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August 08, 2007, 10:59 PM BG, 7:59 PM GMT

History and Religion

Published on August 08, 2006 at 8:44 AM BG
Updated on August 21, 2006 at 6:04 PM BG

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Archaeological find attributed to earliest scripts in Europe

Renowned Bulgarian archaeologist Professor Nikolay Ovcharov displayed to the media a unique stone plate with a pictogram dating from the first half of the 5th millennium B.C., i.e. from the time of the early Stone-Copper Age. There are only a few pictograms from that early in history in the world. A private collector had safeguarded the stone plate in question for 20 years, and had recently handed it over to Professor Ovcharov. The archaeologist exhibited the find at the National Museum of Archeology.

The stone plate is 7 by 8 cm and 1.5 cm at its widest point. The pictogram bears five separate representations made up of two symbols each: a circle as a solar symbol, and triangles and lozenges with a point in the middle depicting the idea of fertility in pre-historic religious cults. The plate bears also a replica of a human figure with one arm raised to the sky. “The presence of a human figure in a pictogram from the Aeneolithic age allows us to trace the evolution of the human script towards the hieroglyph, i.e. a figure representing an entire notion,” Professor Nikolay Ovcharov said. He is certain that this find will be examined by dozens and even hundreds of specialists and would help elucidate the origins of the script. He told a Radio Bulgaria reporter that along the Middle course of the River Danube and the northwestern parts of the Balkans kept finding items attesting to the earliest human script.
“I hurry to say that this is not an example of a script in the modern sense of the word, but rather of coded priestly rituals, sacrifices, or prayers for fertility. It is those early symbols that later gathered in groups paved the way for the written word to emerge. This is an example of rituals coded in those symbols. There have been two similar finds on Bulgarian territory: the first one in Gradeshnitza in Northwestern Bulgaria, and the second one in Karanovo, Southern Bulgaria. In 1969 they were declared unanimously a form of script, but later this notion had been largely debated on.”
Experts are divided in their opinion whether the pictograms are a form of script. The first group believes they are, what is called, a ‘protoscript’, whereas the other half considers them merely as symbols. Both groups agree however that they bear some special meaning. Foremost Bulgarian specialists Professor Henrietta Todorova and Dr. Ivo Weissov have reached the conclusion that pictograms were indeed a protoscript, and even the initial steps to the formation of a single system of writing. The deciphering of those symbols is still impossible at present, but experts claim that they stand for someone’s ownership, or the performance of cult rituals, or even represent numbers.

Written by Elka Yoncheva
English version by Radostin Zhelev