Dispilio Tablet

The Dispilio tablet is a wooden tablet bearing inscribed markings, unearthed during George Hourmouziadis's excavations of Dispilio in Greece, and carbon 14-dated to 5202 (± 123) BC.[1] It was discovered in 1993 in a Neolithic lakeshore settlement that occupied an artificial island[2] near the modern village of Dispilio on Lake Kastoria in Kastoria, Western Macedonia, Greece.

A: samples of carved "signs" on the wooden Dispilio tablet and clay finds from Dispilio, Greece. B: samples of Linear A signs. C: samples of signs on Paleo-European clay tablets.

Discovery
Main article: Dispilio

The lake settlement itself was discovered during the dry winter of 1932, which lowered the lake level and revealed traces of the settlement. A preliminary survey was made in 1935 by Antonios Keramopoulos. Excavations began in 1992, led by George Hourmouziadis, professor of prehistoric archaeology at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. The site appears to have been occupied over a long period, from the final stages of the Middle Neolithic (5600–5000 BC) to the Final Neolithic (3000 BC). A number of items were found, including ceramics, wooden structural elements, the remains of wooden walkways,[3] seeds, bones, figurines, personal ornaments, flutes and one of the most significant findings, the inscribed tablet.

The tablet's discovery was announced at a symposium in February 1994 at the University of Thessaloniki. The site's paleoenvironment, botany, fishing techniques, tools and ceramics were published informally in the June 2000 issue of Eptakyklos, a Greek archaeology magazine and by Hourmouziadis in 2002.

The tablet itself was partially damaged when it was exposed to the oxygen-rich environment outside of the mud and water in which it was immersed for a long period of time, and so it was placed under conservation. The full academic publication of the tablet apparently awaits the completion of conservation work.

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See also

References
  1. Facorellis, Yorgos; Sofronidou, Marina; Hourmouziadis, Giorgos (2014). "Radiocarbon dating of the Neolithic lakeside settlement of Dispilio, Kastoria, Northern Greece". Radiocarbon. 56 (2): 511–528. doi:10.2458/56.17456.
  2. Whitley, James. "Archaeology in Greece 2003–2004". Archaeological Reports, No. 50 (2003, pp. 1–92), p. 43.
  3. Similar walkways have been found on the Somerset Levels (Whitley 2003:43).

Sources
  • G. H. Hourmouziadis, ed., Dispilio, 7500 Years After. Thessaloniki, 2002.
  • G. H. Hourmouziadis, Ανασκαφής Εγκόλπιον. Athens, 2006.
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