Mysterious engraved rock that lay unstudied for 4,000 years could be a TREASURE MAP for lost monuments in France, scientists say

For 4,000 years, the meaning of mysterious marks on a Bronze Age stone tablet was kept secret.

Not anymore, but.

This is because scientists are now treating the inscribed rock as a “treasure map” to search for lost antiquities in France.

Dubbed the “San Belek Slab,” it was considered the oldest map in Europe by researchers in 2021, and they have been working ever since to understand its inscriptions.

These include elements that the team said they would expect in a prehistoric map, including “repeated motifs linked by lines to give the map layout.”

“Using a map to try to find archaeological sites is a great approach. We never work that way,” said Ivan Bailer, a professor at the University of Western Brittany.

Most commonly, archaeologists rely on radar equipment and aerial photography to discover ancient sites, while some are discovered by chance during construction work.

“It’s a treasure map,” Byler said.

The only drawback is that it will take researchers a long time to decode it, perhaps 15 years to be exact.

This is because the map outlines an area approximately 18.6 miles (30 km) by 13 miles (21 km), meaning that cross-referencing all the markers by surveying the area would take nearly two decades.

Bailer and his colleague Clement Nicola, from the CNRS Research Institute, They were part of the team that rediscovered the slab in 2014.

It was first discovered in 1900 by a local historian who did not understand its significance, and then remained in the castle’s basement for more than 100 years.

This means that researchers only began studying the 5-foot-by-6-foot stone in detail about six years ago.

Experts from universities in France and around the world then joined Bailer and Nicholas in an attempt to decipher the secrets of the mysterious rock.

“There were a few engraved symbols that made sense right away,” Byler said.

These included bumps and jagged lines that researchers said represented rivers and mountains in Roodewalk, part of the Brittany region about 310 miles (500 kilometers) west of Paris.

The rock also contains small cavities that experts believe could indicate burial mounds, dwellings or geological deposits.

They added that if it could indeed be deciphered, it could lead to further discoveries beyond what has already been discovered.

Researchers have also They scanned the plate and compared it to existing maps, allowing them to determine an 80% match with natural features in the western Brittany region.

Among their other discoveries is that the terrain was intentionally three-dimensionally shaped to represent the Odette River Valley, while several lines depict the river network.

However, there is a lot of work we need to do.

“We still have to identify all the engineering symbols and the myth that goes with them,” Nicola said.

Archaeologists are also conducting excavations at the spot where the tablet was discovered more than a century ago. like One of the largest Bronze Age burial sites in Brittany.

“We are trying to better contextualize the discovery, to find a way to date the painting,” Byler said.

The excavation process has already uncovered some previously undiscovered parts of the stone, which were broken up and reused as a wall for the tomb.

Nicholas said the discovery suggested that a once-prosperous ancient kingdom collapsed in a series of revolutions and rebellions thousands of years ago, damaging the inscribed rocks.

He added: “The inscribed plaque no longer made sense and was doomed to be broken and used as building material.”

When it was first discovered in 1900, experts moved the stone to the National Archaeological Museum in 1924, before it was moved to a stratum in France, and scientists eventually rediscovered it in 2014.