词条 | Tărtăria tablets |
释义 |
The Tărtăria tablets /tərtəria/ are three tablets, reportedly discovered in 1961 at a Neolithic site in the village of Tărtăria (about {{convert|30|km|mi|0|abbr=on}} from Alba Iulia), in Romania.{{sfn|Merlini|Lazarovici|2008|p=111}} The dating of the tablets is difficult as they cannot be carbon-dated and the stratigraphy is uncertain. A few scientists {{sfn|Merlini|Lazarovici|2008|p=111}} suppose that they may date to around 5300 BC. Most of the scientists, analysing the signs, are for a much newer age, around 2,750 B.C., maximum 3,300 B.C. (which is the beginning of the period of sumerian proto-writing). {{dubious|This WP article claims further down that they WERE indeed carbon-dated AFTER being fired. The discussion page hints that the date comes from bones that may well NOT be related to the tablets.|date=October 2018}}[1] The tablets bear incised symbols and have been the subject of considerable controversy among archaeologists, some of whom claimed in the past that the symbols represent the earliest known form of writing in the world. The symbols are thought to be Vinča symbols although some scholars have considered them to be Sumerian.{{sfn|Merlini|Lazarovici|2008|pp=127–129}} The signs are sumerian proto-cuneiform-like, so quasi-sumerian.{{sfn|A.Falkenstein|A.A.Vaiman|Rau Eugen}} DescriptionTwo of the tablets are rectangular and the third is round.{{sfn|Merlini|Lazarovici|2008|p=116}} They are all small, the round one being only {{convert|6|cm|in|frac=2|abbr=on}} across, and two—one round and one rectangular—have holes drilled through them. The "V"-shaped sign is missing in Figure 1 (upper left quadrant). (A. Záhonyi, 2019) All three have symbols inscribed only on one face.{{sfn|Merlini|Lazarovici|2008|p=116}} The unpierced rectangular tablet depicts a horned animal, an unclear figure, and a vegetal motif, a branch or tree. The others have a variety of mainly abstract symbols.[2] DiscoveryIn 1961 members of a team led by Nicolae Vlassa, an archaeologist at the National Museum of Transylvanian History, Cluj-Napoca in charge of the site excavations, are reported to have unearthed three inscribed but unfired clay tablets, together with 26 clay and stone figurines and a shell bracelet, accompanied by the burnt,{{dubious|See discussion page: NOT burnt, wrong and outdated claim.|date=October 2018}} broken, and disarticulated bones of an adult female sometimes referred to as "Milady Tărtăria".{{sfn|Merlini|Lazarovici|2008|pp=111–117}} There is no consensus{{whom|date=January 2019}} on the interpretation of the burial, but it has been suggested that the body was, if not that of a shaman or spirit-medium, that of a local most respected wise person.[2] There is an consistent time-span between the deceassed bones 5.300 B.C. and the tablets max.3300 B.C. There have been disputes as to whether the tablets were actually found at the site and Vlassa was never willing to discuss the circumstances of the find or the stratigraphy.{{sfn|Merlini|Lazarovici|2008|pp=111–117}} Claims of forgeryThe authenticity of the engravings was disputed from the beginning. A recent claim of forgery 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.[3] Previous discoveries of Vinča symbols{{See also|Vinča symbols#Discoveries}}The Vinča symbols have been known since the late 19th century excavation by Zsófia Torma (1832–1899){{sfn|Gimbutas|Dexter|2001|p=50}} at the Neolithic site of Turdaș (Hungarian: Tordos) in Transylvania, at the time part of Austria-Hungary, the type site of the Tordos culture, part of what is better known as the Vinča culture. DatingWorkers at the conservation department of the Cluj museum baked the originally unbaked clay tablets to preserve them. This made direct dating of the tablets themselves through carbon 14 method impossible.{{sfn|Merlini|Lazarovici|2008|pp=118–119}} The tablets are generally believed to have belonged to the Vinča-Turdaș culture, which was originally thought to have originated around 2700 BC by Serbian and Romanian archaeologists. The discovery caused great interest in the archeological world as it predated the first Minoan writing, the oldest known writing in Europe. Subsequent radiocarbon dating 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) much further back, to as long ago as 5500 BC, the time of the early Eridu phase of the Sumerian civilization in Mesopotamia.[4] Still, this is disputed in the light of apparently contradictory stratigraphic evidence.[5] If the symbols are indeed a form of writing, then writing in the Danubian culture would far predate the earliest Sumerian cuneiform script or Egyptian hieroglyphs. They would thus be the world's earliest known form of writing. This claim remains controversial. ContextSocietal development and the need for a writing systemA problem is that there are no 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 characters 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.[6] Hypothesis of Danubian cultureThe 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,[7] Harald Haarmann, Joan Marler,[8] Gheorghe Lazarovici,[9] and many others. Possibly related finds in the regionThis group of artefacts, including the tablets, have some relation with the culture developed in the Black Sea – Aegean area. Similar artefacts are found in Bulgaria (e.g. the Gradeshnitsa tablets) and northern Greece (the Dispilio Tablet). The material and the style used for the Tartaria artefacts show some similarities to those used in the Cyclades area, as two of the statuettes are made of alabaster.{{Citation needed|date=December 2011}} Links to Sumerian cultureColin Renfrew argues that the apparent similarities with Sumerian symbols are deceptive: "To me, the comparison made between the signs on the Tărtăria tablets and those of proto-literate Sumeria carry very little weight. They are all simple pictographs, and a sign for a goat in one culture is bound to look much like the sign for a goat in another. To call these Balkan signs 'writing' is perhaps to imply that they had an independent significance of their own communicable to another person without oral contact. This I doubt."[10]Writing system - pro and conThe meaning (if any) of the symbols is unknown, and their nature has been the subject of much debate. If they do comprise a script, it is not known what kind of writing system they represent. Pro argumentsScholars who conclude that the inscribed symbols are writing are basing their assessment on a few assumptions which are not universally endorsed.
Some archaeologists who support the idea that they do represent writing, notably Marija Gimbutas, have proposed that they are fragments of a system dubbed the Old European Script. Counter-argumentsOthers consider the pictograms to be accompanied by random scribbles.{{dubious|So: there are indeed pictograms, but they are "accompanied by random scribbles"? Clearer pls.!|date=October 2018}}[4] Purpose and meaningVlassa 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 Sumerians.{{cn|date=October 2018}} Ownership marks or religious meaningSome have suggested that the symbols may have been used as marks of ownership or as the focus of religious rituals.[4] Meaningless imitationsAn 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.[4] See also
References1. ^Haarmann, Harald: "Geschichte der Schrift", C.H. Beck, 2002, {{ISBN|3-406-47998-7}}, p. 20 2. ^1 Alasdair W. R. Whittle, Europe in the Neolithic: The Creation of New Worlds, p. 101. Cambridge University Press, 1996. 3. ^Qasim, Erika: Die Tărtăria-Täfelchen – eine Neubewertung. In: Das Altertum, {{ISSN|0002-6646}}, vol. 58, 4 (2013), p. 307–318 4. ^1 2 3 Carl J. Becker, A Modern Theory Of Language Evolution, p. 346 (iUniverse, 2004). 5. ^H. W. F. Saggs, Civilization Before Greece and Rome, p. 75 (Yale University Press, 1998). 6. ^Sarunas Milisauskas, European Prehistory: A Survey, pp. 236–37 (Kluwer Academic / Plenum Publishers, 2002) 7. ^Marco Merlini “La scrittura è natta in Europa”, Avverbi, Roma, 2004 8. ^ Harald Haarmann, Joan Marler, An introduction to the study of the Danube Script, Journal of Archeomythology, Vol.4, 2008 9. ^Gheorghe Lazarovici, Cornelia-Magda Lazarovici, Marco Merlini. TĂRTĂRIA and the sacred tablets, Editura Mega, Cluj-Napoca, 2011 {{ISBN|978-606-543-160-7}} 10. ^Colin Renfrew, Before civilization: The radiocarbon revolution and prehistoric Europe, p. 186 (Jonathan Cape, 1973)
|ref = harv |last1 = Merlini |first1 = Marco |last2 = Lazarovici |first2 = Gheorghe |title = Settling discovery circumstances, dating and utilization of the Tărtăria tablets |journal = Acta Terrae Septemcastrensis |url = http://arheologie.ulbsibiu.ro/publicatii/ats/ats8/acta%207.pdf |format = PDF |volume = VII |year = 2008 |publisher = Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu |location = Sibiu, Romania |issn = 1583-1817 }}
External links{{Commons category}}
8 : Neolithic|Archaeological sites in Romania|Prehistory of Southeastern Europe|Inscriptions in undeciphered writing systems|Clay tablets|Pre-Indo-Europeans|Proto-writing|Vinča culture |
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