Archaeologists found a mysterious stone tablet in Georgia that contains an unknown language

[Judi Lynn]

5 December 2024 The Future is the Product of the Past




Archaeologists have unearthed a basalt tablet with inscriptions in an unknown language near Lake Bashplemi, in the Dmanisi region of Georgia. Although the tablet’s exact age is uncertain, researchers believe it was created in the Late Bronze or Early Iron Ages (first millennium BCE) based on related artifacts such as stone mortar and pottery fragments.

Made of local vesicular basalt, it measures 24.1 x 20.1 cm and records 60 different symbols, 39 of which have no exact equivalent in other known ancient writing systems. The symbols, created using a conical drill and smoothed with rounded tools, reflect a high degree of craftsmanship.

Lake Bashplemi is located on a volcanic plateau surrounded by hills and fed by small tributaries of the Mashavera River. The region is known for its wealth of archaeological discoveries, especially in relation to human remains dating back as far as 1.8 million years.

Researchers discovered ceramic fragments, a mortar stone, and pieces of obsidian on the surface, indicating that the area may have had substantial human activity even though it had not been thoroughly investigated from an archaeological standpoint.

The basalt tablet contains 39 unique symbols arranged in seven horizontal lines or registers. Some of these symbols repeat, allowing for a total of 60 characters on the stone’s surface. The arrangement and frequency of some of the characters suggest that they may have been used to denote numbers or punctuation marks.



Aerial photos of Bashplemi Lakeshore in Georgia. Image Credit: R. Shengelia et al., Journal of Ancient History and Archaeology (2024)

More:
https://arkeonews.net/archaeologists-found-a-mysterious-stone-tablet-in-georgia-that-contains-an-unknown-language/

[rampartd]

1. the tablet is not that old compared to "1.1 million years

the species at that time would have been h erectus or h nalidi, and i don't think we have found any nalidi outside that one s african cave.

i love your articles, judy, the other one tonight ws the clovis diet of megafauna. how long would it take a large family or small tribe to eat a mammoth? much less to eat ALL the mammoths? hell, we still have lefyover turkey.

[duncang]

2. Since it was carved from basalt it had to have a important message.

They already made clay pots so they knew how to fire clay. But to me it seems it was a lot more important reason to be done that way. In Sumeria you had clay tablets that weren’t fired used as almost a scratch pad temporary means to record something. Then for more important things they fired the clay. And the most important they carved into stone. It’s just curious what could they consider so important yet so small it was made like that? Something that they wanted to record for decades or more. Another thing to remember is a character may not be what most people think of as an individual letter. A character could mean a whole word. Something they wrote in 60 characters could take us a full page to write out. On the bottom it has a swirl. That to me is interesting. Most ancient people put special meanings into it. Cosmology, spiritual, renewal, burial, and the list goes on.

[Irish_Dem]

4. Yes I noticed the swirl at the end too.

Could it be a signature of an official.

Or some sort of mark indicating an official document.

Laws, rules, proclamation, recording of important historical event.

[3Hotdogs]

8. Translation: "Hello, I'm Rachel, here to let you know that the insurance on your chariot is about to expire...."

[Irish_Dem]

10. "We have a wonderful business opportunity for you."

"You can double your investment, just hand over all your cows and pigs to our private account."

[3Hotdogs]

12. "Im a Russian prince and my money is being held by a bank in the Maldives....

[wnylib]

16. That swirl design is on ancient Greek pottery and

on other pottery in the eastern Mediterranean region. Here is a Greek example. Note that the design is a curved swirl on the main body of this vase, but near the neck, it is in a square form. Just coincidentally, the square form occurs on pre-Columbian buildings and pottery in Mesoamerica. No, that does NOT mean a connection between ancient Greece and Mesoamerica. It means that the human mind develops similar doodles and designs no matter where people live.

https://images.app.goo.gl/wPE2xQ2uoMvNHJud7

[JohnnyRingo]

3. So cool!

Fascinating! K&R
Thanx for posting.

[Lunabell]

5. There's so much to be discovered on this planet.

Many deep layers that ha haven't been discovered yet.

[Mustellus]

6. Georgia has a wierd mythology...

.. that they are Avalon, that King Aurthur came there after his defeat in France, that all of this is, of course, part of the Great, Tragic Lost Cause. Did King Arthur have black slaves?

Note all the groves are the same widtth. The with of the rotary bit used to carve it. You can even see the scaloping left by the tool.

[dchill]

7. Prehistoric Dremel?

[marble falls]

13. Funny you wrote that, my first thought was it looks to me like a machine did the work ...

... I think it is possible someone 'salted' the site.

[dchill]

14. I've used Dremels frequently. That IS the look.

[marble falls]

20. I bet you've found some interesting objects out on the beaches.

[TheRickles]

9. And very well preserved, sharp edges, no erosion. How old could it be?

[duhneece]

11. I don't think I've told you how much I love your stuff

You educate and inform me of so much.
Thank you

[MaineNative]

15. I think I sorted it out!

It loosely translates to "Be sure to drink your Ovaltine."

[marble falls]

21. And they misspelled 'Ovaltine'! It has three 'r's.

[FirstLight]

19. Fascinating...

One of the reasons I decided to go back to school to study Anthropology was because of early signs and symbols. I have seen that the spiral, circle, sun disc, cross, arrow, etc are found all over the world...and wonder if they are like a collective consciousness thing that "bloomed" at the same time?
Some of these symbols can be seen in cave paintings and petroglyphs, even though the dates of those are hugely different...it's like those symbols are like the "proto-language" seeds before actual writing begins...

This looks machined...i wonder if the date is correct? If so, there's way more to the human story than we could have known...

Thanks for sharing!