Europeans were writing 2000 years before the Sumerians

It is a common perception that writing was invented by the Sumerians, and that it spread from Mesopotamia to the rest of the world. That is how it is taught in schools. However, new studies on the history of writing point elsewhere. According to these, the innovation which revolutionized world history was invented as early as 2000 years prior to its early stages in Sumer. The world's oldest texts have been discovered in Southeastern Europe in the region that was Old Europe, i.e. the Danube civilization. Based on these studies, a new understanding of the origin of writing emerges: whereas the old concept is ”ex oriente lux” (light from the East), the new one could be ”ex occidente lux” (light from the West).

The Hungarian archaeologist Zsófia Torma was the first to notice the symbols engraved or painted onto the surfaces of pots while directing excavations in Transylvania, Romania at the end of the 1800's. She speculated that the combinations of symbols were religious messages. She spoke of her observations at conferences, but her colleagues turned a deaf ear. As she couldn't verify the age of her discoveries, her ideas didn't spark further conversation. Later on, local archaeologists found increasingly more artifacts with pictures and symbols on their surfaces. Still, nobody could explain their significance.

This changed when Marija Gimbutas conducted excavations in Southeastern Europe in the 1970s and 1980s. She observed that the profusion of symbols in Old Europe was striking. Shan Winn, a student of Gimbutas, studied the signs found in Vinča culture and wrote a dissertation on them, which was published in Canada in 1981. Because its title refers to pre-writing, many have argued that Winn's dissertation is not about writing as such. Later, when Winn participated in a conference organized by the Institute of Archaeomythology in Novi Sad, Serbia in 2004, it became clear in discussions that he had always personally been convinced that the signs in fact were writing. He had presumed, however, that had he revealed his conviction, US academic circles in the 1970's wouldn't have accepted his dissertation. For this reason, he had complied with a "neutral" choice of words. After the conference, Winn began to write freely about Old European writing. 

The Tărtăria tablets. Transylvania, Romania; approx. 5300 BCE.

Many studies, among them Marco Merlini's monumental dissertation (2009), have been published over the last few decades. They document artifacts that contain writing, and present analyses on the structure of the Old European writing system. At present, hundreds of artifacts with series of signs on their surface (e.g. vases, cult objects, figurines, miniature altars) have been documented and dated. The total number of texts already exceeds 1100. 

The writing system of Old Europe consists of approximately 720 symbols. This corresponds to the number of symbols in other ancient writing systems, e.g. Sumerian cuneiform, or Egyptian hieroglyphs. A crucial difference is that Old European writing was invented long before these other writing traditions. Its stock of symbols is also original, i.e. not borrowed from another culture. However, since no bilingual texts have been discovered, it is not possible to decipher their exact meaning, as has been done with e.g. Egyptian hieroglyphs. Still, we do know that the signs represent entire words (i.e. logography). We can only speculate what each might signify within their particular contexts. Both the contexts and the objects onto which the signs have been engraved or painted clearly refer to religious use. Typical content of these writings might be e.g. a request for “the Goddess' blessing” or a prayer.

Examples of Danube script symbols. Some are very descriptive and their meanings can be speculated.

The initial stage of writing in the Danube civilization dates back to about 5300 BCE. The texts and awareness of their symbols spread by the same routes as trade goods. The Danube and its tributaries formed a network by which writing reached Old Europe's important dwelling places.

The writing system of Old Europe never disappeared. Instead it lived on in Crete, in the Minoan culture's Linear A writing system, as well as in Cyprus' oldest writing (Cypro-Minoan script). About 60 % of the symbols in the Danube script were transferred to Linear A. The Greeks adopted Linear A from the Minoans and adjusted it to the Greek language. It became the Linear B script of Mycenaean Greek. Even in the contemporary Greek alphabet, one can see traces of Danube script: three symbols are derived from it, but are not found in Linear A. In other words, these symbols have been adopted directly from the mainland and the cultural heritage of Old Europe.

Madonna from Rast. Romania, Vinča regional culture; early 5th millennium BCE.

Further reading:

Haarmann, Harald (2010). Einführung in die Donauschrift (An Introduction to Danube script). Hamburg (2023 Bulgarian translation)
-(2019). The Mystery of the Danube Civilisation. Wiesbaden
-(2020). Advancement in Ancient Civilizations. Jefferson, North Carolina

Harald Haarmann and Auli Kurvinen

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