The Sitovo inscription is an inscription in

Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedon ...

that has yet to be satisfactorily translated.

Discovery

The inscription was discovered in 1928, on the wall of a

rock shelter A rock shelter (also rockhouse, crepuscular cave, bluff shelter, or abri) is a shallow cave-like opening at the base of a bluff or cliff. In contrast to solutional caves (karst), which are often many miles long, rock shelters are almost alway ...

near the village of Sitovo, close to

Plovdiv Plovdiv ( bg, Пловдив, ), is the second-largest city in Bulgaria, standing on the banks of the Maritsa river in the historical region of Thrace. It has a population of 346,893 and 675,000 in the greater metropolitan area. Plovdiv is the c ...

. It was first documented by amateur archaeologist Alexander Peev. The inscription is in two lines which are long. The written signs are tall. The inscription has been tentatively dated to between 300 and 100 BCE.Vassileva, Maya (1999) A Few Phrygian Onomastic Notes. Epigraphica Anatolica : Zeitschrift für Epigraphik und historische Geographie Anatoliens (31). pp. 175-180. ISSN 0174-6545 In 1943, Peev was executed by firing squad on suspicion of sending a coded message to the Soviet Union. He had sent an example of the text to Soviet archaeologists, in the hope that they could decipher its meaning. The inscription was published in 1950 by Z. R. Morfova, and Peev was posthumously awarded the

Order of Lenin The Order of Lenin (russian: Орден Ленина, Orden Lenina, ), named after the leader of the Russian October Revolution, was established by the Central Executive Committee on April 6, 1930. The order was the highest civilian decoration b ...

for his resistance efforts against the Bulgarian government.

Possible translations

Amateurs and professionals have attempted to translate the inscription. It has been variously identified as local ancient language,

Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language * Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Fo ...

, Slavic, and Phrygian. ic/ref>

References

{{Reflist Inscriptions in undeciphered writing systems Prehistoric Bulgaria Rhodope Mountains Tourist attractions in Plovdiv Province

Discovery

Possible translations

See also

References