Archaeologists Stumble on an Ancient Clay Tablet With Mysterious Language on it, Impressed With Etchings' Craftsmanship

A great archaeological discovery near Lake Bashplemi in Georgia has revealed a basalt tablet with strange inscriptions that could rewrite history about writing systems of the Caucasus region, according to the Journal of Ancient History and Archaeology. The tablet, comprising 60 characters skillfully carved out in seven horizontal rows, has left the researchers dumbfounded by its sophistication.

This book-sized artifact, measuring 24.1 x 20.1 centimeters, displays an inscription containing 39 singular symbols that correspond to no known ancient form of writing, stated Archaeology News. "Generally, the Bashplemi inscription does not repeat any script known to us," the authors wrote, indicating some tantalizing similarities with scripts from the Middle East, India, Egypt, and West Iberia, according to Popular Mechanics.

One thing that definitely makes this finding especially interesting is the great expertise reflected in it. The ancient craftsperson used a distinctive two-step technique, first employing a conical drill to outline each character's contours before smoothing the etchings with a rounded tool. This sophistication is all the more remarkable in that basalt is a very hard volcanic rock and thus not easy to work with.

Although scientists have not yet established the precise age of the tablet, other objects found in the same context—a fragment of pottery and a stone mortar—indicate that it could date from the Late Bronze Age or Early Iron Age. The location gives even more cause for the significance—the region of Dmanisi had previously produced 1.8-million-year-old remains of early hominins, which some scientists regard as the oldest evidence of humans in Europe. This has generated an enormous amount of debate among all scholars about the purpose of this mysterious script. Some prefer to believe that it records military victories, others think that some important construction project or even offerings to a deity are described, and because some symbols appear repeatedly, there is a supposition that some characters may represent numbers or punctuation marks, according to Popular Science.

Comparative analysis has revealed tantalizing connections to various ancient writing systems. Some features are shared with the Proto-Kartvelian script of the fourth millennium B.C.E. and some early Caucasian writing systems, such as Georgian Mrglovani and Albanian alphabets, but all this similarity just adds to the mystery because the script of the tablet retains its face.

The discovery is important not only for its mysterious symbols. Ancient Greek and Roman sources talked about the fact that the people of Colchis, living eastward of the Black Sea, once had a written form, according to Science Alert. Until now, nothing has been found to lead to the desired evidence, and this Bashplemi tablet can be a possible missing link for the rich linguistics of the region to be deciphered. The composition of the tablet from local vesicular basalt establishes it as authentic to the region and negates any chance of transportation from elsewhere. The possibility of such localization provides evidence for establishing the region of the Caucasus as an independent potential center of development for the writing system.