Archaeologists uncover a mysterious stone tablet in Georgia that contains an unknown language – and it’s like NOTHING seen before
Archaeologists have discovered a mysterious stone tablet containing traces of an ancient lost language.
The basalt slab was accidentally discovered in 2021 by a group of local fishermen who spotted it in the silt of Lake Bashplemi, Georgia.
Carved into the surface are 60 characters arranged in seven rows, 39 of which are unique.
Archaeologists say these strange symbols are not found in any language known to science.
Although there are similarities with scripts from India, Egypt and western Iberia, archaeologists say the Bashplemi inscription does not use any recorded language.
It has not been possible to date the tablet chemically, but based on the area found, the engravings could date from the late Bronze or early Iron Age about 14,000 years ago.
The researchers say there is no way of knowing what message the ancient writer was trying to convey, but they think it may have been something important.
If some of the repeated figures are numerals, the researchers suggest they could be a record of military loot, an important construction project, or an offering to a deity.
Archaeologists have found an ancient stone tablet (pictured) that contains a lost language completely unknown to science
The tablet was discovered by chance in 2021 when a group of fishermen discovered it buried in the silt of Lake Bashplemi in Georgia during a particularly dry season.
The tablet’s 60 characters appear to have been created using a surprisingly ‘developed and refined’ technique for the time of its creation.
An ancient scribe would have first drilled a series of notches to outline each symbol, before smoothing out the pattern with a round tool.
The result is a series of curved shapes, lines and points that are completely different than ever before.
The closest symbols to those on the Bashplemi Tablet are found in Proto-Kartvelian, an ancestor of modern Georgian spoken in the fourth millennium BC.
Likewise, some similar shapes have been found in ancient seals used in pre-Christian Georgia during the early Iron Age.
Archaeologists believe these simple bone stamps were likely used by officials such as tax collectors to mark quantities of wine and other goods.
Furthermore, in their article published in the Journal of Ancient History and Archeology, the researchers note similarities with even more exotic scripts.
They write: ‘In general, the Bashplemi inscription does not repeat any script known to us; however, most of the symbols used therein resemble those found in the scripts of the Middle East, as well as those of geographically remote countries such as India, Egypt, and Western Iberia.”
The tablet contains 60 characters, 39 of which are unique, arranged in seven rows. They were carved by drilling into the stone (shown by the small circles) before the shapes were smoothed with a round tool
The tablet was buried in the silt of Lake Bashplemi, Georgia, which experts believe has been inhabited since the Early Bronze Age.
However, no ancient language is perfectly aligned with any known language, making its origins a complete mystery.
The municipality of Mansi where the tablet was found, in the historic Dbaniskhevi region, was once home to a thriving civilization dating back to the early Bronze Age.
Excavations have even found tools made of stone and obsidian for processing skins, indicating a long period of occupation.
In the area around Lake Bashplemi, drone surveys have revealed sets of regular circles that could be burial mounds, and geometric shapes that could be the remains of houses, defenses and places of worship.
Interestingly, the researchers say there could be a connection with a lost language referenced in Greek mythology.
In the myth of Jason and the Argonauts, the legendary Captain Jason must travel to the land of Colchis to find the Golden Fleece.
Although Colchis was often seen as a mythical land of wealth, it was actually a real region on the Black Sea in what is now Georgia.
According to ancient Greek sources, the people of Colchis had a writing system that was called the ‘Golden script’.
The most similar script is found on seals (photo) used by officials in pre-Christian Georgia around the fourth millennium BC. The authors say this could connect the table to the lost language known as Colchian runes
In 1115, the Byzantine scholar Saint Eustathius of Thessalonica even wrote: “The purpose of the Argonautic expedition was to learn the method of the Golden script.”
Yet all traces of this ancient language, now known as the Colchian runes, have been lost to time.
This may be because the original population of Colchis used organic writing material, such as bone or wood, that has long since decayed.
But the researchers now suggest that the Bashplemi tablet could be somehow related to the Colchian runes.
However, without further archaeological excavations in the area, it is impossible to know for sure what the tablet says or who its creators were.
The researchers conclude: ‘Deciphering the inscription discovered in historic Dbanischevi could prove to be a remarkably interesting and important event and this could potentially change the stereotypes about certain historical phenomena as well as key aspects of the origin and development of the scripts in the Caucasus.