Are Vinča symbols writings?

[bushbush]

I don't know much about this topic so I will ask for the help of others.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vin%C4%8Da_signs

The Vinča symbols, or signs, also known as the Vinča alphabet, Vinča-Turdaş script, or Old European script, are a set of symbols found on prehistoric artifacts from southeastern Europe. A few scholars believe they constitute a writing system of the Vinča culture, which inhabited the region around 6000-4000 BC. Most, however, doubt that the markings represent writing at all, citing the brevity of the purported inscriptions and the dearth of repeated symbols in the purported script; it is all but universally accepted among scholars that the Sumerian cuneiform script of c. 3400 BC is the earliest form of writing. It is more likely that the symbols formed a kind of "proto-writing"; that is, that they conveyed a message but did not encode language.

However, subsequent radiocarbon dating on the Tărtăria finds pushed the date of the tablets (and therefore of the whole Vinča culture) much further back, to as long ago as 5500 BC, the time of the early Eridu phase of the Sumerian civilization in Mesopotamia.[2] Still, this is disputed in the light of apparently contradictory stratigraphic evidence.[3]


If the symbols are indeed a form of writing, then writing in the Danubian culture would far predate the earliest Sumerian cuneiform script or Egyptian hieroglyphs. They would thus be the world's earliest known form of writing. This claim remains controversial.






the only thing sure to me is the top right one in the second pic is DEFINITELY not writing lol. It looks like a goat to me.

[Stavroforos]

These definitely don't seem to be writing, that is, of a language. Maybe some sort of numeric system in some cases, but most of the pictures seem to be engravings of items...

[bushbush]

These definitely don't seem to be writing, that is, of a language. Maybe some sort of numeric system in some cases, but most of the pictures seem to be engravings of items...

what's the definition of a writing system anyways, academically speaking?

[Stavroforos]

No idea, actually, just comparing them with the languages I know, which all use individual sounds as letters combined to form words, rather than have words correspond to a symbol, like I believe it is in Chinese, and how it might be in the above plate. Still, hard to know if it's a language when the word for "goat" is an image of a goat...

[intel]

No idea, actually, just comparing them with the languages I know, which all use individual sounds as letters combined to form words, rather than have words correspond to a symbol, like I believe it is in Chinese, and how it might be in the above plate. Still, hard to know if it's a language when the word for "goat" is an image of a goat...

Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs? LOL

[bushbush]

Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs? LOL

we know they record events and are used systematically for information transfer. But goat drawing of Vinca symbol....same level as hieroglyphs?

[Stavroforos]

Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs? LOL

Indeed, but again, I think it's hard to tell what these symbols mean when they could simply be representations of say, a goat, grain, etc.

[Pious Agnost]

They don't look that much like a writing system to me.

But I have no qualifications to say so, I'm just observing

[Odovacar]

It's a very amateuer writing I think. Writing begun with using pictures for words.
It doesn't look like a finished writing system too.

[CiviC]

If they transmit a message (not an artistic message but something concrete) they are a form of writing. Writing started with pictograms, meaning that the word goat was written by drawing a goat. If you wanted to say "the goat runs" you represented it by drawing a runing goat. Then symbols for words became more abstract. Later from pictograms were derived symbols for syllabs. Then only in later stages symblos coresponded with only one sound.

During Neolithic Danube Valley was the seat of very important archeological cultures so it's not impossible that they knew the concept of writting.

I could be a form of writing because there are also like abstract symbols there (derived from objects too).

[bushbush]

If they transmit a message (not an artistic message but something concrete) they are a form of writing.

the criteria i would add is that they have to be widely accepted form of information transmitting in a community. Otherwise, he can draw his goat and i can draw mine. There is no standard and a writing system thus does not exist. so maybe two keys here:

1. are these drawings transmitting message, information and knowledge?
2. is it a standard within the community and widely used?

and Civic? are these writings?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiahu_Script

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i think both are probably proto-writing scripts/symbols.

[CiviC]

the criteria i would add is that they have to be widely accepted form of information transmitting in a community. Otherwise, he can draw his goat and i can draw mine. There is no standard and a writing system thus does not exist. so maybe two keys here:

1. are these drawings transmitting message, information and knowledge?
2. is it a standard within the community and widely used?

and Civic? are these writings?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiahu_Script

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i think both are probably proto-writing scripts/symbols.

Writting was restricted probably to a very small cercle of initiated people, maybe priests/shamans. In fact untill recent times writting was not "widely used" by most people : mass literacy is a recent phenomenon.

I think there was a standard, but we can't be aware of it as the signs are to few, and we don't know if the writting was used only for a short amount of time by some shamans then it was lost forever.

[Odovacar]

Until we find more Tataria writing we can't say this was an existing system instead of some proto-writing.

[DAVIDE]

from what i know, the world oldest script has been found in Jiroft in 2007 and it dates back to 3200 BC

[Aru]

Symbols were drawn to mean something, or they wouldn't be drawn.
However, when does the painting of man hunting bisons stop being a painting and becomes a writing with description of hunting?

Then also the symbols could mean to show something that doesn't tell a story, but helps with marking something in everyday or religious life.

Something like Orion Pot of younger, but nearby Vučedol Culture.

[Boer]

A definition of writing system/alphabet that I often hear requires the symbols used to represent something other than themselves (if a picture of a bear represents a bear it's not a writing system, but is if bear = strong or the "b" sound it is). I don't know how scientific/academic this definition is, or how such a definition regards some hieroglyphics-style writings.

As for the Vinca symbols, according to Wiki, over a thousand fragmented inscriptions have been found, but 85% are of lone symbols. It is hard to think of any lone symbol as a writing system (an "A" by itself is nothing). I think more artifacts need to be found containing multiple symbols, the longer the better, before anyone can really made a solid claim to Vinca symbols being a writing system.

[CiviC]

It is maybe a writting symilar to the Aztec one

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Aztec was pictographic and ideographic proto-writing, augmented by phonetic rebuses. There was no alphabet, but puns also contributed to recording sounds of the Aztec language. Unlike the Maya Script, Aztec is not considered a true writing system because there was no set corpus of signs or set rules on how they were used. Instead, Aztec scribes created individual compositions, with each scribe deciding how to represent the ideas he wished to convey.[2] The only conventionalized signs that were for a few plants, animals, parts of the human body, natural phenomena, some cultural artifacts, and the names of the first 20 days of the calendar. And in native manuscripts, the sequence of historical events are indicted by a line of footprints leading from one place or scene to another. Names of towns were often represented by pictures of typical vegetation of that region. These logographic glyphs were used by other peoples of Central Mexico who spoke different languages.[2]
The ideographic nature of the script is apparent in abstract concepts, such as death, represented by a corpse wrapped for burial; night, drawn as a black sky and a closed eye; war, by a shield and a club; and speech, illustrated as a little scroll issuing from mouth of the person who is talking. The concepts of motion and walking were indicated by a trail of footprints.[3]
A glyph could be used as a rebus to represent a different word with the same sound or similar pronunciation. This is especially evident in the glyphs of town names.[4] For example, the glyph for Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital, was represented by combining two pictograms: stone (te-tl) and cactus (nochtli).
Aztec writing was not read in any particular order, and the glyphs were not written linearly, but arranged to ideographically represent a scene. At the bottom of the picture would be the ground, at the top the sky, and in between the actors and scenes of the narrative.[3]
Since the Aztecs had not discovered the rules of perspective, distance is shown by placing the furthest figures at the top of the page and the nearest at the bottom. Relative importance is indicated by size: a victorious king, for example, may be drawn larger than his defeated enemy. Color is also important. The signs for grass, canes, and rushes look very much the same in black and white, but in color there could be no mistake: in the Codex Mendoza grass is yellow, canes are blue, rushes green. A ruler could be recognized at once from the shape of his diadem and from its color, turquoise, which was reserved for royal use[5]

Other option is they are maybe totemic symbols designed to protect the one who wears them.

[bushbush]

Other option is they are maybe totemic symbols designed to protect the one who wears them.

actually that's a good point, religious writing is usually the earliest survived work because they are one of the earliest activities that require some sort of record. In china's case, the early writings on turtle shells were for such purposes.

[Ummon]

the only thing sure to me is the top right one in the second pic is DEFINITELY not writing lol. It looks like a goat to me.

http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/3_al.html

[Carpathian Wolf]

Yes although it's a combination of writing and pictographs. When I took Chinese for example I learned that the word for pork (iirc) the evolved drawing of a pig under a house because that is where Chinese kept their pigs. I can't say that the Tartartia tablets are the oldest in the world, but the oldest in the world found so far. In any case I think it shows evidence of a very old history in that area. The Tigris and Euphrates, the Nile, the Yellow River, the Donaris, all have a long history.