luni, 8 aprilie 2019

EXTRACTING THE UTMOST FROM THE SIGNS

In my latest post “The Tartaria tablet’s scribe dilettante?” I presented the question wich is bothering me most:                                                                                                                        
“How could be explained the presence on Tartaria tablets of such a great amount of signs wich has allmost exact sumerian proto-cuneiform shapes?  
From Археологические вести. Спб, 1994. Вып. 3. Аннотации. — ИИМК РАН
www.archeo.ru › annotations-of-issues
Because signs Nos.2, 4, 6, and 10 of the Tartaria tablets (fig.4)
have only early proto- Sumerian parallels, it may be assumed that other ...

                                  Because I must make known, from all known writing systems, the signs are closest to that sumerian proto-cuneiform ones, (folowed mabe by those Anatolian-ones, and not by that Aegeean-ones) *                                                                                                                      
After a research wich lasted some years, only when got aquitance of the existence of sumerian proto-writing phase, I found absolutely all necessary signs needed for an reading attempt in sumerian proto-cuneiform sign lists.                                                             After my preceding post I realised that analising the signs, I get more clues regarding the tablets itself and olso the supposed writing, the signs beeing the only/single physical absolute certain evidence at hand!                                                                                           With regrets you must know that I could not rely on allmost or any data furnished by archeologists. When discussion comes to scribe and tablets origin archaeologists give an extremely large (and as consequence, of no much practical use )area and time line.Even more, as time is passed, instead some issues to be much precised, (luckily only some) archaeologists come with hypothesis of the existence of Danubian writing (Vinca-Turdas writing) with no concrete exemple, and come with a pure fictional dramatis personae as the shaman-priestess, “Lady of Tartaria” rather apropiate for a mooving-picture story.                                                                                      Nota bene, woman wich was allready dead some hundred even thousend of years before the tablets were written, so she cannot handle them.(5.300 BC for bones, 2.500-max 3.000 B.C. for tablets, upon world scientists)
SUMERIAN TABLETS AND SCRIBE ?                                                        
The hypothesis of an Sumerian origin for the tablets  was advanced for the first time by the tablets discoverer, archaeologist  N.Vlassa. For 100 reasons (from wich I am presenting to you only some) this is not feasable, beeing practical impossible.
- Original sumerian tablets with proto-writing on them were not found in other places that those in wich this incipient fase of writing appeared: Sumer/Irak, respective URUK(actual Warka), JEMDAT NASR and ELAM… and list is allmost ending.                    
The explanation can be that this kind of tablets were used only there at the places where this kind of writing was discovered, only for a period of time and for purposes wich could be applied/useful only to high hierarchical social-economical developed societies.They used there and remained buried there.                                                                  
 Was of no use in other places, because cannot be interpreted only by those wich knowed how this writing works and what the signs are signifying                                                               
 - There was not found not a single-one even in Levant and less in Anatolia or Europe/Aegean areas.                                                   
- as the material support for writing beeing clay, there is hard to believe to be taken such a long distance unbroken.
- an hypothetical sumerian migrant if not forgot to write, in the years-long endeavour to Europe, could use them only in a sumerian comunity and not in one of tottaly different language and organisation or structure.                                 
- only half of the signs have exactly sumerian counterpart signs shape.
- the tablets contain some rather modern sign shapes (PA/Het/archaic Eta and D), used :    first :                                                                                                                                                        
 - "PA" after 2.500-2.200 B.C.. and

 - 2nd ("D")only after 1.000 B.C., mainly from 500 B.C.

From https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-Cretan-Hieroglyphic-table-of-signs-by-Evans-1909-232-3_fig1_273096050   Sign No.45
       From http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/alphabet_letters_dalet.html
alphabet_chart_dalet_1
55933745_1749522625149298_2987605257124577280_n

 TABLET’S AEGEAN (or Anatolian?) ORIGIN HYPOTHESIS.                                                                                                                                                                                                                        This variant was embraced (probably out of options) by most of world scientists.Same by me, not finding a better one..
One of the possible explanations possible is that presented by greek scientists G.PAPAKITSOS and I.KENANIDIS, that first, early minoans were in fact sumerian migrants settled in Crete. Even so,

- there is only a single sumerian sign PA wich has the exact shape and sounding in Aegean writings, that beeing cretan hieroglyhic, linear A and B, “PA”.

- there was  found not a single tablet of this kind anywhere in Anatolia,Aegean area,Europe; none even in Levant.

- the artefacts wich contain kind of proto-writing (undeciphered Cretan hieroglyphic) have far, distant-related to sumerian signs.  
                                                                                    
An sumerian influence certainly existed, but sign-pairs choosen by above mentioned scientists to show the sumerian proto-cuneiform influence, are not the best ones and not at all convincing. ( totally oposite when talking of Phoenician influence on early Mediterranean alphabetic writings)
- on any item found in Aegean, Balcans and Mediterranean  was not found so many identical and similar with sumerian proto-cuneiform signs, as on Tartaria tablets.(Identical sum.proto-cun. signs :AE,AS,PA,AMAR,BA,AB).
One possible explanation with very little chances, could be that tablets originated from Aegean (Crete!) from a period of time earlier than 2.200 B.C. when it is expected that sumerian proto-writing influence existed and was direct and strong, so Tartaria tablets beeing the single proof wich exists in the World.
But attention, other sign other signs are not so close in shape:
- sumerian SE not identical with Aegean TE                                    
- sumerian AS: have no Aegean counterpart in shape                            
- sumerian AMAR have only in some instances the same long-eared donkey-head in Aegean sign MA
- sumerian BA has no identical shape counterpart                
 - sumerian AB is only “like” Aegean sign LABRYS
 -the only pair wich is exact the same in shape and sound is the sign PA                                                           
TABLETS: SINGLETONS, SOARING IN UNCERTAINTY, TENDING TO BECOME IRELEVANT AND NOT FINDING OWN PLACE
Question:                                                                                                                                               
 if relevant for wich culture? Maybe for that sumerian wich is closest ? For Aegean?      Cause that Vinca-Turdas is excluded for many reasons allready displayed.
This in the situation that nothing is sure about them nor the age, excepting the reality of the signs. It is arising an stringent and acute question:                                                               
  - in what circumstances, where, when and how the scr ibe got aquitance of this group of signs used only around 3.000 B.C. !?                                                                            
This could be possible in only two circumstances:
- in a period close to the above
- or sometime close to our time In any period of time this particular group of signs was not used and there were no means to transmit data from Sumer elsewhere, so to get aquitance of them as is easily possible nowdays.                                                                                   
Note                                                                                                                                              
 To realise that even simple gathering of such signs is not an easy task, I can tell that even top-level assyrologists (even one specialised in sumerian proto-cuneiform, A.A.Vaiman) in their reading attempts passed over a couple of signs anaware that pertain to proto-sumerian sign list, wrong signs identification, and not giving an interpretation for others.I am reffering here to A.Falkenstein. A.A.Vaiman, Rumen Kolev.  From my recolection, bu I am not sure, only Rumen Kolev noticed that signs could be related to those Aegean-ones. 
So in the place of conclusions, regarding different problems wich arise coresponding to different situations,

- the obstacles we are facing when considering the sign or writing transmission from Aegean to Tartaria are not of technical nature i.e. the movement of the scribe or of the tablets, but are basical-ones:                                                                                                              


 - the time-span between begining of writing in Sumeria and same Aegean fphase is more than some hundred years, is 1.000 years! ((3.200 B.C. visa 2.200 B.C.)                                                   

Even when appeared in Crete (Cretan hieroglyphic writing 2.200 B.C), were not taken from sumerians as such; the sign shapes are quite far if one compare with sumerian counterpart.                                                                                                                       
So the signs are not like Aegean-ones so an Aegean origin is in darkness/ incertainty, arising a big question mark.. So to be fair, the chances to com from modern time are greater than coming from deep ages.
THERE IS AN ETEROGEN SUMERIAN-LIKE GROUP OF SIGNS.                                              THE WRITING IS NOT GENUINE SUMERIAN NOR AEGEAN,                                                     AN COHERENT MESSAGE IS NOT EMERGING OUT OF THE THREE TABLETS,              BUT THERE ARE SLIGHT CHANCES TO HAVE TRUE WRITING IN THE UPPER HALF OF THE ROUND TABLET,
                                                                                                                       
Interesting the single-one(out of me) wich noticed similarity with archaic greek! From https://www.academia.edu/8899844/Chapter_3_Existence_of_an_archaic_script_in_Southeastern_Europe_A_long_lasting_querelle_from_the_book_Neo-Eneolithic_Literacy_in_Southeastern_Europe


"Subsequently, between 1908 and 1926, Miloje M. Vasić excavated the tell of Vinča, on the south bank of the Danube 14 kilometers from Belgrade, and other settlement mounds nearby where he unearthed numbers of statuettes and vessels bearing geometric motifs which reminded him the inscriptions found on the archaic Greek vessels from Lesbos, Troy and Melos. Then he made the reasonable assumption that the “incised signs and marks” on the artifacts held at Vinča in a complete block of households with a fascinating stratigraphy of almost 10 meters, belonged to an early Greek colony of the 7th and 6th centuries BC, such as those of the Southern Italy (Vasić 1910). He also took for granted that some incised incisions were letter signs or potters’marks; a presumption historically justified by the parallels - both graphical and conceptual – he made with the archaic Greek signs.
                                                                                                                                                               SO WHO, WHEN AND WITH WHAT PURPOSE SCRATCHED THE SIGNS !?

=========================================== 

   "such as those of the Southern Italy (Vasić 1910)."                                                             From god in Sicilian https://glosbe.com/en/scn/god                                                                
ddiu :A deity: An idol                                                                                                     
(DDou=DDIOU,ddiu?)
========================================
From https://www.academia.edu/9108229/Chapter_4_part_I_Debugging_the_process_of_building_a_repertory_of_the_Southeastern_European_signs_from_the_book_Neo-Eneolithic_Literacy_in_Southeastern_Europe
  • "Sixth, Makkay considered the signs from Vinča culture and neighboring cultures of Southeastern Europe as a whole. He did not deal with regional variants. Seventh, the author collected many signs from the Vinča culture and from its related and coeval cultures of Southeastern Europe, but contradicted himself maintaining that Turdaş signs have no contemporary European parallels at all because the occurrence of signs was restricted to the Vinča culture (Makkay 1969: 13, 14).Makkay did not care about this contradiction, because his statement that Turdaş and Vinča signs are isolated in Neolithic cultures of Southeastern Europe was instrumental in claiming their resemblance to Near Eastern-Anatolians signs and attempting consequently to prove that as early as the Vinča A period the appearance ofTurdaş signs belonged to the framework of Near Eastern influences, connected to a feature of the Vinča culture that was unique among Southeastern European cultures. The assumed close Anatolian connection was transliterated in his framework into actual Anatolian origin of some elements including the signs. In other words, “even during the period Vinča A, perhaps in its beginning, such influences of Anatolian backgroundand partly of Mesopotamian origin, directed towards the Danube region, have to be reckoned with, and thesewere accompanied by the appearance of pottery signs and ornamental motifs very similar to, even somehow connected with the Mesopotamian ones (Makkay 1969: 14). For this reason, he did not create a historical framework for the
    not Vinča European signs and he did not investigate their interconnections with Vinča and neighboring cultures sign systems. The conflicting fact with is statement is that Turdaş and Vinča signs actually have many coeval or nearly coeval parallels in Southeastern Neolithic Europe.Eighth, another contradiction in Makkay’s framework negatively influenced the subsequent studies made byother scholars. On the one hand, he asserted he was attempting to compare Southeastern European
     signs with Mesopotamian pictographs, but on the other hand, he observed that usually the first ones were pottery signs whereas the second ones were pictographs. It is very important his stressing that very few of the European signs have a picture-like character which one may recognize as a living being or an object, etc. (Makkay1969: 11), but how to compare these abstract signs with Near Eastern pictorial writing symbols? Finally,Makkay’s collection and classification of signs compared them with the signs of the Near Eastern Chalcolithic rather than to develop an internal analysis of a Neolithic and Copper Age European system of signs.Makkay’s pioneering classification of Turdaş signs has some remarkable sights for the task of establishing an inventory of the Danube script. First, he attempted to identify, detect, and classify marks that were clearly not decorative motifs vs. the mood of the time dominated by scholars with the propensity to claim that any mark is a decoration. Second, it is the first systematic gathering and classification of signs from the Neolithic of Southeastern Europe. The survey enlarged the traditional geographic boundaries considering not only Turdaş and Vinča settlements, but also the whole Vinča culture as well as the related cultures of Southeastern Europe"

duminică, 7 aprilie 2019

ON "INVENTION OF WRITING" issue

Excerpts from:                                                                                                                                      Selected Papers of Beijing Forum 2004 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042810012449

The Sumerian Account of the Invention of Writing —A New Interpretation                                                                                                      

Gong Yushu Professor für Assyriology, Oriental Literature Research Centre / Dept. of Oriental Studies, Foreign Languages School, Peking University

"The invention of writing is something that fascinate not only modern scholars, but also their ancient counterparts. Almost all ancient people with a written history have their own accounts of the invention of writing. These accounts, embedded in their literature, reflect the annotations they could give on the origin of their own writing systems. 
These accounts are written forms of oral traditions, the beginning of which is lost in the darkness of history. 
The written forms of the accounts of the invention of writing usually came into existence several hundred years, or more, after the invention, at a time when the writing system had become capable of such an account. In the case of Mesopotamia, the earliest known account pertaining to the invention of writing which is usually interpreted as “the Sumerian account of the invention of writing” dates back to the Ur III (2112-2004 B.C.) period, was a millennium apart from the earliest evidence of the proto-cuneiform writing from Uruk
The Sumerian narrative poem (also called epic) containing such an account is known among modern scholars as Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta, first transliterated and translated into English and made available to the public by S.N.Kramer in 1943. ………….

According to the poem, Enmerkar, the second ruler of the First Dynasty of Uruk, sent a messenger to Aratta, a remote city separated from Uruk by seven great mountains, demanding that the people of Aratta bring gold, silver, lapis lazuli, and many other precious stones, and build for him various shrines and temples, particularly the Abzutemple in Eridu (lines 3364). ………….

Following the advice of Inanna, the protective deity of his city, Enmerkar selected an eloquent messenger and sent him to Aratta to deliver his demand and threat by repeating what he said to him verbatim. Refusing to submit, the Lord of Aratta raised each time a prerequisite condition for his subjugation that seemed impossible to meet. The messenger had to go back and forth playing the role of the verbal transmitter between the two kings. However, as the battle of words became more fierce and the content of the messages more complicated, the messenger became linguistically overwhelmed.                        ………………  
                                                                                                           
The messenger, whose mouth was heavy, was not able to repeat it. (502) Because the messenger, whose mouth was heavy, was not able to repeat it, (503) the Lord of Kulaba patted some clay and wrote the message like (on) a tablet. (504) Previously, the writing of messages on clay did not exist. (505) Now, under that sun and on that day, it indeed so exist. (506) The Lord of Kulaba wrote the message like on a tablet. It was indeed so.” This passage is generally regarded as the Sumerian account of the invention of writing and the writing medium clay tablet, and Enmerkar as their inventor. In the words of Komoroczy: “It is clear, that the author of the epic here intended to describe the invention of clay tablet (viz. the Mesopotamian writing material) and the writing on it (viz. the cuneiform writing);...In the eyes of the author, Enmerkar is the inventor of the indigenous writing.”
First, although it is stated explicitly in this composition that the Lord of Kulaba patted some clay and wrote the message-like on a tablet and that the writing of messages on clay did not exist formerly, it is not stated here that the writing of messages on media other than clay tablet (DUB, IM) did not exist. This may imply that in the mind of the Sumerians the writing of messages on other medium had been in existence prior to the events described in this composition including writing message on clay by Enmerkar took place  …………..
Second, it is clearly stated in the following passage of the same composition that the Lord of Aratta could read and understand what was written on the tablet handed over to him by the messenger from Uruk.        ….……….                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           O Lord of Aratta, after you have examined the clay tablet, after you have learned the content of the message, (525) say whatever you will say to me” …………….
Otherwise it would be hard to imagine, how the Lord of Aratta could read and understand the written message on clay that was just invented. Third, there is still a passage that may be taken as evidence that the Lord of Aratta understood the written message on clay presented to him by the messenger of Enmerkar, his powerful challenger.  .………..

After he had spoken thus to him, (537538) the Lord of Aratta received his kiln-fired tablet from the messenger. (539) The Lord of Aratta looked at the tablet. (540) The spoken words were just nails, and his brow was full of anger. (541) The Lord of Aratta looked at his kiln-fired tablet.” The crucial message of this passage lies in line 540 which is, however, subject to different interpretations. Kramer translated this line as follows: The commanded word is nail-like, the appearance is ...” and commented further:                 
This line “seems to describe the appearance of the written signs; on the other hand, it may perhaps describe in some way the Lord of Aratta’s despondency upon reading its contents.” This supposition presupposes that the Lord of Aratta understood the content of the written message he was looking at. Jacobsen agreed apparently with the supposition made by Kramer. His translation is “The words were fierce words, were frowning.” The Lord of  Aratta was frowning, because the words were fierce words. It is no question here that Jacobsen meant that the Lord of Aratta understood the content of the written message. The latest attempt to interpret this line is made by Glassner who allies himself with Jacobsen in opinion,xvii but differs from him slightly in wording: “The word spoken was the nail is inserted’, it was an imperious command.” For Komoroczy it is no doubt that “der Herr von Aratta die Note Enmerkars richtig verstanden hat.”  ...............
                                                                                                              
 as for his interpretation “The Lord of Aratta sees only nails where he had expected words. He is angry or depressed, however hard he keeps looking, it is hard for us to imagine how could the Lord of Aratta have “expected words” by not being reluctant to see the “nails.” Since Sumerian “words” can only be expressed by “nails,” the rudemental elements of the Sumerian (cuneiform) script, we must in fact pose the question, how could he not expect to see “nails,” if he had expected to see “words”?                                   Reading Sumerian is nothing but fingering out words from the interwoven “nails.” It is as true of the past as of the present. In other word, the assumption that the Lord of Aratta could not understand the message written by Enmerkar cannot be borne out by the text, however logical it may sound.  .....................                                                             
In this sense, what Enmerkar did should not be regarded as the invention of writing, but as the initial transformation of the writing medium, from a certain material to clay. Furthermore, as we have seen from the argument we made above, that the Lord of Aratta did understand the message on clay written by Enmerkar has also textual support, and the literacy, or the ability, of the Lord of Aratta to understand the written message leads logically to the conclusion that writing on materials other than clay had already been in existence prior to Enmerkar’s “invention” of writing on clay.                         That is the point of this “Sumerian account of the invention of writing”! This conclusion, borne out by the text, can also be supported by the following facts and observations………….. 

               (2) Some signs of the proto-cuneiform writing from Uruk do not seem to be the original invention on clay, but borrowings of signs already in existence on materials other than clay. The head of some animals such as donkey (ANŠE), ibex (DARA3), and ox (GIR3). and some other signs made up of curves and circles such as IDIGNA (a kind of bird), NAM (swallow) and even LAGAB (a circle depicting a kind of enclosure) and its incorporated derivatives which were difficult to draw on clay, may be taken as such examples.                                                                                                     (3) The proto-cuneiform writing system from Uruk displays such a high degree of complexity, stability and conventionality that it does not seem to represent the earliest stage of writing. This has already led many scholars to believe that the proto-cuneiform writing from Uruk represents a mature writing system, the beginning of which is lost in the darkness of prehistory. Unfortunately, traces of such an assumed earlier stage have not yet been discovered, so that “whether the pre-Uruk writing was on clay or perishable materials, took place in Uruk or elsewhere, and was used for sacred or economic purposes, we have no way of knowing. But absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.                                                                                                                              (4) Recently, Whittaker has propounded a theory about the origin of the proto-cuneiform writing that deserves our attention. He proposes that certain signs of the proto-cuneiform writing such as GIRI3 “foot” (sign-form is the picture of an ox’s head in profile) and GURUŠ “young, able-bodied worker” (sign-form is the picture of a vehicle in profile) might have been of Proto-Indo-European origin.
Image from  https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTsstxV_ujijPUgIfQMe7hpKIBufUot1XBnkplXI52CXV3Ag0PX9w


2.Possible PIE-Pictograms Proposed by Whittaker

The Sumerians borrowed them and adapted them for their own use on the basis of the phonetic similarities, that is, similarities between the pronunciations of the words they stood for in the Proto-Indo-European script and those for which they were to stand in the Sumerian                                           To be sure, his evidence so far lies entirely in the area of comparative linguistics and has not yet been favoured by archaeological substantiation, and his interpretation of the proto-cuneiform text W 16632,b of the Uruk IV in Proto-Indo-European is less convincing. But the direction of his thought is interesting. It coincides, to some extent, with the direction of thought which the Sumerian account of the invention of writing leads us to, that is, before the Sumerian invention of clay tablets, writing materials other than clay might have been in existence. Briefly stated, the passages we quoted above from the Sumerian epic composition Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta suggest that writing on materials other than clay was already in existence in southern Mesopotamia prior to the point when Enmerkar wrote the message on clay, and that Enmerkar was not the one who invented writing for the first time, but the one who transformed writing already in existence from a material that remains unmentioned in the text to clay, and that the transformation of the writing medium had its subsequent effect on the appearance of the signs. Furthermore, we see an explicit hint in them that the Sumerians ascribed the transformation of the writing  medium to man, while the invention of writing to gods, as is the case of another Sumerian literary composition known as Inanna and Enki.    We know for certain that the earliest evidence of the proto-cuneiform writing on clay tablet comes from Uruk IV, at the end of the fourth millennium B.C. (ca. 3200 B.C.), a time when the transformation of the writing medium described in our literary composition Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta, must have taken placeAccording to the Sumerian Kinglist, Enmerkar is the second ruler of the First Dynasty of Uruk,  who is assigned by most chronologies to the Early Dynastic II period, several hundred years later than the earliest evidence of the protocuneiform texts on clay from Uruk IV.


vineri, 5 aprilie 2019

QUORA: What is currently known about the Tărtăria tablets and the Vinča symbols?

    quora.0-1                                                                                                                                         From https://www.quora.com/What-is-currently-known-about-the-T%C4%83rt%C4%83ria-tablets-and-the-Vin%C4%8Da-symbols

miercuri, 3 aprilie 2019

“TO BE OR NOT TO BE”(i.e.”Danubian writing”; A NEVER-ENDING STORY ?

“TO BE OR NOT TO BE”(i.e.”Danubian writing”; A NEVER-ENDING STORY ?





ATTENTION:                                                                                                                                            Not be confused: Tartaria tablets not pertain to Vinca-Turdas Culture, they are later products !

In many of my posts, I allready expressed my opininion regarding the subject.                         Allmost all scientists agree that neolithic Vinca-Turdas not got to the final stage in matter of writing.Even more.                                                                                                          I stressed that not ataint even the proto-writing stage (no single evidence or proof).On other opinions side, remained few scientists, in fact only one ,italian Marco Merlini wich remained in the “conservative” part. Folowing, is an excerpts wrom a paper wich is expressing in full my view regarding the supposed “Danubian writing”:

From ALL SHADES OF GRAY:THE CASE OF “VINČA SCRIPT”*                                     Aleksandar Palavestra Department of Archaeology, Faculty of Philosophy University of Belgrade https://www.academia.edu/36456625/ALL_SHADES_OF_GRAY_THE_CASE_OF_VIN%C4%8CA_SCRIPT_Archaica_5_2017_143-165

Marco Merlini, an Italian journalist, a member of the Archaeomythological Institute and the author of the project “The Prehistory Knowledge“, laid down in a lengthy
contribution the semiotic approach to the features of “the Danube Script“, and
explained why the signs of the script can hardly be discerned from ornaments:
„Writing and decoration can both be finalized to transmit messages, packages of
information. The whole world outlook of prehistoric farmers was ex pressed in the
ornamentation: the Land and Under ground World, the Sky, the Sun, the Moon,
the Stars, the Plants, Animals, and People… Observant people can see complete
‘texts’ composed from ornaments: it is raining, grain is falling to the ground, it is
sprou ting… (Videiko 2002). (…) Some signs (for example, A, V, M, X, +, and some
naturalistic motifs such as sun, rain, bird, tree) can be, depending on the context,
either a written sign or decoration (Gimbutas 1991). Script signs and decoration
can live together on the same object. (…) Both written signs and decoration could
have been conceived for aesthetic purposes” (Merlini 2005, 239, 241).
Following such criteria, it is indeed very easy to recognize a script anywhere,
even among the clouds. The Merlini hypothesis is a good example of a bad
hypothesis in terms of Karl Popper – the one that does not exclude anything
and is therefore scientifically completely useless and non valid (Popper 1972),
impossible to refute since, according to Merlini’s criteria, everything can be a
sign, an ornament and a script at the same time.
After the same fashion, following the principle encompassing virtually
everything, Merlini states:
“The Danube Script is a very archaic system of wri ting, so
it consists probably of a mix of logograms, ideograms, pictograms and some limited
phonetic elements occasionally and marginally marked. Logo grams, ideograms,
pictograms were mainly derived from the language of abstract symbols” (Merlini
2005, 241).
At the same time, he neglects the fact that in the case of the most
ancient autonomous scripts (cuneiform, Egyptian, Chinese, Mayan)the cognitive
priority was to represent words rather than sounds, and that in all the known cases
the abstract form was a later stage in the development of literacy. In the words of……………………………………………..
                                                                                                  
According to Ranko Bugarski,
a script is „a system of communication among people via conventional visible signs, especially linguistic“, and „linguistic units on various levels of language structure can be considered as script“(Bugarski 1997:10). A script mainly means WORDS that can be PRONOUNCED, not notions.      There is, of course, a notional script, but it is not abstract. Even if we accept more than dubious material and „recognition“ of signs among the abundance of ornaments, symbols, and accidental scratches, the Vinča signs are too abstract and geometrized even to be a notional script (where are notions and words?). On the other hand, these signs are too scarce, heterogeneous, isolated and unsystematic, without a single text, sentence, or even a word, to be a phonetic script. ………………………………                                                         

Someone has to say out loud that this is, from the ingenious „discovery“ of
Pešić on, a case of the Emperor’s new clothes. On the grounds of the evidence
presented, it is conclusive that the Vinča script does not exist.                                                Not even a protoscript.
After the exhibition in Novi Sad and the published catalogue, I am
inclined to say that even signs are sporadic. It is more plausible that Pešić & co.
found their script on the pebbles from a beach.”