The riddle of the terteria clay tablets

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

In 1961, the scientific world spread the news of an archaeological sensation. No, the thunder of a great discovery did not come from Egypt or Mesopotamia. An unexpected find was discovered in Transylvania, in the small Romanian village of Terteria.

What amazed the erudite men of antiquity science? Perhaps scientists have stumbled upon a richest burial like the tomb of Tutankhamun? Or a masterpiece of ancient art appeared before them? Nothing like this. Three tiny clay tablets caused general excitement.

For they were dotted with mysterious drawing signs, strikingly reminiscent (as the author of the outstanding discovery himself, the Romanian archaeologist N. Vlass himself noted) the Sumerian pictographic writing of the end of the 4th millennium BC. e.

But the archaeologists were in for another surprise. The found tablets turned out to be 1000 years older than the Sumerian ones! One could only guess: how almost 7 thousand years ago, far beyond the glorified ancient Eastern civilizations, where it was not expected at all, the most ancient (to this day) letter in the history of mankind came to be?

Sumerians in Transylvania?

In 1965, the German Sumerologist Adam Falkenstein suggested that writing arose in Terteria under the influence of Sumer. M. S. Hud objected to him, arguing that the Terteria tablets had nothing to do with writing at all. He argued that the Sumerian merchants once visited Transylvania, it was their tablets that were copied by the natives. Of course, the meaning of the tablets was not clear to the Terterians, nevertheless this did not prevent them from using them in religious rituals.

There is no dispute, the ideas of Hood and Falkenstein are original, but there are also weaknesses in them. How to explain the gap of a whole millennium between the appearance of the Terterian and Sumerian tablets? And how can you copy something that doesn't exist yet?

Other specialists associated Terterian writing with Crete, but here the gap in time reaches two millennia.

The discovery of N. Vlass also did not go unnoticed in our country. On the instructions of Doctor of Historical Sciences TS Passek, the young archaeologist V. Titov was investigating the question of the presence of the Sumerians in Transylvania. Ties, to a common opinion about the essence of the Terterian riddle did not come. However, the expert-Sumerologist of the laboratory of the Institute of Archeology of the USSR Academy of Sciences A. Kifishin, having analyzed the accumulated material, came to the following conclusions:

1. The Terteria tablets are a fragment of a widespread local writing system.

2. The text of one tablet lists six ancient totems, which coincide with the "list" from the Sumerian city of Dzhemdet-Iasra, as well as the seal from a burial site belonging to the Hungarian culture of Keresh.

3. The signs on this plate should be read in a circle counterclockwise.

4. The content of the inscription (if you read it in Sumerian) is confirmed by the discovery of the dismembered corpse of a man in the same Terteria, which is a sign of the existence of ritual cannibalism among the ancient Transylvanians.

5. The name of the local god Shaue is identical to the Sumerian god Usm. This tablet was translated as follows: “In the fortieth reign, for the lips of the god Shaue, the elder was burnt according to the ritual. This is the tenth."

So what do the Terteria tablets still conceal? There is no direct answer yet. But it is clear: only the study of the entire complex of cultural monuments of Turdash-Vinci (namely, Terteria belongs to it) can bring us closer to unraveling the mystery of the three clay tablets.

The deeds of days gone by

The banks of the river, along which the ships boiled, overgrown with grass …

The military road along which the chariots rolled was overgrown with weeping grass …

in the city, housing has fallen into ruins.

From the Sumerian poem "The Curse of Akkad"

Twenty kilometers from Terteria is the Turdash hill. An ancient settlement of farmers of the Neolithic period is buried in its depths. The hill has been excavated since the end of the last century, but has not been completely excavated. Even then, the attention of archaeologists was attracted by pictographic signs drawn on the fragments of vessels.

The same marks on the shards were found in the neolithic settlement of Vinca in Yugoslavia, which is related to Turdash. Then the scientists considered the marks as simple hallmarks of the owners of the vessels. Then the Turdash hill was unlucky: the stream, having changed its course, almost washed it away. In 1961, archaeologists appeared on the Terteria hill.

The profession of an archaeologist is difficult, but extremely exciting, somewhat reminiscent of the work of a criminalist. But if the forensic scientist restores the episodes of his modernity, then the archaeologist often has to reconstruct the events of centuries ago using barely perceptible signs.

And where the eye of a layman sees only homogeneous layers of earth, the connoisseur will certainly distinguish the remains of an ancient dwelling, a hearth, fragments of ceramics and tools. Each layer keeps in itself the unique traces of the life of generations of people. Such layers are called cultural by archaeologists.

The work of the scientists was nearing completion; it seemed that Terteria had revealed all her secrets … And suddenly, under the lowest layer of the hill, a pit filled with ash was discovered. At the bottom there are figurines of ancient idols, a bracelet made of sea shells and … three small clay tablets covered with pictographic signs. Dismembered and burnt bones of an adult were found nearby. Apparently, here the ancient farmers made sacrifices to their gods.

When the excitement subsided, the scientists carefully examined the small tablets. Two were rectangular, the third round. The round and large rectangular tablets had a round through hole in the center. Careful research has shown that the tablets were made from local clay. The signs were applied only on one side. The writing technique of the ancient Terterians turned out to be very simple: drawing signs were scratched with a sharp object on wet clay, then the tablet was burned.

Come across such tablets in the distant Mesopotamia, no one would be surprised. But the Sumerian tablets in Transylvania! It was amazing.

It was then that they remembered the forgotten signs on the crockery shards from Turdash-Vinci. They compared them with the Terteria: the similarity was obvious. And that says a lot. The writing of Terteria did not arise from scratch, but was an integral part of the widespread in the middle of the 6th - beginning of the 5th millennium BC. e, pictographic writing of the Balkan culture of Vinci.

The first agricultural settlements appeared in the Balkans as early as the 6th millennium BC. e., and a thousand years later they were engaged in agriculture throughout Southeast and Central Europe. How did the first farmers live? At first they lived in dugouts, cultivated the land with stone tools. The main crop was barley. Gradually, the appearance of the settlement changed.

By the end of the 5th millennium BC. e. the first adobe houses appear. The houses were erected very simply: a frame made of wooden pillars was erected, walls woven from thin rods were attached to it, which were then coated with clay.

Dwellings were heated with vaulted stoves. Isn't such a house very similar to a Ukrainian hut? When it was dilapidated, it was demolished, the place was leveled and a new one was built. Thus, the ancient settlement gradually grew upward. Centuries passed, and gradually farmers began to master axes and other tools made of copper.

What did the ancient inhabitants of Transylvania look like?

Numerous figurines found during excavations can partially recreate their appearance.

Here is a man's head sculpted from clay. A calm, courageous face, a large, crooked nose, hair parted in the middle, and gathered in a bun at the back. Whom did the ancient sculptor depict? A leader, a priest or just a tribesman - it's hard to say. It’s not that important. Another thing is important: before us is not a frozen statue, carried out according to certain and strict canons, but the face of a man - an ancient resident of Transylvania. He seems to be looking at us from the depths of seven millennia!

And here is a highly stylized image of a woman. The body is covered with intricate geometric patterns that form an intricate pattern.

The same ornament is found on other figurines of the Turdash-Vinci culture. Apparently, this tangle of lines had some meaning. Whether it was a tattoo, which, perhaps, the women of fashion of that time adorned themselves with, or there was some magical meaning in all this, it is difficult to answer; women are not very fond of revealing their secrets.

Of particular interest is a large ritual jug dating back to the early period of the Wingchan culture. On it we see a drawing, probably, of the appearance of the sanctuary, and this image, again, is very reminiscent of the sanctuary of the ancient Sumerians. Another coincidence? But the two sanctuaries are separated from each other by almost twenty centuries!

However, why such confidence in dates? And how was it possible to determine the age of the Terteria tablets, if during the excavations of Terteria no remains of pottery were found, according to which the finds are usually dated?

Physics helps history

… A light-fiery pencil in his hand … holds it.

He draws a star of the good sky on the tablet …

From the Sumerian poem "On the Construction of the Temple"

Physicists came to the aid of historians. University of Chicago professor Willard Libby developed a method for dating by radioactive carbon C-14, for which he was later awarded the Nobel Prize.

Radioactive carbon C-14, formed in the Earth's atmosphere as a result of exposure to cosmic radiation, is oxidized and assimilated by plants and animals. However, its content in dead tissues gradually decreases, while a certain amount of C-14 decays at a certain time. The half-life of C-14 is 5360 years. Therefore, the amount of C-14 in organic remains can be used to determine the time elapsed since the death of a plant or animal. V. Libby's method gives a fairly high accuracy of dating ± 50-100 years.

Artifact of Turdash - Vinca culture with inscribed symbols

So what happened in the ancient sanctuary almost 7 thousand years ago? Is the expert Sumerian right when he is convinced that archaeologists have found traces of ritual cannibalism?

Perhaps he is right. Is it possible to imagine that in a society with such a significant cultural achievement as writing, cannibalism existed, albeit in a ritual form? Can. A study of a number of ancient American civilizations confirms this.

By the way, the Sumerian inscription, published by S. Langdon, tells about the ritual murder of the high priest and then the election of a new ruler. Perhaps something similar happened in Terteria. The body of the slain priest was burned at a sacred fire. Next to the deceased were placed images of the gods - patrons of the Terterian community and magic tablets.

However, there is no evidence that the fried priest was eaten. Yes, it is not easy to lift the veil of six millennia. The witnesses of the ancient rite are silent: statuettes of idols and charred bones of an ancient Terterian. But, perhaps, a third witness will speak - ancient writings?

The word on clay tablets

The first rectangular tablet bears a symbolic image of two goats. An ear is placed between them. Perhaps the image of a goat and an ear was a symbol of the well-being of the community, which was based on farming and cattle breeding? Or maybe this is a hunting scene, according to N. Vlassa?

It is curious that a similar plot is found on the Sumerian tablets. The second plate is divided by vertical and horizontal lines into small sections. Various symbolic images are scratched on each of them. Are these totems?

The circle of Sumerian totems is famous. And if we compare the drawings on our plate with the images on the ritual vessel found during excavations in Jemdet-Nasr, a striking coincidence will again strike the eye. The first sign on the Sumerian tablet is the head of an animal, most likely a kid, the second depicts a scorpion, the third, apparently, the head of a person or a deity, the fourth symbolizes a fish, the fifth sign is some kind of structure, the sixth is a bird. Thus, we can assume that the tablet depicts totems: "kid", "scorpion", "demon", "fish", "depth-death" "" bird ".

The totems of the Terterian tablet not only coincide with the Sumerian ones, but are also located in the same sequence. What is this, another striking accident? Probably not. The graphic coincidence of the characters could have been accidental. Science knows such coincidences. Strikingly similar, for example, are the individual characters of the mysterious writing of the proto-Indian civilization of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa with the characters of the kohau-rongo-rongo writing of the distant Easter Island.

But the coincidence of totems and their sequence is hardly accidental. It suggests the origin of the religious beliefs of the inhabitants of both Terteria and Jemdet-Nasr from one common root. It looks like we have in our hands a kind of key to deciphering the writing of Terteria: not knowing what is written, we already know in what sequence we need to read.

Therefore, the inscription can be deciphered by reading it counterclockwise around the hole in the plate. Of course, we will never know how the language of the inhabitants of Terteria sounded, but we can establish the meaning of their figurative signs based on the Sumerian equivalents.

Let's start reading the round Terteria tablet. Written characters are inscribed on it, separated by lines. Their number in each square is small. This means that the writing of the Terteria tablets, like the archaic Sumerian writing, was ideographic, syllable signs and grammatical indicators did not yet exist.

The following is written on the round plate:

4. NUN KA. SHA. UGULA. PI. GO KARA 1.

"By the four rulers for the face of the god Shaue, the elder of the deep mind burned one."

What is the meaning of the inscription?

Again, a comparison with the above-mentioned document from Jemdet-Nasr suggests itself. It contains a list of the chief priestess sisters who led the four tribal groups. Perhaps the same priestess-rulers were in Terteria? But there is another coincidence. In the inscription from Terteria, the god Shaue is mentioned, and the name of the god is depicted in the same way as that of the Sumerians. Yes, apparently, the Terterian tablet contained brief information about the ritual of killing and burning a priest who had served a certain period of his reign.

So who were the ancient inhabitants of Terteria, who wrote "in Sumerian" in the 5th millennium BC? BC, when there was no trace of Sumer himself? Ancestors of the Sumerians? Some scholars believe that the Proto-Sumerians broke away from the Proto-Kartvelians in the 15th-12th millennia BC. BC, leaving Georgia for Kurdistan. How could they have passed on their writing to the peoples of Southeast Europe? The question is not unimportant. And there is no answer to it yet.

The ancient inhabitants of the Balkans had a noticeable influence on the culture of Asia Minor. The connection of the Turdash-Vinci culture with it is especially well traced by pictographic signs on ceramics. Signs, sometimes completely identical to those of Vinchan, were found in the legendary Troy (beginning of the 3rd millennium BC). Then they appear in other regions of Asia Minor.

Distant echoes of Vinci's writing are contained in the pictographic writing of ancient Crete. One cannot but agree with the assumption of the Soviet archaeologist V. Titov that the primitive writing in the Aegean countries has its roots in the Balkans of the 4th millennium BC. e., and did not arise at all under the influence of the distant Mesopotamia, as some researchers previously believed.

In addition, it is known: the creators of the Balkan culture of Vinci in the 5th millennium BC. e.broke through Asia Minor to Kurdistan and Khuzistak, where at that time the Pra-Sumerians settled. And soon in this area a pictographic proto-Elamite writing appeared, equally close to both Sumerian and Terterian.

The conclusion suggests itself: the inventors of the Sumerian writing were, paradoxically, not the Sumerians, but the inhabitants of the Balkans. Indeed, how else to explain that the oldest writing in Sumer, dating from the end of the 4th millennium BC. e., appeared quite suddenly and already in a fully developed form. The Sumerians (like the Babylonians) were only good students, adopting pictographic writing from the Balkan peoples and further developing it into cuneiform writing.

B. PERLOV, historian

BRANCHES OF ONE TREE

Among the questions that arose in the process of studying the Terterian find, two seem especially important to me:

1. How did the Terterian writing come into being and to which writing system did it adjoin?

2. What language did the Terterians speak?

B. Perlov, of course, is right, asserting that the Sumerian writing appeared in the Southern Mesopotamia at the end of the 4th millennium BC. e. somehow unexpectedly, in a completely finished form. It was on it that the most ancient encyclopedia of mankind "Harra-khubulu" was written, which fully reflected the worldview of people of the 10th-4th millennium BC. e.

A study of the laws of internal development of Sumerian pictography shows that by the end of the 4th millennium BC. e. pictographic writing as a system was in a state of decay rather than becoming. Of the entire Sumerian writing system (numbering about 38 thousand signs and variations), a little more than 5 thousand were used, and all of them came from 72 ancient symbol nests. The process of polyphonization (that is, the difference in sound of the same sign) of the nests of the Sumerian system began long before that.

Polyphonization gradually eroded the outer shell of a complex sign in whole nests, then destroyed the internal design of the sign in half-decayed nests, and, finally, completely destroyed the nest itself. The symbol nests broke up into polyphonic beams long before the arrival of the Sumerians in Mesopotamia.

It is curious that a similar phenomenon is observed in the proto-Elamite writing, which existed simultaneously with the Sumerian one on the shores of the Persian Gulf. Proto-Elamite writing is also reduced to 70 symbol nests, which split into 70 polyphonic beams. Both the proto-Elamite sign and the Sumerian have an internal and external design. But the proto-Elamite also has pendants. Therefore, in its system, it is closer to the Chinese hieroglyphics.

In the Fusi era (2852-2752 BC), the Aryan nomads invaded China from the northwest and brought with them a well-established writing system.

But ancient Chinese pictography was preceded by the writing of the Namazga culture (Central Asia). Separate groups of signs in it have both Sumerian and Chinese counterparts.

What is the reason for the similarity of the writing system among such different peoples? The fact is that they all had one source, the disintegration of which occurred in the VII millennium BC. e.

For two millennia before the collapse, the Elamo-Chinese area was in contact with the Sumeroid cultures of Guran and the Iranian Zagros. The eastern area of writing was opposed by the western one, which took shape under the influence of the Sumeroids of the pre-Gurana (Ganj-Daro, see map). Subsequently, the writing systems of the ancient Egyptians, Crete-Mycenaeans, Sumerians and the Terterians arose from it.

Thus, the legend of the "Babylonian" pandemonium and disintegration of a single earthly language is not so groundless. For, comparing 72 nests of the Sumerian writing with similar nests-symbols of all other writing systems, one is amazed at their coincidence not only in design principles, but also in internal content.

Before us are like fragments, mutually complementing the links of the disintegrated unified system. When, however, the reconstructed symbolism of this writing of the IX-VIII millennia BC. e. compare with the signs-symbols of the late Paleolithic of Europe (20-10 thousand years BC). BC), one cannot but pay attention to their far from accidental coincidence.

Yes, the writing systems of the 4th millennium BC. e. did not arise in different places of our planet, but were only a consequence of the autonomous development of fragments of a disintegrated single prasystem of religious symbolism that arose in one place, as contrary to the opinion of racists, homo sapiens in general arose in one place.

What language did the ancient Terterians speak? Let's take a look at the ethnic map of Western Europe of the 7th-6th millennia BC. e. At this time, as a result of the Neolithic revolution, there was a population explosion. Over several centuries, the population has increased 17 times (from 5 million to 85). There was a transition from gathering to floodplain agriculture.

The surplus of population in the Balkans, the ancestral home of the Semitic-Hamitic peoples, led them to widespread migration to less populated areas where the Neolithic revolution had not yet taken place. The offensive was carried out north along the Danube and south through Asia Minor, the Near East, North Africa and Spain. Taking advantage of the enormous numerical superiority, the Prosemites from the east and the Prahamites from the west wiped the Proto-Indo-Europeans far to the north (to areas that had recently been freed from the glacier).

Vivid pictures of this struggle of peoples have survived, by the way, in Celtic mythology. The Proto-Slavic names of the Celtic gods indicate that the Proto-Slavs who did not submit to their enemies remained a bright banner in the eyes of the Prakelts of France, becoming their gods. The Celtic "Proto-Slavs" - Dananians from the Goria clan (that is, "grief") subjugated the Pragracs of the Harz and after that entered into a long struggle with the Prosemites of the Danube cultures. This is reflected in Indian (Manu-Svarozhich) and Greek myths.

The war was very fierce and long. The allies of the Proto-Indo-Europeans were the Sumeroids of the Iranian Zagros, far from them, who made the Neolithic revolution even earlier and rushed into Asia Minor from the east. The Semitic-Hamitic pincers were severed.

The Hamites threw their main forces on the Egyptian theater of military operations, the Semites on the Greek and Asia Minor, where they eventually repulsed the invasion of the Sumeroids, the ancestors of the ancient Egyptians. However, it was a Pyrrhic victory. The Semitic-Hamitic offensive ran out of steam.

And in the VI millennium BC. e. accomplished the Neolithic revolution and the Proto-Indo-Europeans. Moving on to pasture cattle breeding, they acquired power over the boundless expanses of the Great Steppe. The Prahamites were assimilated by the Celts throughout Europe, while the Prasemites fled to the lower Danube.

Between the Indo-Europeans of Denmark and Pomerania and the Prosemites of Thrace by the beginning of the 5th millennium BC. e. formed a huge buffer zone (Upper Danube, Carpathian region, Ukraine) with a very special population. Later, its core (Baden culture) served as the source of the ethnos of Lesbos, Tripoli and Troy.

That is why there are good reasons to associate the inhabitants of this region (including the Terterians and Trypillians) with the Proto-Etruscans, as evidenced by the anthropological data. The Praetruscans finally expelled the Prasemites from the rest of the Balkans at the end of the 5th millennium BC. e. to Asia Minor and the Near East. Thus, they cleared the way for the Indo-European herders, who were victoriously advancing from the north.