Mysterious Stone Slab Bears Ancient Writng

[Milton Bradley]

CNN.com - Mysterious stone slab bears ancient writing - Sep 15, 2006

Quote by: link WASHINGTON (AP) -- An ancient slab of green stone inscribed with insects, ears of corn, fish and other symbols is indecipherable so far, but one message is clear: It is the earliest known writing in the Western Hemisphere. The ancient Olmec civilization probably produced the faintly etched symbols around 900 B.C., or roughly three centuries before what previously had been proposed as the earliest examples of writing in the Americas. "We are dealing with the first, clear evidence of writing in the New World," said Stephen Houston, a Brown University anthropologist. Houston and his U.S. and Mexican colleagues detail the tablet's discovery and analysis in a study appearing this week in the journal Science. The pattern of symbols covering the face of the rectangular block also represents a previously unknown ancient writing system. The text contains 28 distinct glyphs or symbols, some of which are repeated three and four times. The writing system does not appear to be linked to any known later scripts and may represent a dead end, according to the study. Other experts not involved in the study agreed with Houston and his colleagues that the horizontally arranged inscription shows patterns that are the hallmarks of true writing, including syntax and language-specific word order. "That's full-blown, legitimate text -- written symbols taking the place of spoken words," said William Saturno, a University of New Hampshire anthropologist and expert in Mesoamerican writing.

Hehehe, cool.


I wish I would have known that I liked this stuff so much as a younger man. I might have actually studied to be an archeologist, or an anthropologist.