More than 2,000 years after it was hung from the door of a mud-brick house in northern Spain, a flat, lifesize bronze hand engraved with dozens of strange symbols could help scholars trace the development of one of the world's most mysterious languages.
The Hand of Irulegi, which was discovered last year by archaeologists from the Aranzadi Science Society, has become more important recently.
The hand is believed to be the oldest written example of Proto-Basque, and it is also believed to have been written before the arrival of the Romans.
After the Romans introduced the Latin alphabet, scholars were able to understand that the Vascones had no written language. There are five words written in Vasconic.
Sorioneku, meaning good luck or good omen, is the first word to be identified.
The hand was deciphered by a professor of Latin philology at the University of Barcelona.
There are some sounds and phonemes that don't exist in Iberian characters, but which have been seen in coins in Vascones territory.
The Hand of Irulegi proves the existence of a specific Vasconic writing system.
The hand's secrets will change the way scholars look at the Vascones.
He said that the piece upended how they had thought about the Vascones. When it came to minting coins, we were almost certain that the ancient Vascones were uneducated.
The mud-brick houses they lived in were destroyed.
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Aiestaran said that it means we have a snapshot of the moment of the attack. A lot of day-to-day material has been recovered. The situation has allowed us to find an exceptional piece.
The recent Basque language discovery has not lived up to its billing. Two years ago, a Spanish archaeologist was found guilty of faking finds that included pieces of third-century pottery engraved with depictions of the crucified Christ, Egyptian hieroglyphics, and Basque words that predated the earliest known written examples of the language by 600 years.
An expert committee looked at the pieces and found traces of modern glue as well as references to the 17th century French philosopher René Descartes.
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