The history of the oldest written language in the world

• The history of the oldest written language in the world

It is traditionally believed that the earliest written texts were drawn up by the Egyptians about 5000 years ago. By this time, are the most ancient records of the Sumerians, who lived in Mesopotamia. Both writing systems have been developed independently of each other and almost simultaneously. However, some archaeological finds cast doubt on the well-established system of views on the past.

What do we know about Transylvania? Only that it is a sinister wild land of vampires and werewolves, Roma and lost in the valleys, villages ... But there is another version according to which Transylvania - is the area in which once dominated the world's oldest civilization and the birthplace of the very first alphabet in the world.

The reason for these assumptions give tablets, which archaeologists have found during excavations Turdash hill. Three tiny clay tablets with mysterious drawings, strikingly reminiscent of the Sumerian writing the end of IV millennium BC. Only age, these writings were a lot older. According to the most conservative estimates, they are nearly seven thousand years.

The fact that in twenty kilometers from Terterii is Turdash hill, in the depths of which buried the ancient settlement of farmers of the Neolithic period, scientists have known for a long time. Excavations were carried out in this place more than a decade. For the time being archaeologists came across all sorts of ancient tools and life of primitive people. In short, nothing unusual, worthy of attention.

However, some interest has been pictographic signs scratched on some wreckage vessels. But scientists thought them simple dishes stamps owners. Then a natural disaster and all suspended work: stream, changing its course, almost washed away the hill. In 1961, archaeologists have gathered already to leave the place of excavation, unexpectedly at the lowest layer of the hill pit was found, filled with ash. At the bottom - statues of ancient gods, bracelet of seashells ... and three small clay tablets covered with pictographic characters. They also attracted the attention of specialists. After all, their appearance and the content they are very reminiscent of the Sumerian records from distant Mesopotamia. Two plaques were rectangular in shape, and the third was round. At large circular and rectangular plates in the center is a circular through hole. Careful studies have shown that tablets are made from local clay. Signs applied on one side only. writing technique of ancient terteriytsev was very simple: icons scratched with a sharp object in the raw clay, then fired a plate.

And then we remember the forgotten signs on previously found shards. We compared them with terteriyskimi: the resemblance was obvious. Was once existed on these lands civilization in its development is not inferior to the Sumerian?

Initially, scientists have suggested that Terterii tablets date back to the third millennium BC, but more thorough radiocarbon analysis revealed that the artifacts are much older. Now, most archaeologists agree that the plates are created about 7, 5 thousand years ago, long before the Sumerian script, which was previously considered to be the oldest in the world.

According to the official history, the first agricultural settlements in the Balkans appeared in the VI century BC. The ancient people settled in mud huts, cultivated the land with stone tools. Farmers gradually mastered the axes and other tools made of copper. Built mud houses, master the art of ceramics. Time has preserved for posterity numerous figurines of people, made by hands of the ancient inhabitants of these lands. For example, fashioned from clay head of a man or a picture of a woman whose body is completely covered with complex geometric patterns, forming an intricate pattern; ritual jug with a pattern. Maybe, and signs on the tablets is not writing, but just kind of interweaving lines? In 1965, one scholar claimed that terteriyskie signs do not have any relation to the script. Like, the Sumerian merchants once visited Transylvania, that's something they plaques and were copied by the natives. Of course, the meaning is clear plates terteriytsam was not, however, this did not prevent them to use them in religious ceremonies.

But then how to explain the gap between the appearance of the millennium terteriyskih and Sumerian tablets? Is it possible to copy something that does not yet exist? Other experts associated with Crete terteriyskuyu writing, but here the temporary disparity reached more than two thousand years.

I am writing Terterii could be an integral part of ancient cultural systems under the influence of which, many years later and was Schumer? Or mysterious marks on a piece of clay to do with the writing do not have?

Experts have tried to decipher the clay messages. On the first rectangular plate coated with a symbolic image of two goats, placed between the ear. Perhaps this image is a symbol of well-being of the community? It is interesting that this story occurs in the Sumerian tablets. The second plate is divided by vertical and horizontal lines on small plots. Each of them scratched various symbolic images. Maybe it totems? But then they also coincide with Sumerian. If we proceed from this postulate, the notice can be decrypted by reading it counter-clockwise around the hole in the plate, on the basis of Sumerian equivalents.

to draw this conclusion, scientists have begun to read the circular terteriyskoy tablets. On it are drawn written characters, separated by lines. Their number in each square is small. So, writing tablets terteriyskih as archaic Sumerian writing was ideographic, syllabic signs and grammatical signs did not exist. As a result, experts were able to read the following: "Four Faces of God ruler Shaue Elder burned deep reason alone."

Then again begs comparison with shumerskymi writing. In one of them contains a list of the main sisters priestesses led the four tribal groups. Perhaps the same priestesses ruler were Terterii? Then, apparently, terteriyskaya plate containing a summary of the ritual burning of a priest who had spent a certain period of his reign.

The conclusion suggests itself: the inventors of the Sumerian writing was, paradoxically, not the Sumerians, and the inhabitants of the Balkans. The Sumerians were the only good students, they inherit a pictographic writing system of the Balkan peoples and further develop it in cuneiform.

Signs, sometimes completely identical to those found on the plates in Transylvania, the scientists found in the legendary Three (beginning of the III millennium BC). Around the same time they appear in other parts of Asia Minor. Distant echoes of the Balkan script contains a pictographic writing system of ancient Crete.

It is also known: the creators of Balkan culture in the V century BC broke through Asia Minor to Kurdistan and Khuzistan, where at that time settled just prashumery. And soon, in the area there is a pictographic writing system, and equally close to the Sumerian, and terteriyskoy.

Perhaps the legend of the Tower of Babel and the collapse of the Earth's language is not so groundless. Indeed, comparing the characters of Sumerian writing, with the same characters from other writing systems, one is struck by their agreement not only on the design principles, but also on the internal content. It seems that the writing system of the IV millennium BC did not arise in different places of our planet, but merely the consequence of the autonomous development of the fragments disintegrated single prasistemy arising in one place.

There is a version that will likely finds Romanian archaeologists belong to the pre-Indo culture of Vinca, which was extended to the territory of modern South-Eastern Europe in the Neolithic era, as the symbols on the labels are very similar to the icon depicted on the found in 1875 was near the Serbian town of Vinca remains of ancient ceramics.

Danube protopismo - a term introduced by German linguists to symbol constellation found on the various objects Vinca culture.

It did not go unnoticed opening of N. Vlas with us. On the instructions of the doctor of historical sciences T. Passek question on the presence of the Sumerians in Transylvania investigating a young archaeologist V. Titov. Alas, a consensus about the nature of terteriyskoy puzzles did not come.