Evidence of a ‘misplaced’ civilization’s alphabet found in Spain

A 2,400-year-old tablet unearthed in Spain appears to be inscribed with an alphabetic sequence of 21 signs, predating the famous Rosetta Stone by 400 years.

The Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) made the 8-inch slate public last week — discovered at Casas del Turuñuelo, an anthropological dig site believed to have been a sanctuary or temple for the lost Paleo-Hispanic society called Tartessos.

The CSIC said that the tablet also depicts ‘a framework on which figures of warriors were found’ members of an advanced civilization that disappeared mysteriously.

But as one CSIC researcher, Esther Rodríguez González, a leader of the excavation noted, ‘the volume of information it contained was even greater,’ and may yet prove to be evidence of an independent, brand new, Paleo-Hispanic southern alphabet.

A 2,400-year-old tablet (above) unearthed in Spain appears to be inscribed with an alphabetic sequence of 21 signs, predating the famous Rosetta Stone by 400 years. Above an effort to extrapolate the missing pieces of the alphabet on this newly discovered tablet

The Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) made the 8-inch slate public last week – after it was discovered at Casas del Turuñuelo, an anthropological dig site (pictured) that is believed to have been a sanctuary or temple for a wealthy Paleo-Hispanic culture known as Tartessos

The tablet’s carvings, which date back to about 600 and 400 B.C., appear to show repeated and overlaid illustrations of faces, geometric shapes and three warriors in a combat scene, as officials revealed in their preliminary photos. 

Archaeologists who have reviewed the tablet now theorize that it was like a scratch pad, or sketch book, used by artisans to practice these images and symbols before engraving a finished product on more valued materials like gold, ivory or wood.

The Tartessian culture — sometimes compared to the mythical city of gold, ‘El Dorado,’ and occasionally discussed alongside accounts of mythical Atlantis — is believed to have thrived from the 9th to 6th centuries B.C. 

‘Their sophistication was remarkable,’ as archaeologist Richard Freund of Christopher Newport University told travel site Atlas Obscura in 2021.

While it is known that the wealthy Tartessians were a mixture of indigenous people and Greek and Phoenician colonizers, it’s still unknown if they were a large city-state, a full nation or something in between. 

Experts have speculated that an earthquake or a tsunami may have led to their disappearance. 

Excavations at Casas del Turuñuelo have been underway for at least six years, according to CSIC officials. 

The tablet’s carvings, which date back to about 600 and 400 B.C., appear to show repeated and overlaid illustrations of faces, geometric shapes and three warriors in a combat scene, as officials revealed in their preliminary photos. Archaeologists theorize that it was a sketch book

Excavations at Casas del Turuñuelo – where the tablet was found – have been underway for at least six years, according to CSIC officials

Paleo-Hispanic written languages are currently divided into two styles or families, one common to the northeast of Spain and one common to the south, which archeologists have only seen in fragments before, speculating more might exist.

University of Barcelona researcher Joan Ferrer i Jané, who examined the tablet, said that it resembles ‘other strokes compatible with signs of a known sequence’ from two prior southern dialect tablets from this period. 

The Turuñuelo or Guareña alphabet on this new tablet depicts the first 10 signs of the alphabet also seen at an archeological site, Espanca, in Castro Verde, Portugal. 

‘This alphabet [from Espanca] has 27 signs and is the only complete one we knew of to date. Another was found at the excavation of Villasviejas del Tamuja but it is very fragmented, it only has some central signs,’ Ferrer i Jané said in a CSIC statement. 

‘Guareña would be the third and would provide a lot of information,’ he added.

University of Barcelona researcher Joan Ferrer i Jané, who examined the tablet (pictured), said that it resembles ‘other strokes compatible with signs of a known sequence’ from two prior southern dialect tablets from this culture 

Unfortunately, the broken state of the tablet has obscured some of its alphabet, which Ferrer i Jané hopes to piece together with other artifacts from the region.  

‘At least 6 signs or letters would have been lost in the split area of ​​the piece, but if it were completely symmetrical and the signs completely occupied three of the four sides of the plate, it could reach 32,’ Ferrer i Jané noted (in Spanish, here translated).

‘So the lost signs or letters could reach up to eleven or perhaps more if a possible sign, “Tu,” isolated in the lateral quarter, were part of the alphabet,’ he noted. 

‘It is a shame that the final part of the alphabet has been lost since that’s where the most pronounced differences tend to be,’ according to the researcher whose work combines information software engineering and ancient languages at the university.

Those missing letters could well be what makes the tablet a brand new sister language to the other partially understood southern Paleo-Hispanic type or family.

CSIC’s collaborating team of archaeologists report that they intend to continue work on the slate, alongside further excavations at the Casas del Turuñuelo ruins in Guareña, approximately 200 miles southwest of Madrid.