Bulgaria’s Burgas Showcases for the First Time 7,000-Year-Old Ceramic Prism with ‘Pre-Alphabetic Writing’

1/5. The signs on the Early Chalcolithic ceramic prism which has been made public by the Burgas Museum of History could be a form of pre-alphabetic writing. Photo: Burgas Regional Museum of History

A nearly 7,000-year-old ceramic prism with what might be pre-alphabetic writing has been unveiled to the public for the first time by the Regional Museum of History in Bulgaria’s Black Sea city of Burgas.The prism-shaped prehistoric artifact featuring the supposedly pre-alphabetic signs on its four sides was discovered during the excavations of an Early Chalcolithic settlement mound near Burgas back in 2008, and has never been shown to the public before.

The artifact (and the Burgas Chalcolithic Mound where it was found) dates back to the Early Chalcolithic (Aeneolithic, Copper Age) – 4,900 / 4,850-4,600 / 4,550 BC, the Burgas Regional Museum of History has announced.

“The archaeologists believe that 7,000 years ago when the ancient people made the clay artifact, they put their own signs on its four sides. They encrusted the engravings they had made with white paste," the Museum explains.

2/5. A view of the other sides of the prehistoric ceramic prism

The newly unveiled Chalcolithic ceramic prism is described as “an extraordinary item from the most ancient history of the people who inhabited the lands of today’s Burgas".This, however, is not the first such ceramic prism with “pre-alphabetic signs" to have been discovered in the Chalolithic settlement mound in Burgas but the third one. [...] archaeologyinbulgaria.com