The Anomalous Dispilio Tablet 5000 and 500 BCE
Preserved in the mud of a Greek lake its wood has been dated to about 5000 BCE yet this is a jumble of Akkadian runes in the Aegean letter style dating to about 500 BCE. (see Sea People's Letter Chart) The simplest explanation for this anomaly is that this tablet represents someone practicing letter writing on a ancient piece of soft wood found under the water around the lakeshore. When done this person threw it back into the water where it was preserved for another 2500 years.
Photo from The Greek Reporter at: https://greekreporter.com/2023/09/25/dispilio-tablet-earliest-written-text-greece/
The Dispilio Tablet
(April 6, 2024) Quote from the description of the book: Radiocarbon Dating of the Neolithic Lakeside Settlement of Dispilio, Kastoria, Northern Greece published online by Cambridge University Press February 9, 2016:
Dispilio is the only excavated Neolithic lakeside settlement in Greece. Archaeological research provided evidence that the site was continuously used from the Early Neolithic (∼6000 BC) to the Late Chalcolithic period (∼1200 BC, Mycenaean period). During several archaeological campaigns, a portion of the settlement has been excavated that enabled a sufficient understanding of the architectural layout of homes, the building materials, and the organization of space, while the finds (fragments of pottery, stone and bone tools, anthropomorphic and zoomorphic clay figurines, miniature representations of objects also on clay, animal and fish bones, charred cereal grains, and other fruits) provided information on the everyday lives of the Neolithic inhabitants. A series of charcoal and wood samples, originating mostly from the Middle and Late Neolithic layers of the site, were radiocarbon dated and their dates range from ∼5470 to 4850 BC. The most unexpected of the finds, a wooden tablet from the lake bearing engraved symbols, was 14C dated to 5260 ± 40 BC. In addition, clay tablets and pottery vessels engraved with similar symbols were also unearthed from layers dated to the same period. If this proves to be a primary source of written communication, the history of writing should be reconsidered and Neolithic societies should not be considered “societies without writing.”
Reference
Facorellis Y, Sofronidou M, Hourmouziadis G. Radiocarbon (2014) Dating of the Neolithic Lakeside Settlement of Dispilio, Kastoria, Northern Greece. Radiocarbon. 2014;56(2):511-528. https://doi.org/10.2458/56.17456The Dispilio Tablet and the Real Origins of Writing
(April 6, 2024) Good video by CivilisatoPedia.
Discovered back in 1993 by George Xourmouziadis, a professor of prehistoric archaeology, the Dispilio tablet was unearthed during excavations of a Neolithic lake settlement near the city of Kastoria in northern Greece. This ancient settlement was actually discovered back in 1932 during a dry winter when the water levels of Lake Kastoria were particularly low.
Prehistoric Settlement Of Dispilio – Kastoria | Greece [4K]
(April 6, 2024) Airial drone film of the existing tourist site at Dispilio in Greece by Point Of View GR.
The was a long lived Neolithic farmer village located in a marsh.