Is the Oldest Writing in Europe Found at Gobekli Tepe?

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An ancient Greek tablet, dating between 1450 and 1350 B.C., was discovered in an olive grove in Iklaina, Greece, marking it as the oldest readable writing in Europe. This tablet, created by a Mycenaean scribe, survived due to fortuitous circumstances. Discussions also touched on the controversial lead codices, which some scholars believe may date back to the 1st Century C.E. and contain references to the Messiah. However, skepticism surrounds their authenticity, with evidence suggesting they might be modern forgeries. Prominent scholars have pointed out that some phrases in the codices were copied from a Roman tombstone, casting further doubt on their legitimacy. Additionally, there are ongoing excavations at Gobekli Tepe, where evidence of proto-written language has been found among carvings, indicating the potential for early forms of communication.
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Ancient Tablet Found: Oldest Readable Writing in Europe
Found at a site tied to myth, Greek tablet survived only by accident, experts say.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/03/110330-oldest-writing-europe-tablet-greece-science-mycenae-greek/

Found in an olive grove in what's now the village of Iklaina (map), the tablet was created by a Greek-speaking Mycenaean scribe between 1450 and 1350 B.C., archaeologists say.
:cool:

An example of Celtic text - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lepontic_language#Texts

http://www.univie.ac.at/indogermanistik/download/Stifter/oldcelt2008_2_lepontic.pdf
 
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I wish they would of told us what the tablet said.
 
Very interesting, did you see the supposedly 2,000 year old lead tablets bound into a book?
 
Evo said:
Very interesting, did you see the supposedly 2,000 year old lead tablets bound into a book?
Where's that. I've been rather distracted lately. :rolleyes:
 
Lead codices.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110330/ts_yblog_thelookout/could-lead-codices-prove-the-major-discovery-of-christian-history
 
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Evo said:
Lead codices.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110330/ts_yblog_thelookout/could-lead-codices-prove-the-major-discovery-of-christian-history

very weird. I've been watching someone posting a tribulation chart to an IRC channel for a few weeks now. this may cause some excitement. things could get interesting.
 
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Update- no shock here.

The lead codices: As we told you last month, some biblical scholars believe a trove of 70 lead codices that turned up five years ago in a remote cave in eastern Jordan may date from the 1st Century C.E. They say that references to the Messiah in the codices--which are made up of wirebound individual pages, roughly the size of a credit card--could bear invaluable testimony to the last days of Jesus' life. Much of the media ate the story up. "Never has there been a discovery of relics on this scale from the early Christian movement, in its homeland and so early in its history," reported the BBC.

But it's looking more and more like the codices are fakes. The "expert" who helped convince the media of that the codices might be authentic turns out to be a fringe figure at best. Meanwhile, Peter Thonemann, a prominent scholar of ancient history at Oxford University, found that two phrases of text in the codices came from an ordinary Roman tombstone on display in a museum in Jordan, suggesting that a forger had simply copied the lines from the tombstone. Thonemann pronounced the codices "a modern forgery, produced by a resident of Amman within the last fifty years or so." Other scholars have also cast serious doubt on the codices' authenticity.

In short, we can't say with absolute certainty that the codices are forgeries--but that's certainly what the balance of evidence suggests. So we've assigned the claim that the codices are an important new archaeological find to the second lowest level on our gauge--one step above flat-out bogus.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110415/ts_yblog_thelookout/closer-look-lead-codices-spending-cuts-and-the-deficit-problem
 
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  • #10
I'm sure you folks have heard of the interesting digs going on at Gobekli Tepe?

I know it's not quite in Europe, and I apologize, but there is no other thread for "oldest writing."

I would be honored if you thought this audio interview of science writer Charles C Mann, who has twice visited the dig at the 11,500 year old monument, were of some interest to you. He was able to spend a good deal of time with the archaeologist Klaus Schmidt, in charge of the dig for many years, and reveals heretofore unpublished insights into its greater antiquity and achievements.

Foremost of these is evidence of a proto-written language. This is found among the finely carved images, mainly animals, but also symbols such as waves and crescents found upon the huge rings of stone pillars. These are thought to work mnemonically, and may collectively constitute a language. They are studying it.

http://www.electricpolitics.com/podcast/2011/06/gbekli_tepe_1.html

(This is a long interview. The part under discussion is found about 45% the way through)

Respectfully submitted,
Steve
 
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