6 July 2025 The Future is the Product of the Past

The first Iberian lead plate inscribed with an archaic script was found at Pico de Los Ajos in Yátova

At the Pico de Los Ajos site in Valencia, Spain, a rare lead sheet engraved in ancient Iberian was unearthed.

While there are more inscribed lead sheets known, nearly all of them were unlawfully dug. This is one of just a few uncovered by archaeologists during controlled excavation, and its setting is especially important here since paleographic evidence shows it is far older than the site.

The lead plaque was found bent and has inscriptions on both sides to form a single text, with specialists have been able to identify Iberian symbols written between the 4th and 3rd centuries BC, while other similar plaques generally date back to later centuries.

“This site has one of the largest sets of texts written in Iberian on the entire peninsula”, says David Quixal. The sheets of lead used as writing support are relatively common in the deposits of the Iberian culture. The Pico de los Ajos, a town located in the town of Yátova, was inhabited at least since the 7th century BC and was later abandoned between the first century BC and the first century AD.

Although it has been researched in terms of phonetically, it is still not clear what information the section contains, nor is it clear the context in which it should be placed. The researchers ruled out any relationship with a commercial or administrative nature, implying that it may be a religious text. The team identified a person named “tořaibeleś” in the text, who may be the author or commissioned the writing of the text.

Pico de los Ajos Yatova
The Pico de los Ajos Yatova.

There are no complete parallels among Iberian lead sheets. It has a one-of-a-kind mix of properties, including its small size, folding, and incorporated brief text on both sides. Plates unearthed in El Amarejo’s votive well are the closest cognates, however, they are only written on one side. Even so, it seems likely this sheet had a votive purpose as well, as its text and morphology rule out that it is correspondence, commercial, or a label.

“Iberian is a language that still cannot be translated, but which experts are making gradual progress to identify words to interpret what type of texts they were”, explains David Quixal, professor of Archaeology and one of the authors of the article.

A study detailing the discovery and interpretation of a lead plate with Iberian writing, the first obtained in a regulated excavation in Pico de Los Ajos (Yátova), one of the most important Iberian sites, has been published by a multidisciplinary research team from the University of Valencia (UV), the Prehistory Museum of Valencia (MPV), and the University of Barcelona (UB).

Source: Ruvid

Related Articles

A painted Wooden Saddle Discovered in an Ancient Tomb in Mongolia Represents Earliest Evidence of Modern Horse Riding

13 December 2023

13 December 2023

Researchers unearthed a wooden saddle framed with iron stirrups in a tomb in Urd Ulaan Uneet, popularly known as the...

Truncated conical tombs 3,000 years old found in the Chapultepec Forest

26 November 2023

26 November 2023

Archaeologists from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) unearthed 10 truncated conical tombs, approximately 3,000 years old, at...

A Special structure Contemporary to Göbeklitepe found at Gre Fılla Höyük in Eastern Turkey

4 August 2022

4 August 2022

Pit-bottomed structures dating to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic period were found at Gre Fılla Höyük (Gre Fılla Mound) in the province...

2,000-Year-Old Artifacts Found at Swat’s Butkara Site in Pakistan, Including Coins and Kharosthi Inscriptions

14 February 2025

14 February 2025

Excavations at the Butkara Stupa, located near Mingora in Swat, Pakistan, have uncovered significant findings, including two-thousand-year-old coins, pottery, and...

The Gallo-Roman Sanctuary Unearthed in France

30 June 2024

30 June 2024

During a recent archaeological excavation in the old Hôtel Dieu neighborhood of Rennes in north-western France, archaeologists discovered the remains...

5700-year-old monumental Menga Dolmen reveals it as one of the greatest feats of Neolithic engineering

6 December 2023

6 December 2023

A new investigation tracing the source of the gigantic stones that make up the Menga dolmen in southern Spain reveals...

Archaeologists may have found Lyobaa, the Zapotec Land of the Dead

1 July 2023

1 July 2023

An archaeological team from the Lyobaa project has confirmed the existence of a vast Zapotec underground complex in their study...

New Discoveries Made in World’s Oldest Ancient Shipyard

11 June 2024

11 June 2024

Associate Professor Hakan Öniz, who discovered the world’s largest and oldest shipyard dating back to the Bronze Age in 2015...

Europe’s Oldest Boomerang: A 40,000-Year-Old Mammoth Ivory Artifact Discovered in Poland

27 June 2025

27 June 2025

An international team of scientists has uncovered the oldest known boomerang in Europe, a 72-centimeter tool meticulously carved from mammoth...

3,000-Year-Old Cave Paintings Discovered in Itatiaia National Park in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

13 April 2025

13 April 2025

In a stunning revelation, a dedicated team of researchers from the National Museum, in collaboration with the Federal University of...

World’s Oldest Murder

14 February 2021

14 February 2021

Researchers found a mass grave in a cave in Spain, now known as Sima de los Huesos, or the Pit...

Danish museum says Vikings had stained glass Windows

15 October 2023

15 October 2023

New research shows that  Viking Age windows were created using stained glass in the 9th century, contrary to popular belief...

A new study reveals more than one person was buried in a tomb where the famous Nestor’s Cup was found

6 October 2021

6 October 2021

The Tomb of Nestor’s Cup, a burial that contained one of the oldest known Greek inscriptions, was more crowded than...

Study refutes previous assumptions, DNA evidence rewrites story of people buried in Pompeii eruption

8 November 2024

8 November 2024

Researchers from the University of Florence, Harvard University, and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig analyzed the...

Archaeological excavations started again after 50 years in Tunceli Tozkoparan mound

28 June 2021

28 June 2021

Archaeological excavations at the Tozkoparan Mound in Turkey’s Tunceli province are anticipated to turn the city into one of eastern...