Date: Wed, 16 May 2001 20:32:57 -0700 Subject: LANGUAGE: Bactria Margiana Archaeology Complex [hbe-l] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Wed, 16 May 2001 21:38:57 -0400 (EDT) From: Premise Checker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010513/sc/ancient_civilization_1.html Sunday May 13 4:27 PM ET Study Uncovers Pre-Writing in Asia By DIEGO IBARGUEN, Associated Press Writer NEW YORK (AP) - Archaeologists say an ancient civilization that thrived in Central Asia more than 4,000 years ago may have developed a written language or at least experimented with a form of proto-writing. Evidence of the accomplishments of the unknown people in what are now the republics of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan began to emerge over several decades of excavations by archaeologists of the Soviet Union. But it was last summer that Fredrik T. Hiebert, an archaeologist at the University of Pennsylvania, uncovered a small stone object engraved with four or five red symbols, believed to be evidence of writing. ``They had every aspect of civilization,'' Hiebert said in a telephone interview Sunday, including urban features such as large buildings and monumental arches. The only missing element, he said, had been evidence of writing. Since no one knows who the people were or what they called themselves, archaeologists have given the culture the name Bactria Margiana Archaeology Complex, or BMAC, after the ancient Greek names for two lands in the region. Hiebert made the discovery last June in ruins at Annau, Turkmenistan. He described the findings a week ago at a symposium at the University of Pennsylvania and on Saturday at a conference on language and archaeology at Harvard University. Hiebert said the artifact he found, believed to be a stamp seal made of anthracite, is the ``first evidence that we would have of a literate Central Asian society.'' Hiebert said other archaeologists have said the symbols on the seal are distinct from contemporary scripts in Mesopotamia, Iran and the Indus River valley. Stamp seals were commonly used in ancient commerce to mark containers by their contents and ownership. The artifact has been dated to 2300 B.C., when the pyramids of Egypt had been standing for three centuries, power in the Tigris and Euphrates valley was shifting from Sumer to Babylon and the Chinese had yet to develop writing. Hiebert said that Victor H. Meir, a specialist in Asian languages and cultures at the University of Pennsylvania, told him some of the symbols resembled Chinese writing, which is thought to have developed several hundred years later. The dozens of settlement ruins of the unknown civilization stretch east from Annau across the Kara-Kum desert into Uzbekistan and perhaps the northern part of Afghanistan (news - web sites). The area is 300 to 400 miles long and 50 miles wide. Hiebert described a ``vibrant debate'' at the Harvard conference over whether the symbols indicated a written language or an experiment in proto-writing. ``I don't know,'' he conceded, adding that further excavations might provide greater insight. ``One piece of evidence is hardly enough, but it has tremendous implications.'' ____________________________ To subscribe to H-NEXA, please visit [EMAIL PROTECTED]/~nexa or write to Katherine Branstetter [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Ligia Parra-Esteban Directora Fundacion VOC de Investigacion de la Comunicacion Entre Cientificos. Apartado Aereo 86745 Bogota. Colombia. http://www.mox.uniandes.edu.co/voc Telefono (+) 571-6242075 Fax (+) 571-6139654 Zona Postal 1102 E-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] Secretario Junta Directiva Luis H. Blanco <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Laboratorio de Investigaciones Basicas. Bloque 9 Ciudad Universitaria. Unidad Camilo Torres. --------------------------------------------------------------------- ============================================================================= Si necesita retirarse de la lista envie un mensaje a: [EMAIL PROTECTED] con una unica linea : unsubscribe r-caldas Para inscribirse en la lista envie un mensaje a [EMAIL PROTECTED] con una unica linea : subscribe r-caldas Los mensajes que circulan en la lista los puede consultar en : http://www.mail-archive.com/r-caldas@colciencias.gov.co
