The 2,500-year-old stone was created by the ancient Tartessos people who lived on the Iberian peninsula between the ninth and sixth centuries B.C.E.
E. Rodríguez/M. Luque/CSICIn addition to the battle scenes, researchers also noted a sequence of letters in a Paleo-Hispanic script.
While excavating the Casas del Turuñuelo archaeological site in Spain, researchers recently came across a broken stone tablet. Dated to between 600 and 400 B.C.E., the slate is engraved with battle scenes — and letters from a mysterious alphabet.
It was created by the ancient Tartessos people more than 2,000 years ago, and offers a tantalizing peek at their lost civilization.
The Tartessian Stone Tablet
According to a translated statement, the stone tablet was discovered at Casas del Turuñuelo, an ancient Tartessian site in Guareña, Spain.
“The tablet was found behind a storage vessel located in the corner of one of the rooms excavated during this last campaign,” Esther Rodríguez González, one of the excavation leaders, told All That’s Interesting in an email. “Those rooms constituted an artisanal production space connected to the principal building.”
Guareña City CouncilThe Institute of Archeology of Mérida, the Higher Council for Scientific Research, and the Government of Extremadura were responsible for the excavations at Casas del Turuñuelo, which turned up the stone tablet.
She continued: “Initially, because of the humidity of the soil, the depictions were indistinguishable. Once the slate tablet dried, it turned to a lighter colour of grey and the representations popped up. It was cleaned by the laboratory staff and the scenes became recognizable.”
The tablet is just under eight inches long and includes “the continuous repetition of faces or geometric figures and a combat scene in which three characters interact,” according to the statement. The battle scenes on the slate also include “four individuals who have been identified as warriors, given the clothing that decorates them and the weapons they carry.”
In addition to the battle scene, “a sequence of 21 signs” believed to belong to an “alphabet of a southern Paleo-Hispanic script” were also noted on the slate.
Joan Ferrer i Jané/CSICAfter hearing about the slate in the media, researcher Joan Ferrer i Jané noticed a sequence of letters along the edges that belongs to a Paleo-Hispanic alphabet.
“After studying the images, everything indicates that it is a southern script alphabet with the initial sequence ABeKaTuIKeLBaNS?ŚTaUE, which is almost the same as documented in the Spanish alphabet, except for the eleventh sign, which has a special shape,” Joan Ferrer i Jané, the researcher who first noticed the script, said in a second statement about the slate.
“At least 6 signs would have been lost in the split area of the piece, but if it were completely symmetrical and the signs completely occupied three of the four sides of the plate, it could reach 32 signs,” Ferrer i Jané further explained, adding: “It is a shame that the final part of the alphabet has been lost [since] that is where the most pronounced differences tend to be.”
If the researchers’ interpretation is correct, the slate would contain the third southern Paleo-Hispanic alphabet ever discovered.
The tablet is still being studied, but researchers believe that it was used as a goldsmith’s slate, “a material that would serve as support for the craftsman when engraving the motifs designed on pieces of gold, ivory, or wood.”
So who were the people who engraved it?
Who Were The Tartessian People?
Much of what we know about the Tartessos culture is shrouded in myth. According to World History Encyclopedia, they were known in the ancient world for their immense wealth. Ephorus, a historian the fourth century B.C.E., wrote of “a very prosperous market called Tartessos, with much tin carried by river, as well as gold and copper from Celtic lands,” and the Bible describes the Tartessians as traders of silver, iron, tin, and lead.
Remi Mathis/Wikimedia CommonsA Tartessian statue from circa 700 to 575 B.C.E.
But though the Tartessians had a writing system, they left few written records — that we know of, anyway — and thus much of their civilization remains something of a mystery.
Researchers know that they vanished around the sixth century B.C.E., but they’re not sure exactly why. There may have been some sort of economic reason linked to precious metals, the civilization may have succumbed to violence, or the society may have been devastated by an earthquake. The rise and fall of the Tartessos is so mysterious, in fact, that it’s even been linked to Atlantis.
As such, the discovery of the stone tablet offers a fascinating look at this “lost civilization.” According to the statement about the tablet:
“This discovery represents a unique example in peninsular archeology and brings us closer to the knowledge of the artisanal processes in Tartessos, invisible until now, at the same time that it allows us to complete our knowledge about the clothing, weapons, or headdresses of the characters represented, since details proliferate in them.”
After reading about the 2,500-year-old stone tablet discovered in Spain, look through these mysteries from ancient history that perplex historians to this day. Or, discover the stories behind the lost Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
