Although the fragment – ​​known as the hand of Irulegi – was discovered last year by archaeologists from the Aranzadi Scientific Society who have been digging near the city of Pamplona since 2017, its significance has only recently become clear. Experts studying the hand and its inscriptions now believe it is both the earliest written example of proto-Basques and a find that “overturns” much of what was previously known about the Vascones, a Late Iron Age tribe that inhabited parts of of northern Spain before the arrival of the Romans, and whose language is believed to have been the ancestor of modern Basque, or Euskera. Until now, scholars assumed that the Vascones had no proper written language – apart from words found on coins – and only started writing after the Romans introduced the Latin alphabet. But the five words written in 40 characters identified as Vasconic suggest otherwise. The first – and only – word identified so far is sorioneku, a precursor to the modern Basque word sorioneko, meaning good luck or good omen. Javier Velaza, professor of Latin philology at the University of Barcelona and one of the experts who deciphered the hand, said the discovery finally confirmed the existence of a Vasconic written language. “People spoke the language of the Vascones in the area where the inscriptions were found,” he told the Guardian. “We kind of assumed this would happen, but until now, we’ve had almost no text to confirm it. Now we do – and we also know that the Basques used writing to record their language… This inscription is indisputable. the first word of the text is apparently a word found in modern Basque’. Velaza’s colleague Joaquín Gorrochategui, professor of Indo-European Linguistics at the University of the Basque Country, said the hand’s secrets would change the way scholars viewed the Vascones. “This piece overturns the way we’ve thought about Vascones and writing up until now,” he said. “We were almost convinced that the ancient Basques were illiterate and did not use writing except when it came to minting coins.” According to Mattin Aiestaran, director of the Irulegi excavation, the site owes its survival to the fact that the original village was burned and then abandoned during the Sertorian War between two rival Roman factions in the 1st century BC. The items they left behind were buried in the ruins of their mud brick houses. “It’s a bit of luck for archaeologists and it means we have a snapshot of the moment of the attack,” Aiestaran said. “This means that we have been able to recover a lot of everyday material from people’s everyday lives. It’s a great situation and a situation that allowed us to find a great piece.” Despite the excitement surrounding the inscription’s decipherment, Velaza advised calm study rather than confused speculation. After all, he added, the hand comes from a specific moment in time and only tells us that the people of the area then spoke and wrote the Basque language. Subscribe to This is Europe The most central stories and debates about Europeans – from identity to the economy to the environment Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. “That doesn’t mean we know how long they were there, or what their future was after that time,” he said. “It is true that this is an extremely important text, but I would like to show some caution about using it to draw too many conclusions about what happened next. But from a linguistic point of view, it will give linguists specializing in the Basque language and Proto-Basque something they haven’t had before.” He added: “I think we should be excited – but we should be very scientifically rigorous.” It did not respond to every recent discovery of the Basque language. Two years ago, a Spanish archaeologist was found guilty of forging finds that included pieces of third-century pottery inscribed with one of the earliest depictions of a crucified Christ, Egyptian hieroglyphics and Basque words that predate the earliest known written examples of the language. 600 years. Although the archaeologist, Eliseo Gil, claimed the pieces would “rewrite the history books”, a panel of experts examined them and found traces of modern glue as well as references to the 17th-century French philosopher René Descartes.