The Sumerians may not have been the first people to invent the earliest form of writing, which is believed to have appeared around 1500. 3500 BC
The Tărtăria Tablets, found in the western part of Romania and dating from about 5300 BC, suggest by radiocarbon dating that writing first appeared in Eastern Europe. Some experts have called the script the Old European script or the Danube script.
The tablets have been associated with the Neolithic Turdas-Vinca culture (ca. 4500-3700 BC), spread across several Romanian provinces, southern Serbia, southeastern Hungary, northwestern Bulgaria, and other countries.
In 1961, archaeologist Nicolae Vlassa discovered what may be direct evidence of the world’s earliest forms of writing. During an archaeological dig at a Neolithic site in Romania, Vlassa’s team discovered three small clay tablets with indecipherable etchings, now known as the Tartaria Tablets.
There have been different interpretations of the meanings of the etchings on the tablets. Some believe the etchings are a primitive form of writing, while others believe they are pictograms, random scribbles, religious symbols, or symbols of ownership.
The tablets are each approximately 2.5 cm wide. Two are rectangular and one is round. Holes have been drilled in the round tablet and one rectangular tablet. The clay tablets were unfired and were discovered along with 26 clay and stone figurines, a shell bracelet and damaged human bones.
Some believe that the tablets were actually found in a sacrificial burial pit. The tablets are engraved on one side only and the inscriptions resemble a horned animal, an indistinct figure, a vegetable motif, a branch or tree and a variety of mainly abstract symbols.
The so-called Danube script is a script that appeared about 2,000 years earlier than any other known script. It appeared in southeastern Europe around 7300 BC. The script first appeared in the central Balkans, but quickly spread to southern Hungary, Transylvania, the Danube Valley, Macedonia and northern Greece.
The Danube script flourished until about 5,500 BC, when a social upheaval apparently occurred. The script is currently indecipherable, but is certainly generating a lot of interest among scholars of ancient languages.
The Tartarian tablets are older than the Sumerian
Nicolae Vlasa made a colossal discovery in 1961. In Tartaria he found in an ancient tomb two tablets with inscriptions dating from 4500-200 BC. Tartaria is located in the province of Alba, Saliste. Human skeletons were found at the same spot.
The inscriptions on the tablets are 1,000 years older than those discovered at Djemer-Nasr, Kis and Uruk from Summer, dated by specialists to somewhere around 3300 BC.
The culture that created the tablets was Turdas-Vinca (4500-3700 BC). The tablets are dated C14 and the inscriptions on them are officially confirmed to be the oldest form of writing known to man, dating back to the Sumerian form.
Scholars who conclude that the inscribed symbols were written base their assessment on three conclusions, which are not universally agreed upon.
First, similar marks on other artifacts of the Danube civilization suggest that there was an inventory of precise standard forms that scribes made use of.
Second, compared to other archaic writings, the characters of this proto-European script exhibit a high degree of standardization and a rectilinear form.
Third, that the information communicated by each character was specific with an unambiguous meaning. Finally, that the inscriptions are arranged in rows, horizontally, vertically or circularly.
Others believe that the icons are accompanied by random scribbles. Their meaning (if any) is unknown. If they contain a script at all, it is also unknown what type of writing system they represent.
Some archaeologists who support the idea that they represent writing have proposed that they are fragments of a system called Old European writing.
