Vinca tablets c. 5,500 BC - earliest example of writing

The Origin of Writing: While it is still generally considered that writing emerged 'independently in at least three different places - Egypt, Mesopotamia and Harappa between 3,500 BC and 3,100 BC' , we have until recently had little understanding of how and why this happened. The discovery of the Vinca script and (mother) culture c. 5,500 - 3,500 BC, has offered a possible clue as to this question, but more importantly, symbols in the Vinca script can be seen to have roots that trace back as early as Palaeolithic times. \n\nWe are now aware of the Vinca (Mother) culture which existed in Eastern Europe around 5,500 - 4,500 BC. The earliest examples of Vinca script (such as the Vinca Tablets below) were generally regarded as token or symbolic only however, following other discoveries with the same symbols in the region, it is now suspected that the Vinca script represents a proto-language similar to those from the Great civilisations that emerged a thousand years later in Egypt, The Middle East and in the Indus Valley.\n\nRichard Rudgley proposed that the Old European script emerged from a system of symbolism rooted in the subconscious of the Neolithic. He said of it...\n\n'Gimbutas proposed that it [the Old European Script] was part of a much wider corpus of signs that expressed cosmological and spiritual beliefs of the Neolithic age... Gimbautus believed that such designs were not merely decorative but were elements of an 'alphabet of the metaphysical'. \n\nThe study of such symbols shows that as the ancient world drew inspiration from the Neolithic, so too were the first farming communities of this period drawing inspiration from the symbolic traditions of the hunter-gatherers who went before them, this finding is enforced by the work of Alexander Marshack, who documented the persistence of the zigzag motif in the stone age art of the Upper Palaeolithic period echoed in the Neolithic . The zigzag also appears among the old European signs, and its significance can be traced back to ancient Egypt where the zigzag Hieroglyph means water. Maria Gimbatus found clear parallels between symbols from different emerging scripts, suggests that the thread of writing can be traced back to the end of the ice age, suggesting that writing has been an art that has come and gone in several different forms throughout time. Various styles of zoomorphic and anthropomorphic figurines are hallmarks of the culture, as are the Vinca symbols, which some conjecture to be an early form of proto-writing. The Tartaria tablets refers to a group of three tablets, discovered in 1961 by archaeologist Nicolae Vlassa at a Neolithic site in the village of Tartaria (about 30 km (19 mi) from Alba Iulia), in Romania. Two of the tablets are rectangular and the third is round. They are all small, the round one being only 6 cm (2½ in) across, and two - one round and one rectangular - have holes drilled through them. All three have symbols inscribed only on one face. The tablets, dated to around 5,300 BC, bear incised symbols - the Vinca symbols - and have been the subject of considerable controversy among archaeologists, some of whom claim that the symbols represent the earliest known form of writing in the world. subsequent radiocarbon dating on the Tartaria finds pushed the date of the tablets (and therefore of the whole Vinca culture) much further back, to as long ago as 5,500 BC, the time of the early Eridu phase of the Sumerian civilization in Mesopotamia. This finding has reversed our concept of the origin of writing, and it is now believed that the Sumerians inherited a Vinca tradition of 'magical' or 'meaningful' scripture, probably following the collapse of the Vinca homeland c. 3,500 BC. \n\nSimilar motifs have been found on pots excavated at Gradeshnitsa in Bulgaria, Vinca in Serbia and a number of other locations in the southern Balkans.
Ancient tablets found in South Bulgaria are written in the oldest European script found ever, German scientists say. The tablets, unearthed near the Southern town of Kardzhali, are nearly 7,000 years old, and bear the ancient script of the Cretan (Minoan) civilization, according to scientists from the University of Heidelberg, who examined the foundings. This is the Cretan writing, also known as Linear A script, which dates back to XV-XIV century B.C. The discovery proves the theory of the Bulgarian archaeologists that the script on the foundings is one of the oldest known to humankind, the archaeologist Nikolay Ovcharov announced Wednesday. Ovcharov, who is heading the archaeological expedition in the ancient Perperikon complex near Kardzhali, called the discovery “revolutionary”. It throws a completely different light on Bulgaria’s history, he said in an interview for the National Television.