Stone reveals ancient writing system
Date: Saturday, September 16th, 2006 (CDT )
Topic: Ancient History
 It’s more than idle doodling, and the meaning is unclear. But there’s one thing researchers are sure of: The insect, ear of corn, inverted fish and other symbols inscribed on an ancient stone slab is the earliest known writing in the Western Hemisphere.
The arrangement and pattern of the symbols suggest the ancient Olmec civilization was using written language roughly three centuries earlier than previously proposed. “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 patterns covering the face of the rectangular block also represent a previously unknown ancient writing system — a rare find in archaeology.
The text
covers the block’s face, which is almost exactly the dimensions of a
standard legal pad. However, at 5 inches (12 centimeters) thick and
tipping the scales at 26 pounds (12 kilograms), the tablet is decidedly
more hefty.
The face is smooth and
slightly concave, which suggests it may have been worn down in
antiquity as it was inscribed and erased multiple times, Houston said.
Discovered years ago
Villagers in the Mexican
state of Veracruz discovered the tablet sometime before 1999, while
quarrying an ancient Olmec mound for road-building material. News of
the discovery slowly trickled out, and the study’s authors traveled to
the site earlier this year to examine and photograph the block.
Based on other materials,
including pottery sherds, believed found with the slab, team concluded
it is roughly 2,900 years old. Isolated signs similar to those
inscribed on the block also appear on even older figurines found
elsewhere in Mexico.
In 2002, other experts
claimed an Olmec cylindrical seal and chips from a stone plaque
contained the oldest examples of writing in the Americas. Some have
disputed their interpretation of those symbols, which date to roughly
650 B.C.
“This is centuries before
anything we’ve had. People have debated whether the Olmecs had any
writing. This clears it up. This nails it for me,” David Stuart, a
University of Texas at Austin expert in Mesoamerican writing, said of
the new find. Stuart was not connected with the discovery, but reviewed
the study for Science.
Was it a dead-end script?
The block contains 28
distinct glyphs or symbols, some of which are repeated three and four
times. The writing system doesn’t appear to be linked to any known
later scripts, and may represent a dead end, according to the study.
Other experts unconnected
to 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.
The Olmecs flourished
between about 1200 B.C. and 400 B.C., before other great Central
American civilizations like the Maya and Aztec. They are best known for
the massive heads they carved from stone. The village where the block
was found is close to a site called San Lorenzo, believed to be the
center of the Olmec world.
“To me, this find really
does bring us back to this idea that at least writing and a lot of the
things we associate with Mesoamerican culture really did have their
origin in this region,” Stuart said.
The small size of the block
and the faintness of the inscription imply the text wasn’t a public
document, but instead was meant for intimate reading, Houston said.
Some suggested it may have had a ritual use.
Copyright: MSNBC
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