
The Tărtăria tablets () are three
tablets, reportedly discovered in 1961 at a
Neolithic
The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...
site in the village of
Tărtăria in Săliștea commune (about from
Alba Iulia
Alba Iulia (; or ''Carlsburg'', formerly ''Weißenburg''; ; ) is a city that serves as the seat of Alba County in the west-central part of Romania. Located on the river Mureș (river), Mureș in the historical region of Transylvania, it has a ...
), from
Transylvania
Transylvania ( or ; ; or ; Transylvanian Saxon dialect, Transylvanian Saxon: ''Siweberjen'') is a List of historical regions of Central Europe, historical and cultural region in Central Europe, encompassing central Romania. To the east and ...
.
The tablets bear incised symbols associated with the
corpus
Corpus (plural ''corpora'') is Latin for "body". It may refer to:
Linguistics
* Text corpus, in linguistics, a large and structured set of texts
* Speech corpus, in linguistics, a large set of speech audio files
* Corpus linguistics, a branch of ...
of the
Vinča symbols
The Vinča symbols are a set of undeciphered symbols found on artifacts from the Neolithic Vinča culture and other "Old Europe (archaeology), Old European" cultures of Central Europe, Central and Southeast Europe. They have sometimes been descr ...
and have been the subject of considerable controversy among
archaeologist
Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...
s, some of whom have argued that the symbols represent the earliest known form of
writing
Writing is the act of creating a persistent representation of language. A writing system includes a particular set of symbols called a ''script'', as well as the rules by which they encode a particular spoken language. Every written language ...
in the world. Accurately dating the tablets is difficult as the
stratigraphy
Stratigraphy is a branch of geology concerned with the study of rock layers (strata) and layering (stratification). It is primarily used in the study of sedimentary and layered volcanic rocks.
Stratigraphy has three related subfields: lithost ...
pertaining to their discovery is disputed, and a heat treatment performed after their discovery has prevented the possibility of directly
radiocarbon dating
Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for Chronological dating, determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of carbon-14, radiocarbon, a radioactive Isotop ...
the tablets.
Based on the account of their discovery which associates the tablets with the
Vinča culture and on indirect radiocarbon evidence, some scientists propose that the tablets date to around , predating Mesopotamian
pictograph
A pictogram (also pictogramme, pictograph, or simply picto) is a graphical symbol that conveys meaning through its visual resemblance to a physical object. Pictograms are used in systems of writing and visual communication. A pictography is a wri ...
ic
proto-writing
Proto-writing consists of visible marks communication, communicating limited information. Such systems emerged from earlier traditions of symbol systems in the early Neolithic, as early as the 7th millennium BC in History of China, China a ...
. Some scholars have disputed the authenticity of the account of their discovery, suggesting the tablets are an intrusion from the upper strata of the site. Other scholars, contesting the radiocarbon dates for Neolithic Southeastern Europe, have suggested that Tărtăria signs are in some way related to Mesopotamian proto-writing, particularly Sumerian
proto-cuneiform, which they argued was contemporary.
Discovery

In 1961, members of a team led by Nicolae Vlassa (an archaeologist at the
National Museum of Transylvanian History,
Cluj-Napoca
Cluj-Napoca ( ; ), or simply Cluj ( , ), is a city in northwestern Romania. It is the second-most populous city in the country and the seat of Cluj County. Geographically, it is roughly equidistant from Bucharest (), Budapest () and Belgrade ( ...
) reportedly unearthed three inscribed but
unfired clay tablet
In the Ancient Near East, clay tablets (Akkadian language, Akkadian ) were used as a writing medium, especially for writing in cuneiform, throughout the Bronze Age and well into the Iron Age.
Cuneiform characters were imprinted on a wet clay t ...
s, twenty-six clay and stone
figurine
A figurine (a diminutive form of the word ''figure'') or statuette is a small, three-dimensional sculpture that represents a human, deity or animal, or, in practice, a pair or small group of them. Figurines have been made in many media, with cla ...
s, a shell bracelet, and the burnt, broken, and disarticulated bones of an adult female sometimes referred to as "Milady Tărtăria".
There is no consensus on the interpretation of the burial, but it has been suggested that the body was likely that of a respected local wise-person,
shaman
Shamanism is a spiritual practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with the spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance. The goal of this is usually to direct spirits or spiritual energies into ...
, or spirit-medium.
Disputed authenticity
It is disputed whether the tablets were actually found at the reported site, and Vlassa never discussed the circumstances of the find of the stratigraphy.
The authenticity of the engravings has also been disputed. A recent claim of
forgery
Forgery is a white-collar crime that generally consists of the false making or material alteration of a legal instrument with the specific mens rea, intent to wikt:defraud#English, defraud. Tampering with a certain legal instrument may be fo ...
is based on the similarity between some of the symbols and reproductions of Sumerian symbols in popular Romanian literature available at the time of the discovery.
Description
Two of the tablets are rectangular and the third is round. They are all small, the round one being only across, and two—the round one and one rectangular tablet—have holes drilled through them. All three have symbols inscribed on only one face. The unpierced rectangular tablet depicts a horned animal, an unclear figure, and a vegetal motif such as a branch or tree. The others consist of a variety of mainly abstract symbols.
[ Alasdair W. R. Whittle, ''Europe in the Neolithic: The Creation of New Worlds'', p. 101. Cambridge University Press, 1996.]
Dating
Workers at the conservation department of the
Cluj
Cluj-Napoca ( ; ), or simply Cluj ( , ), is a city in northwestern Romania. It is the second-most populous city in the country and the seat of Cluj County. Geographically, it is roughly equidistant from Bucharest (), Budapest () and Belgrade ( ...
museum baked the originally unbaked clay tablets in order to preserve them, making it impossible to directly date the tablets with the
carbon 14 method.
The tablets are generally believed to have belonged to the
Vinča-Turdaș culture, which was originally thought to have originated around 2700 BCE by Serbian and Romanian archaeologists. The discovery garnered attention from the archeological world because it predates the first
Minoan
The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age culture which was centered on the island of Crete. Known for its monumental architecture and Minoan art, energetic art, it is often regarded as the first civilization in Europe. The ruins of the Minoan pa ...
writing, the oldest known writing in Europe.
Subsequent
radiocarbon dating
Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for Chronological dating, determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of carbon-14, radiocarbon, a radioactive Isotop ...
of the other Tărtăria finds, extended by association also to the tablets, pushed the date of the site (and therefore of the whole Vinča culture) to approximately 5500 BCE, the time of the early
Eridu phase of the
Sumer
Sumer () is the earliest known civilization, located in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia (now south-central Iraq), emerging during the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age, early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BC. ...
ian civilization in
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...
.
[Carl J. Becker, ''A Modern Theory Of Language Evolution'', p. 346 (iUniverse, 2004).] Still, this is disputed in light of apparently contradictory
stratigraphic
Stratigraphy is a branch of geology concerned with the study of rock layers (strata) and layering (stratification). It is primarily used in the study of sedimentary and layered volcanic rocks.
Stratigraphy has three related subfields: lithost ...
evidence.
It has been controversially claimed that if the symbols are indeed a form of writing, then writing in the
Danubian culture would far predate the earliest Sumerian
cuneiform script
Cuneiform is a Logogram, logo-Syllabary, syllabic writing system that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. Cuneiform script ...
or
Egyptian hieroglyphs
Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs ( ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined Ideogram, ideographic, logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with more than 1,000 distinct char ...
. Thus, they would be the world's earliest known form of writing.
Historical context
Hypothesis of Danubian culture
The term
Danubian culture was proposed by
V. Gordon Childe to describe the first agrarian society in central and eastern Europe. This hypothesis and the appearance of writing in this space is supported by Marco Merlini,
Harald Haarmann
Harald Haarmann (born 16 April 1946) is a German linguist and cultural scientist who lives and works in Finland. Haarmann studied general linguistics, various philological disciplines and prehistory at the universities of Hamburg, Bonn, Coimbra ...
, Joan Marler, Gheorghe Lazarovici, and many others.
Proposed links to Sumerian culture
Colin Renfrew
Andrew Colin Renfrew, Baron Renfrew of Kaimsthorn, (25 July 1937 – 24 November 2024) was a British archaeologist, paleolinguist and Conservative peer noted for his work on radiocarbon dating, the prehistory of languages, archaeogenetics, ...
argues that the apparent similarities with Sumerian symbols are deceptive:
Possibly related finds in the region
Artifacts bearing Vinča symbols
The Vinča symbols have been known since the late 19th century excavation by
Zsófia Torma (1832–1899) at the Neolithic site of
Turdaș (Hungarian: ''Tordos'') in
Transylvania
Transylvania ( or ; ; or ; Transylvanian Saxon dialect, Transylvanian Saxon: ''Siweberjen'') is a List of historical regions of Central Europe, historical and cultural region in Central Europe, encompassing central Romania. To the east and ...
, at the time part of
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary, also referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the Habsburg Monarchy, was a multi-national constitutional monarchy in Central Europe#Before World War I, Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. A military ...
, the
type site
In archaeology, a type site (American English) or type-site (British English) is the site used to define a particular archaeological culture or other typological unit, which is often named after it. For example, discoveries at La Tène and H ...
of the
Tordos culture, a late, regional variation of the Vinča culture.
Other artifacts
This group of artifacts, including the tablets, have some relation with the culture developed in the
Black Sea
The Black Sea is a marginal sea, marginal Mediterranean sea (oceanography), mediterranean sea lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bound ...
–
Aegean Sea
The Aegean Sea is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea between Europe and Asia. It is located between the Balkans and Anatolia, and covers an area of some . In the north, the Aegean is connected to the Marmara Sea, which in turn con ...
area. Similar artefacts have been found in
Bulgaria
Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...
(e.g. the
Gradeshnitsa tablets) and northern
Greece
Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...
(the
Dispilio Tablet). The material and the style used for the Tartaria artefacts show some similarities to those used in the
Cyclades
The CYCLADES computer network () was a French research network created in the early 1970s. It was one of the pioneering networks experimenting with the concept of packet switching and, unlike the ARPANET, was explicitly designed to facilitate i ...
area, as two of the statuettes are made of alabaster.
Purpose and meaning
The meaning (if any) of the symbols is unknown, and their nature has been the subject of much debate.
Writing system
Scholars who conclude that the inscribed symbols are writing are basing their assessment on a few assumptions that are not universally endorsed:
*The existence of similar signs on other artifacts of the Danube civilization suggest that there was an inventory of standard shapes used by
scribe
A scribe is a person who serves as a professional copyist, especially one who made copies of manuscripts before the invention of Printing press, automatic printing.
The work of scribes can involve copying manuscripts and other texts as well as ...
s.
*The symbols are highly standardised and have a rectilinear shape comparable to that manifested by archaic
writing system
A writing system comprises a set of symbols, called a ''script'', as well as the rules by which the script represents a particular language. The earliest writing appeared during the late 4th millennium BC. Throughout history, each independen ...
s.
*The information communicated by each character was specific, with an unequivocal meaning.
*The inscriptions are sequenced in rows, whether horizontal, vertical, or circular.
If they do comprise a script, it is not known what kind of writing system they represent. Vlassa interpreted one of the Tărtăria tablets as a hunting scene and the other two with signs as a kind of primitive writing similar to the early pictograms of the
Sumer
Sumer () is the earliest known civilization, located in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia (now south-central Iraq), emerging during the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age, early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BC. ...
ians. Some archaeologists who support the idea that they do represent writing, notably
Marija Gimbutas
Marija Gimbutas (, ; January 23, 1921 – February 2, 1994) was a Lithuanian archaeology, archaeologist and anthropologist known for her research into the Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures of "Old European Culture, Old Europe" and for her Kurgan ...
, have proposed that they are fragments of a system dubbed the
Old European Script.
Non-linguistic signs
One problem is the lack of independent indications of literacy existing in the Balkans at this period. Sarunas Milisauskas comments that "it is extremely difficult to demonstrate archaeologically whether a corpus of symbols constitutes a writing system" and notes that the first known writing systems were all developed by early states to facilitate record-keeping in complex organised societies in the Middle East and Mediterranean. There is no evidence of organised states in the European Neolithic, thus it is unlikely they would have needed the administrative systems facilitated by writing. David Anthony notes that
Chinese character
Chinese characters are logographs used to write the Chinese languages and others from regions historically influenced by Chinese culture. Of the four independently invented writing systems accepted by scholars, they represent the only on ...
s were first used for ritual and commemorative purposes associated with the 'sacred power' of kings; it is possible that a similar usage accounts for the Tărtăria symbols.
[Sarunas Milisauskas, ''European Prehistory: A Survey'', pp. 236–37 (Kluwer Academic / Plenum Publishers, 2002)] Some scholars have suggested that the symbols may have been used as
marks of ownership or as the focus of religious rituals.
An alternative suggestion is that they may have been merely uncomprehending imitations of more advanced cultures, although this explanation is made rather unlikely by the great antiquity of the tablets—there were no known literate cultures at the time from which the symbols could have been adopted.
Others consider the
pictogram
A pictogram (also pictogramme, pictograph, or simply picto) is a graphical symbol that conveys meaning through its visual resemblance to a physical object. Pictograms are used in systems of writing and visual communication. A pictography is a wri ...
s to be accompanied by random scribbles.
See also
References
Sources
*
* Falkenstein, A. (1965) Zu den Tontafeln aus Târtària, Germania 43 : 269–273.
*
*
*
* Kenanidis, I.; Papakitsos, G. (2015) A Comparative Linguistic Study about the Sumerian Influence on the Creation of the Aegean Scripts.
* Klára, Friedrich The Mystery of Tatárlaka (Dobogó-Historical journal, 2004/9.-2005/6.)
* Klára, Friedrich (2005) - Szakács Gábor: Graved in stone, carved in wood...
* .
* .
* Mandics, Gy., Záhonyi, A.: The message oh Tartaria and Tordos. Fríg (Pilisvörösvár, Hungary), 2018.
*
*
* Schmandt-Besserat, Denise (1992) Before Writing, University of Texas Press, Austin. Volume I: From Counting to Cuneiform.
* Vaiman, A. A. (1994) On the Quasi-Sumerian tablets from Tartaria. Археологические вести. Спб, 1994. Вып. 3. Аннотации. — ИИМК РАН
* .
* .
External links
* .
* .
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tartaria tablets
Neolithic
Archaeological sites in Romania
Prehistory of Southeastern Europe
Clay tablets
Pre-Indo-Europeans
Proto-writing
Vinča culture
1961 archaeological discoveries
Archaeological discoveries in Romania