Tărtăria tablets
The Tărtăria tablets () are three tablets, reportedly discovered in 1961 at a Neolithic site in the village of Tărtăria (about from Alba Iulia), in Romania. The tablets bear incised symbols associated with the corpus of the Vinča symbols and have been the subject of considerable controversy among archaeologists, some of whom have argued that the symbols represent the earliest known form of writing in the world. Accurately dating of the tablets is difficult as the stratigraphy pertaining to their discovery is disputed, and a heat treatment performed after their discovery has prevented the possibility of directly radiocarbon dating  the tablets. Based on the account of their discovery which associates the tablets with the Vinča culture and on indirect radiocarbon evidence, some scientists propose that the tablets date to around , predating Mesopotamian pictographic proto-writing. Some scholars have disputed the authenticity of the account of their discovery, suggesting that the tablets are an intrusion from the upper strata of the site. Other scholars, contesting the radiocarbon dates for Neolithic Southeastern Europe, have suggested that Tărtăria signs are in some way related to Mesopotamian proto-writing, particularly Sumerian proto-cuneiform, which they argued was contemporary. Discovery. In 1961 members of  a team led by Nicolae Vlassa, an archaeologist at the National Museum of Transylvanian History, Cluj-Napoca in charge of the site excavations, are reported to have unearthed three inscribed but unfired clay tablets, together with 26 clay and stone figurines and a shell bracelet, accompanied by the burnt, broken, and disarticulated bones of an adult female sometimes referred to as "Milady Tărtăria". There is no consensus on the interpretation of the burial, but it has been suggested that the body was, if not that of a shaman or spirit-medium, that of a local most respected wise person. Disputed  authenticity. There have been disputes as to whether the tablets were actually found at the site and Vlassa was never willing to discuss the circumstances of the find or the stratigraphy. The authenticity of the engravings was disputed from the beginning. A recent claim of forgery is based on the similarity between some of the symbols and reproductions of Sumerian symbols in popular Romanian literature available at the time of the discovery. Description. Two of the tablets are rectangular and the third is round. They are all small, the round one being only across, and two—the round one and  one rectangular tablet—have holes drilled through them. All three have symbols inscribed only on one face. The unpierced rectangular tablet depicts a horned animal, an unclear figure, and a vegetal motif, a branch or tree. The others have a variety of mainly abstract symbols. Dating. Workers at the conservation department of the Cluj museum baked the originally unbaked clay tablets to preserve them. This made direct dating of the tablets themselves through carbon 14 method impossible. The tablets are generally believed to have belonged to the Vinča-Turdaș culture, which was originally thought to have originated around 2700 BC  by Serbian and Romanian archaeologists. The discovery caused great interest in the archeological world as it predated the first Minoan writing, the oldest known writing in Europe. Subsequent radiocarbon dating of the other Tărtăria finds, extended by association also to the tablets, pushed the date of the site (and therefore of the whole Vinča culture) much further back, to as long ago as 5500 BC, the time of the early Eridu phase of the Sumerian civilization in Mesopotamia. Still, this is disputed in the light of apparently contradictory stratigraphic evidence. If the symbols are indeed a form of writing, then  writing in the Danubian culture would far predate the earliest Sumerian cuneiform script or Egyptian hieroglyphs. They would thus be the world's earliest known form of writing. This claim remains controversial. Historical context. Hypothesis of Danubian culture. The term Danubian culture was proposed by V. Gordon Childe to describe the first agrarian society in central and eastern Europe. This hypothesis and the appearance of writing in this space is supported by Marco Merlini, Harald Haarmann, Joan Marler, Gheorghe Lazarovici, and many others. Proposed links to Sumerian culture. Colin Renfrew argues that the apparent similarities with Sumerian symbols are deceptive : Possibly related finds in the region. Artifacts bearing Vinča symbols. The Vinča symbols have been known since the late 19th century excavation by Zsófia Torma (1832–1899) at the Neolithic site of Turdaș (Hungarian: "Tordos") in Transylvania, at the time part of Austria-Hungary, the type site of the Tordos culture, a late, regional variation of the Vinča culture. Other artifacts. This group of artifacts, including the tablets, have some relation with the culture developed in the Black Sea – Aegean area. Similar artefacts are found in Bulgaria (e.g. the Gradeshnitsa tablets) and northern Greece (the Dispilio Tablet). The material and the  style used for the Tartaria artefacts show some similarities to those used in the Cyclades area, as two of the statuettes are made of alabaster. Purpose and meaning. The meaning (if any) of the symbols is unknown, and their nature has been the subject of much debate. Writing system. Scholars who conclude that the inscribed symbols are writing are basing their assessment on a few assumptions which are not universally endorsed: If they do comprise a script, it is not known what kind of writing system they represent. Vlassa interpreted one of the Tărtăria tablets as a hunting scene and  the other two with signs as a kind of primitive writing similar to the early pictograms of the Sumerians. Some archaeologists who support the idea that they do represent writing, notably Marija Gimbutas, have proposed that they are fragments of a system dubbed the Old European Script. Non-linguistic signs. A problem is that there are no independent indications of literacy existing in the Balkans at this period. Sarunas Milisauskas comments that "it is extremely difficult to demonstrate archaeologically whether a corpus of symbols constitutes a writing system" and notes that the first known writing systems were all developed by  early states to facilitate record-keeping in complex organised societies in the Middle East and Mediterranean. There is no evidence of organised states in the European Neolithic, thus it is unlikely they would have needed the administrative systems facilitated by writing. David Anthony notes that Chinese characters were first used for ritual and commemorative purposes associated with the 'sacred power' of kings; it is possible that a similar usage accounts for the Tărtăria symbols. Some scholars have suggested that the symbols may have been used as marks of ownership or as the focus of religious rituals. An alternative suggestion is  that they may have been merely uncomprehending imitations of more advanced cultures, although this explanation is made rather unlikely by the great antiquity of the tablets — there were no known literate cultures at the time from which the symbols could have been adopted. Others consider the pictograms to be accompanied by random scribbles.