Old European Script
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A clay vessel unearthed in Vinča, found at depth of 8.5 meters. |
The
Old European Script (also known as the
Vinča alphabet,
Vinča script or
Vinča-Tordos script) is a name sometimes given to the markings on prehistoric artifacts found in
south-eastern Europe. Some believe the markings to be a
writing system of the
Vinča culture, which inhabited the region around 6000-4000 BC. Others doubt that the markings represent writing at all, citing the brevity of the purported
inscriptions and the dearth of repeated symbols in the purported script.
In
1875,
archaeological excavations led by the archeologist
Zsófia Torma (1840"1899) at
Turdaş (
Tordos), near
Orăştie in
Transylvania (now
Romania) unearthed a cache of objects inscribed with previously unknown symbols. A similar cache was found during excavations conducted in
1908 in
Vinča, a
suburb of the
Serbian city of
Belgrade, some 120km from Tordos. Later, more such fragments were found in
Banjica, another part of Belgrade. Thus the culture represented is called the
Vinca-Tordos culture, and the script often called the
Vinca-Tordos script. The discovery of the
Tartaria tablets in Romania by Nicolae Vassa in 1961 reignited the debate. Vassa believed the inscriptions to be
pictograms and the finds were subsequently
carbon-dated to before 4000BC, thirteen hundred years earlier than the date he expected, and earlier even than the writing systems of the
Sumerians and
Minoans. To date, more than a thousand fragments with similar inscriptions have been found on various archaeological sites throughout
south-eastern Europe, notably in
Greece,
Bulgaria,
Romania, eastern
Hungary,
Moldova, southern
Ukraine and other locations in the former
Yugoslavia.
Most of the inscriptions are on
pottery, with the remainder appearing on
whorls (flat cylindrical annuli),
figurines, and a small collection of other objects. Over 85% of the inscriptions consist of a single symbol. The symbols themselves consist of a variety of abstract and representative pictograms, including
zoomorphic (animal-like) representations, combs or brush
patterns and abstract symbols such as swastikas, crosses and chevrons. Other objects include groups of symbols, of which some are arranged in no particularly obvious pattern, with the result that neither the order nor the direction of the signs in these groups is readily determinable. The usage of symbols varies significantly between objects: symbols that appear by themselves tend almost exclusively to appear on pots, while symbols that are grouped with other symbols tend to appear on whorls.
The importance of these findings lies in the fact that the oldest of them are
dated around
4000 BC, around a thousand years before the proto-Sumerian
pictographic script from
Uruk (modern
Iraq), which is usually considered as the oldest known script. Analyses of the symbols showed that they had little similarity with Near Eastern writing, leading to the view that they probably arose independently of the
Sumerian civilization. There are some similarities between the symbols and other Neolithic symbologies found elsewhere, as far afield as
Egypt,
Crete and even
China. However, Chinese scholars have suggested that such signs were produced by a convergent development of what might be called a precursor to writing which evolved independently in a number of societies.
Although a large number of symbols are known, most artifacts contain so few symbols that they are very unlikely to represent a complete text. Possibly the only exception is a stone found near Sitovo in
Bulgaria, the dating of which is disputed; regardless, the stone has only around 50 symbols. It is unknown which
language used the symbols, or indeed whether they stand for a language in the first place.
The nature and purpose of the symbols is still something of a mystery. It is not even clear whether they constitute a
writing system. If they do, it is not known whether they represent an
alphabet,
syllabary,
ideograms or some other form of writing. Although attempts have been made to decipher the symbols, there is no generally accepted translation or agreement as to what they mean.
At first it was thought that the symbols were simply used as property marks, with no more meaning than "this belongs to X"; a prominent holder of this view is archaeologist
P. Biehl. This theory is now mostly abandoned as same symbols have been repeatedly found on the whole territory of Vinča culture, on locations hundreds of kilometers and years away from each other.
The prevailing theory is that the symbols were used for religious purposes in a traditional agricultural society. If so, the fact that the same symbols were used for centuries with little change suggests that the ritual meaning and culture represented by the symbols likewise remained constant for a very long time, with no need for further development. The use of the symbols appears to have been abandoned (along with the objects on which they appear) at the start of the
Bronze Age, suggesting that the new technology brought with it significant changes in social organization and beliefs.
One argument in favour of the ritual explanation is that the objects on which the symbols appear do not appear to have had much long-term significance to their owners - they are commonly found in pits and other refuse areas. Certain objects, principally figurines, are most usually found buried under houses. This is consistent with the supposition that they were prepared for household religious ceremonies in which the signs incised on the objects represent expressions: a desire, request, vow or whatever. After the ceremony was completed, the object would either have no further significance (hence would be disposed of) or would be buried ritually (which some have interpreted as
votive offerings).
Some of the "comb" or "brush" symbols, which collectively comprise as much as a sixth of all the symbols so far discovered, may represent numbers. Some scholars have pointed out that over a quarter of the inscriptions are located on the bottom of a pot, an ostensibly unlikely place for a religious inscription. The Vinča culture appears to have traded its wares quite widely with other cultures (as demonstrated by the widespread distribution of inscribed pots), so it is possible that the "numerical" symbols conveyed information about the value of the pots or their contents. Other cultures, such as the
Minoans and
Sumerians, used their scripts primarily as accounting tools; the Vinča symbols may have served a similar purpose.
Other symbols (principally those restricted to the base of pots) are wholly unique. Such signs may denote the contents, provenance/destination or manufacturer/owner of the pot.
Griffen (2005) claims to have partially deciphered the script, identifying signs for "bear", "bird" and "goddess". He compares two spinning
whorls, Jela 1 and 2, with almost identical marks, and identifies similar marks on bear and bird figurines. The whorl inscriptions would read "bear — goddess — bird — goddess — bear — goddess–goddess" which he interprets as "bear goddess and
bird goddess: bear goddess indeed", or "the bear goddess and the bird goddess are really a single bear goddess". Griffen compares the amalgamation of a goddess with bearlike and birdlike attributes in Greek
Artemis. Griffen's "goddess" sign is two vertical strokes, apparently symbolizing a vulva; this is reminiscent of the
Linear B "female" sign, two upright slanting strokes.
The Vinča markings have not attracted as much linguistic attention as recognized but undeciphered scripts such as
Crete's
Linear A and
Easter Island's
Rongorongo. However, the Vinča material has still managed to stir some controversies of its own.
The primary advocate of the idea that the markings represent writing, and the person who coined the name "Old European Script", was
Marija Gimbutas (
1921-
1994), an important
20th century archaeologist and premier advocate of the notion that the
Kurgan culture of Central Asia was an early culture of
Proto-Indo-Europeans. Later in life she turned her attention to the reconstruction of a hypothetical
pre-Indo-European Old European culture, which she thought spanned most of Europe. She observed that
neolithic European
iconography was predominantly female—a trend also visible in the inscribed figurines of the Vinča culture—and concluded the existence of a matristic (not matriarchal) culture that worshipped range of goddesses and gods. (Gimbutas did not posit a single universal
Mother Goddess.) She also incorporated the Vinča markings into her model of Old Europe, suggesting that they might either be the writing system for an Old European language, or, more probably, a kind of "pre-writing" symbolic system. Most archaeologists and linguists disagree with Gimbutas' interpretation of the Vinča signs as a script: it is all but universally accepted among scholars that the
Sumerian cuneiform script is in fact the earliest form of writing.
A rather odder controversy concerns the theories of Dr.
Radivoje Pešić from
Belgrade. In his book
The Vinča Alphabet, he proposes that all of the symbols exist in the
Etruscan alphabet, and conversely, that all Etruscan letters are found among Vinča signs. However, these claims are not taken seriously by scholars, who demonstrate that the Etruscan alphabet is derived from the
West Greek Alphabet, which in turn is derived from the
Phoenician writing system. This is however not completely incompatible with Pešić's views as he claims that the Phoenician writing system descended from Vinčan. Pešić's critics have claimed that his support for the
continuity theory, which claims a Slavic presence in the Balkans far earlier than the usually accepted date, is motivated by a nationalistic agenda; hence, for instance, his claim that the poet
Homer must have spoken a Slavonic dialect (Pešić, 1989).
*
Vinča culture *
Old European cultures
*
List of undeciphered writing systems*
Pseudoarchaeology* Gimbutas, Marija. 1974. The Gods and Goddesses of Old Europe 7000 - 3500 BC, Mythos, Legends and Cult Images
*Griffen, Toby D.,
Deciphering the Vinca Script [
1], 2005.
* Pešić, Radivoje,
The Vincha Script (ISBN 86-7540-006-3)
* Pešić, Radivoje, "
On the Scent of Slavic Autochthony in the Balkans," Macedonian Review 19, nos. 2-3 (1989), 115-116
* Winn, Milton McChesney. 1973. The signs of the Vinča Culture : an internal analysis : their role, chronology and independence from Mesopotamia
* Winn, Shan M.M. 1981. Pre-writing in Southeastern Europe: the sign system of the Vinča culture, ca. 4000 BC
*
Vinca symbols at omniglot.com, including a font
*
The Number System of the Old European Script - Eric Lewin Altschuler*
The Old European Script: Further evidence - Shan M. M. Winn
