DISCOVERY OF UNKNOWN SCRIPT CHARACTERS IN GEORGIA: THE BASHPLEMI LAKE TABLET

Abstract. In Georgia, numerous sites date back to the Bronze Age. Nearby Bashplemi Lake, the site of the discovery of a basalt tablet bearing an inscription with unknown characters, is the site where the skull of a 1.8-million-year-old hominin, the first European, was discovered. This tablet, which bears 60 signs, 39 of them different, raises the question of the origin of the Georgian script, proto-Georgian. While the basalt on which it is based is known to be of local origin, its meaning is unknown and there remains a long way to go to decipher it. An initial comparative analysis conducted with over 20 languages shows that the characters, which could belong to an aboriginal Caucasian population, beside proto-Georgian and Albanian writing signs, bear some similarities with Semitic, Brahmani, and North Iberian characters.