Tăblițele de la Tărtăria (Tărtăria tablets)

[gidai]

The Tărtăria tablets (Alba county, Romania), were discovered, together with the skeleton of a woman, by the archaeologist Nicolae Vlassa in 1961. The estimated age of the tablets is ~5300 BC, millennia before the first concrete evidence of writing in Mesopotamia.

About these tablets has been written a lot, and it is believed to be probably a form of writing, but there is still no clear conclusion on what really represents the symbols.
What do you think? Thank you!

 

[gidai]

Attempts based on some logic and imagination have been made, such as the two below:

A syllabic approach, comparing Tărtăria symbols with more recent Minoan symbols. (there is something in Romanian, but the images may make you understand.)

A mathematical interpretation.

 

[Ygorcs]

The Tărtăria tablets (Alba county, Romania), were discovered, together with the skeleton of a woman, by the archaeologist Nicolae Vlassa in 1961. The estimated age of the tablets is ~5300 BC, millennia before the first concrete evidence of writing in Mesopotamia.

About these tablets has been written a lot, and it is believed to be probably a form of writing, but there is still no clear conclusion on what really represents the symbols.
What do you think? Thank you!

In my opinion these scripts were not written language per se, but more like mnemonic pictographic systems that had a sort of proto-writing function kind of like Ndibisi of West Africa, which can convey many even compelx messages through symbols that represent ideas, objects or people, but do not fully represent the words and sentence structures as actual written language.

 

[gidai]

In my opinion these scripts were not written language per se, but more like mnemonic pictographic systems that had a sort of proto-writing function kind of like Ndibisi of West Africa, which can convey many even compelx messages through symbols that represent ideas, objects or people, but do not fully represent the words and sentence structures as actual written language.

Probable! Interestingly, very similar symbols, dating from 4000-4500BC, during the Vinca and Cucuteni cultures, were discovered on a wide area in Balkans around Romania. The great spread of these related inscriptions, through signs and symbols, I think would mean that it might have been a source of written communication between the Neolithic population of those times.

This is a map with tablets distribution.

 

[gidai]

I found here (or here) full of information about Tartaria inscriptions.
Many interesting tables show links to other symbols discovered on a wide area.
At pages 326 and 327 there are two interesting tables about the signs convergence with early writings.

 

[ToBeOrNotToBe]

Vinca was different to the previous Balkan settlements in that it had hierarchy. This is obviously related to metallurgy.

 

[gidai]

Vinca was different to the previous Balkan settlements in that it had hierarchy. This is obviously related to metallurgy.

By the time the tablets were made, over 7000 years ago, the tools were still made of stone, bones and horns. Anyway I do not think there was real metallurgy. Metallic minerals were more used to decorate or paint some objects and clay pots, than to be processed.