Evidence of a ‘lost’ civilization discovered in Spain with an alphabetic tablet that is 400 years older than the Rosetta Stone

A 2,400-year-old tablet unearthed Spain appears to have been inscribed with an alphabetical sequence of 21 characters, predating the time the famous Rosetta Stone with 400 years.

Spain’s National Research Council (CSIC) made public the 20cm-long slate last week – discovered at Casas del Turuñuelo, an anthropological dig site believed to have been a refuge or temple for the lost Paleo-Hispanic society called Tartessos.

The CSIC said the tablet also “depicts a framework on which figures of warriors were found” of which there were members an advanced civilization that mysteriously disappeared.

But as one CSIC researcher, Esther Rodríguez González, a leader of the dig, noted, “the amount of information it contained was even greater,” and it may yet prove to be evidence of an independent, brand new, Paleo-Hispanic southern alphabet.

A 2,400-year-old tablet (above) unearthed in Spain appears to contain an alphabetical sequence of 21 characters, which predates the famous Rosetta Stone by 400 years. Above is an attempt to extrapolate the missing pieces of the alphabet on this newly discovered tablet

Spain’s National Research Council (CSIC) made the 20cm-long slate public last week – after it was discovered at Casas del Turuñuelo, an anthropological excavation site (pictured) believed to have been a refuge or temple for a wealthy Paleo-Hispanic culture known as Tartessos

The engravings on the tablet, which date to about 600 and 400 BC, appear to show repeated and superimposed illustrations of faces, geometric shapes and three warriors in a battle scene, as officials revealed in their preliminary photographs.

Archaeologists who have assessed the tablet now theorize that it was a type of notepad or sketchbook, used by craftsmen to practice these images and symbols before engraving a finished product on more valuable materials such as gold, ivory or wood.

It is believed that Tartessian culture – sometimes compared to the mythical city of gold, ‘El Dorado’, and occasionally discussed alongside stories of mythical Atlantis – flourished from the 9th to the 6th centuries BC.

“Their sophistication was remarkable,” archaeologist Richard Freund of Christopher Newport University told the travel site Atlas Obscura in 2021.

While it is known that the wealthy Tartessians were a mixture of indigenous peoples and Greek and Phoenician settlers, it is still unknown whether they were a large city-state, an entire nation, or something in between.

Experts have speculated that an earthquake or tsunami may have led to their disappearance.

According to CSIC officials, excavations at Casas del Turuñuelo have been going on for at least six years.

The engravings on the tablet, which date to about 600 and 400 BC, appear to show repeated and superimposed illustrations of faces, geometric shapes and three warriors in a battle scene, as officials revealed in their preliminary photographs. Archaeologists theorize that it was a sketchbook

Excavations at Casas del Turuñuelo – where the tablet was found – have been going on for at least six years, according to CSIC officials

Paleo-Spanish written languages ​​are currently divided into two styles or families, one common in northeastern Spain and one common in the south, which archaeologists have previously seen only in fragments, and speculate that more could exist.

Researcher from the University of Barcelona Joan Ferrer and Janewho examined the tablet said it resembles “other strokes compatible with signs of a known sequence” from two earlier Southern dialect tablets from this period.

The Turuñuelo or Guareña alphabet on this new tablet shows the first ten characters of the alphabet that can also be seen at an archaeological site, Espanca, in Castro Verde, Portugal.

‘This alphabet [from Espanca] has 27 boards and is the only complete board we knew so far. Another one was found at the excavation of Villasviejas del Tamuja, but it is very fragmented, it only has some central signs,” Ferrer i Jané said in a CSIC statement.

“Guareña would be the third and provide a lot of information,” he added.

University of Barcelona researcher Joan Ferrer i Jané, who examined the tablet (pictured), said it resembles “other strokes compatible with signs of a known sequence” from two earlier southern dialect tablets from this culture

Unfortunately, the broken state of the tablet has rendered part of the alphabet invisible, which Ferrer i Jané hopes to merge with other artifacts from the region.

“At least six characters or letters would have been lost in the split area of ​​the piece, but if it were completely symmetrical and the characters completely covered three of the four sides of the plate, it could become 32,” Ferrer i Jané noted (in Spanish, translated here).

“So the lost characters or letters could amount to eleven or perhaps more if one possible character, ‘Tu’, isolated in the lateral quarter, was part of the alphabet,” he noted.

“It’s a shame that the last part of the alphabet has been lost, because that’s where the most pronounced differences are,” said the researcher whose work combines information software engineering and ancient languages ​​at the university.

Those missing letters could well be the cause of the tablet becoming a brand new sister language to the other partially understood Southern Paleo-Spanish type or family.

CSIC’s collaborative team of archaeologists say they plan to continue work on the slate, in addition to further excavations at the ruins of Casas del Turuñuelo in Guareña, about 200 miles southwest of Madrid.