9 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

In Oman, a 4,000-year-old Early Bronze Age settlement was unearthed

25 January 2022

25 January 2022

A large settlement dating back more than 4,000 years has been discovered in Oman. Archaeological excavations in the Wilayat of Rustaq,...

Women with Sart Renovate Largest Synagogue of Ancient World

4 August 2023

4 August 2023

Village women take part in the renovation works of the largest synagogue in the ancient world, located in the ancient...

Archaeologists discovered floor mosaics with early Christian designs in Roman town of Marcianopolis, in Bulgaria

16 January 2024

16 January 2024

Archaeologists discovered floor mosaics with early Christian designs and nearly 800 artifacts in the archaeological reserve of Marcianopolis in Devnya,...

Underwater Researchers Found Temples to Ancient Gods in Sunken City

20 September 2023

20 September 2023

Two temples belonging to the Egyptian god Amun and the Greek goddess Aphrodite were found in the sunken city off...

13,000-year-old Clovis campsite discovered in Michigan

10 September 2021

10 September 2021

In St. Joseph County, independent researcher Thomas Talbot and University of Michigan scholars uncovered a 13,000-year-old Clovis campsite, which is...

Peru finds perfectly preserved a wooden figure in the Americas’ largest mud-brick city

29 June 2022

29 June 2022

A perfectly preserved wooden figure has been discovered at the Chan Chan archaeological site, in northern Peru, the Ministry of...

Dark secrets of Korea’s famous Wolseong palace complex are unearthed

8 September 2021

8 September 2021

The remains of an adult woman were discovered at the base of the Wolseong palace in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang province,...

A first-of-its-kind Ayyanar stone idol found in Vellore, India

25 June 2022

25 June 2022

An Ayyanar stone idol, the first of its kind in Vellore, was discovered at Thandalai Krishnapuram (TK Puram) in Tamil...

Neolithic Age Adults and Children Buried Under Family Homes were not Relative

3 May 2021

3 May 2021

An international team of scientists found that Children and adults buried next to each other in one of the oldest...

Secrets of the Galloway Hoard Revealed

27 May 2021

27 May 2021

Experts have uncovered fascinating secrets of a Viking Age hoard discovered by a metal detector to be presented to the...

A 3800-year-old cylinder seal was discovered at Turkey’s Tepebag Mound excavations

8 July 2022

8 July 2022

In the 2022 excavations of Tepebag Mound, located around Taşköprü, the center of Adana province in Turkey’s Mediterranean Region, a...

“Oracle Bone Inscriptions”, the world’s oldest writing system that has not disappeared in history

5 June 2023

5 June 2023

“Jiaguwen,” or the oracle bone inscriptions, are thought to be the earliest fully-developed characters as well as the source of...

Anatolia’s Trade Secrets: The Unveiling of a Rare Neolithic Obsidian Mirror Manufacturing Hub

25 February 2025

25 February 2025

A recent study has applied a techno-functional approach to investigate the production and use of obsidian mirrors found at Tepecik...

Bronze belt of Urartian warrior found in the ancient city Satala

29 May 2022

29 May 2022

During the excavations in the ancient city of Satala, located in the Kelkit district of Gümüşhane province in Turkey, a...

King Stephen 12th Century rare penny hoard found near Wymondham

21 November 2023

21 November 2023

An unnamed metal detectorist recently discovered a scarce collection of 12th-century silver pennies near the village of Wymondham in the...