object would either have no further significance (hence would be disposed of) or would be buried ritually.
Proto-writing
[
edit
]
It is unlikely that the Vin?a symbols represent an early writing system. It is not likely that the
stateless societies
of Neolithic Europe would have had cause to independently invent writing, which was developed in Mesopotamia to facilitate accounting as required for the administration of political and economic systems in early
state societies
. There is no evidence that such institutions existed in the Vin?a culture.
Some researchers, such as Marija Gimbutas and archaeo-
semiologist
Marco Merlini, have argued that the Vin?a symbols belonged to a wider tradition of literacy in
Old Europe
, which they referred to the "Old European script" and the "Danube script" respectively.
Gimbutas reconstructed a hypothetical
pre-Indo-European
"Civilization of Old Europe", defined as having occupied the area between the
Dniester
valley and the
Sicily
-
Crete
line.
She incorporated the Vin?a markings into her model of Old Europe, suggesting that they might either be the writing system for an Old European language, or more probably a system of proto-writing. This view has been generally been met with skepticism.
The symbols themselves have not been discovered outside of an area comprising Serbia (ie
Vin?a
itself), southeastern Hungary, western Romania, and western Bulgaria.
See also
[
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]
- Banpo symbols
, located in Shaanxi, China, not far from site of Jiahu discovery; also claimed as proto-writing.
- Dispilio Tablet
, located in Greece
- Gradeshnitsa tablets
, located in Bulgaria
- Jiahu symbols
, located in Henan, China, an even older example sometimes claimed as proto-writing.
- Kamyana Mohyla
, Ukraine, petroglyphs from caves used as early as 20th century BC.
- Gumelni?a?Kod?adermen-Karanovo VI complex
- List of inscriptions in Serbia
- Undeciphered writing systems
- Old European cultures
- Phaistos Disc
- Prehistoric Romania
- Prehistoric Serbia
- Trojan script
Notes
[
edit
]
- ^
The Vin?a symbols are sometimes known as the
Vin?a script
,
Vin?a?Turda? script
,
Old European script
, and
Danube script
, among other variations.
- ^
The tablets themselves cannot be directly radiocarbon dated due to a modern heat treatment compromising them.
References
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]
Citations
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]
Bibliography
[
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]
- Gimbutas, Marija
(2007) [1974].
The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe, 6500?3500 BC: Myths and Cult Images
(New and updated ed.). Berkeley: University of California Press.
ISBN
9780520253988
.
- Haarmann, Harald
(2002).
Geschichte der Schrift
(in German). Munchen: C.H. Beck.
ISBN
3-406-47998-7
.
- Haarmann, Harald
(2010).
Einfuhrung in die Donauschrift
(in German). Hamburg: Buske.
ISBN
978-3-87548-555-4
.
- Haarmann, Harald
(2020).
The Mystery of the Danube Civilisation
. Marix Verlag.
ISBN
9783843806466
.
- Kruk, Janusz; Milisauskas, Sarunas (2002). "Middle Neolithic, Continuity, Diversity, Innovations, and Greater Complexity, 5500/5000?3500/3000 BC". In Milisauskas, Sarunas (ed.).
European Prehistory: A Survey
(1
st
ed.). Springer. pp. 193?246.
ISBN
978-0-306-46793-6
.
- Kruk, Janusz; Milisauskas, Sarunas (2011). "Middle Neolithic/Early Copper Age, Continuity, Diversity, and Greater Complexity, 5500/5000?3500 BC". In Milisauskas, Sarunas (ed.).
European Prehistory: A Survey
(2
nd
ed.). New York: Springer. pp. 223?292.
ISBN
978-1-4419-6632-2
.
- Lazarovici, Gheorghe; Merlini, Marco (2016). "T?rt?ria Tablets: The Latest Evidence in an Archaeological Thriller". In Nikolova, Lolita; Merlini, Marco; Comsa, Alexandra (eds.).
Western-Pontic Culture Ambience and Pattern: In memory of Eugen Comsa
. Warsaw, Poland: De Gruyter Open Poland. pp. 53?142.
- Mader, Michael (2019).
Ist die Donauschrift Schrift?
(in German). Budapest: Archaeolingua.
ISBN
978-615-5766-29-9
.
- Merlini, Marco; Lazarovici, Gheorghe (2008).
"Settling discovery circumstances, dating and utilization of the T?rt?ria tablets"
(PDF)
.
Acta Terrae Septemcastrensis
.
7
.
ISSN
1583-1817
.
- Merlini, Marco (2009). Altip, Alba Iulia (ed.).
"Neo-Eneolithic Literacy in Southeastern Europe: an Inquiry into the Danube; Introduction to the Danube script"
.
Biblioteca Brukenthal
.
33
– via Academia.edu.
- Owens, Gareth A. (1999). "Balkan Neolithic Scripts".
Kadmos
.
38
(1?2): 114?120.
doi
:
10.1515/kadm.1999.38.1-2.114
.
S2CID
162088927
.
- Qasim, Erika (2013). "Die T?rt?ria-Tafelchen ? eine Neubewertung".
Das Altertum
(in German).
50
(4): 307?318.
ISSN
0002-6646
.
- Starovi?, Andrej (2005).
"If the Vin?a script once really existed who could have written or read it?"
.
Documenta Praehistorica
.
32
: 253?260.
doi
:
10.4312/dp.32.19
.
- Tasi?, Nikola; Srejovi?, Dragoslav; Stojanovi?, Bratislav (1990).
Vin?a: Centre of the Neolithic Culture of the Danubian Region
. Belgrade: Centre for Archaeological Research Faculty of Philosophy.
- Torma, Zsofia
(1879). "Neolith kokorszakbeli telepek Hunyad megyeben" [Contribution to the Prehistory of Hunedoara county].
Transylvanian Museum
[
hu
]
(in Hungarian). 5, 6, and 7. Cluj:
Transylvanian Museum Association
[
hu
]
: 129?155, 190?192, and 193?211.
- Vasi?, Miloje
(1932).
Preistorijska Vin?a I
[
Prehistoric Vin?a I
] (in Serbian). Belgrade: State Printing House of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
- Vasi?, Miloje
(1936a).
Preistorijska Vin?a II
[
Prehistoric Vin?a II
] (in Serbian). Belgrade: State Printing House of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
- Vasi?, Miloje
(1936b).
Preistorijska Vin?a III
[
Prehistoric Vin?a III
] (in Serbian). Belgrade: State Printing House of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
- Vasi?, Miloje
(1936c).
Preistorijska Vin?a IV
[
Prehistoric Vin?a IV
] (in Serbian). Belgrade: State Printing House of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
- Winn, Shan M.M. (1981).
Pre-writing in Southeastern Europe: the sign system of the Vin?a culture, ca. 4000 BC
. Calgary: Western Publishers.
ISBN
9780919119093
.
Further reading
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External links
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]