A Paris, la force ispirante de la diaspora scientifique, d'innovation et entrepreunariale renforce la collaboration internationale au service de l'humanite 

As for the past, immigration seems to be at the heart of the crucible of the oldest civilization in Europe, could it be the source of the oldest writing? At a time of questions and conflicts on the subject of immigration, the development of nationalist anti-immigration political programs, we could learn from ancient history the major role of immigration for the civilisation and the survival of the humanity? Indeed, when the Frenchman François Desset manages to decipher linear Elamite in 2020, as a writing system used in Iran 4,400 years ago in an archaic proto-Elamite version (from 3300 BC), we confirm its integration into the two oldest known writing systems in the world, the Mesopotamian proto-cuneiform (3000 BC) and the Egyptian hieroglyphics (3000 BC).

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"The oldest examples of writing known to date come from Mesopotamia (current Iraq) and date back to the Bronze Age, around 3300 years BC: these are proto-cuneiform tablets. Linear Elamite decryption calls this supremacy into question! ”Indeed, we find that around 2300 BC, a parallel writing system existed in Iran, and that its oldest version - called proto writing -elamite, (3300 BC - 2900 BC) - went back as far in time as the first Mesopotamian cuneiform texts! specifies François Desset. Also, I can now say that writing did not first appear in Mesopotamia and then later in Iran: these two systems, the Mesopotamian proto-cuneiform and the Iranian proto-Elamite, were in fact contemporary! There was not a mother script of which the proto-Elamite would be the daughter, there were two sister scriptures. On the other hand, in Iran, there were not two independent writing systems either as specialists thought until then, with the proto-Elamite on one side and the linear Elamite on the other. , but the same writing which has been subjected to historical evolution and has been transcribed with variations during two distinct periods. "Francois Desset had declared for the press in 2020 (by Bernadette Arnaud on 07.12.2020 at 16h54). Desset considers that his new discoveries will finally allow us to access the own point of view of the men and women occupying a territory they designated by Hatamti, while the term Elam by which we have known him until then, does not correspond in fact to an external geographical concept, formulated by their Mesopotamian neighbors. Terracotta cone with linear Elamite inscriptions dated to around 2500-2300 BC (© François Desset).

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But what do we know about the origin of writing and the role of immigration, migrations, in the creation and diffusion of writing in the construction of civilisations for a long time. The source or sources of writing! While the names of those who discovered ancient writings are well known in the East, Abbot Barthélémy, Sylvestre de Sacy or even de Champollion and that the French archaeologist François Desset, from the Archéorient Laboratory in Lyon, announced on November 27, 2020 that he had succeeded in deciphering inscriptions in Iran that are 4,400 years old, the Vinca or Tartaria writing in Europe 5000 BC remains ignored by the majority of historians and above all no link is made with the writings of the East, which however predate those of Europe and despite their resemblance. But journalists, like Noble Wildford, twice Pulitzer Prize winner, has the courage to write in 2009 the famous article  which highlights a matriarchal civilisation older than that of Sumer, in the current region of Moldavia and Ukraine: the Cucuteni Trypilia civilisation (5000 years BC).

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The similarities of figurines of Cucuteni and Vinca Civilisation (goddesses, women in form of violin, the bull, the wheel, etc. ) with those of Hittite civilisation (AlacaYohuk goddesses, Kultepe women) mentioned also in the Bible (at Hatusa the Hittite capital with the greatest defensive ramparts ever built in the ancient world, Turkey’s newest UNESCO World Heritage Site, Göbekli Tepe, or the Catal Hoyuk where has been discovered the oldest city in the world dated 8000 B.C.) questions the relations between all theses forgotten civilisations (already using in the 5 millennium B.C. the symbols of sphinx, rosette, lion man, the Hittite headdress similar to the « future » Dacian headdress encrypted on the Trajan Column after having conquered Dacia in 106 après J.-C.) and their rapid influences on those well known of Egypt and Babylon. 

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By following the articles of our colleagues journalists in the New York Times (John Noble Wilford, Jonathan Corum) and historians (Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, Princeton University Press) the place of present-day Europe may be as important as a crucible of genesis of writing with Vinca writing, Tartaria (tablets, 3000 BC) Cucuteni culture (4000 BC), Hamangia (5000 BC) which demands us to question ourselves on the possible links with the writings already much studied, under - mentioned, on the similarities and the probable evolutions from the same source of writing: today's Europe and Balkan région.

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The writing of the Tablets of Tartaria (5000 BC) is, considering the Carbon 14, dating the oldest in the world with similarities to the Phoenician, Etruscan and Greek writing.

 

The oldest culture in Europe and Balkan, melting pot of the oldest writing in the world?

 

In his New York Times article on November 30, 2009, “A Lost European Culture, Pulled From Obscurity,” our colleague John Noble Wilford dared to put in context the discovery of the oldest culture in Europe in the same period before the Sumerian civilization and in the same region of the Danube and the Balkans "before the glory of Greece and Rome", with advances during 1500 years starting at 5000 BC in the field of art with the refined teracota pottery, with figurines and signs, (evidence of the spirituality and political power of women in society, with assemblages and artefacts of gold and copper, technology and city building. An exhibition with 250 artefacts from the museums of Bulgaria, Moldavia, Romania was organized in 2009 for the first time in the United States at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University under the title: “The Lost World of Old Europe: the Danube Valley, 5000-3500 BC, ”.

 

The exhibition generated several documents by fellow journalists but left silent historians who have not yet succeeded in deciphering neither the Vinca writing nor the writing of Tartaria dating from the same period and from the same region: "Dr . Jennifer Chi, "television broadcast: Sunday Arts, WNET, January 27, 2010.; "The Lost World of Old Europe," radio broadcast: The Leonard Lopate Show, WNYC, January 14, 2010. mp3 and slideshow of objects from the exhibition. ; "Ancient Artifacts," television broadcast: Eye on New York, WCBS, December 6, 2009.; Andrew Moseman, “Advanced, Overlooked Ancient European Culture Arrives in America,” 80beats | Discover Magazine, December 1, 2009.; John Noble Wilford, “A Lost European Culture, Pulled from Obscurity” The New York Times, November 30, 2009.; Michael Balter, “The Lost World of Old Europe: See It in New York” Origins: A History of Beginnings (ScienceMag.org), November 25, 2009; Christine Lin, “Lost Artifacts of Old Europe Arrive in New York.” Epoch Times, November 13, 2009. David W. Anthony, curator of the exhibition had already declared for our colleague from the New York Times that around 4500 BC the civilization of old Europe was among the most technologically advanced and sophisticated in the world and testifies to the technological and ideological political advances of its own. to a civilization Dr. Anthony who is Professor of Anthropology at Hartwick College in Oneonta, N.Y., and author of “The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World.”

 

The New York Times had also noticed that historians suggest the arrival in South East Europe of the peoples of the steppes may have contributed to the collapse of the people of the culture of Old Europe around 3500 BC In addition, Roger S. Bagnall, specialist in Egyptian archeology and director of the Institute, (for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University) recognized that until then "a large part of archaeologists have never heard of the culture of Old Europe" and that 'at the time the "Egyptians did not make such a quality of pottery" Princeton University Press has published a catalog which is a compendium of discoveries on the culture of Old Europe (but not to mention the discoveries of scriptures on clay at the same time: Tartaria, Vinca, in the region) with the collaboration of experts from the UK, France, Germany, the United States and countries in whose territory this culture has existed. The oldest metallurgy in the world, that of copper and gold, also developed there, from the 5th millennium BC, followed by that of bronze in the 3rd - 2nd millennia.

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Historiens and journalists described that a striking set of several small female figurines, seated in a circle, has been found in a pre-Cucuteni village in northeast Romania. "It's not hard to imagine," said Douglass W. Bailey of San Francisco State University, people of old Europe "organizing sets of seated figurines into one or more activity groups. miniatures, perhaps with the smaller figurines on the feet or even on the towers of the larger ones, seated. Others have imagined the figurines as the "Council of Goddesses". In her influential books three decades ago, Marija Gimbutas, an anthropologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, offered these and other so-called Venus figurines as representatives of deities in the cults of a mother goddess. that reigned in prehistoric Europe.

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The “Poduri Council of Goddesses” (Bacău County) was discovered in 1981, in the multi-layered Poduri-Dealul Ghindaru site, in Bacău County. The treasury of Precucutene statuettes consists of 15 large statuettes painted in red, 13 thrones of burnt clay, and six other small unpainted statuettes. Here is the composition of this ritual complex discovered in a sanctuary dating from around 4900 BC. The question addressed to historians remains valid on the potential anteriority of the Vinca - Turdas Tartaria script, (5000 years BC) and therefore of the Cucuteni Trypillia, Hamangia civilization in Europe compared to the Sumerian civilization (3000 BC).

 

This hypothesis and question about the potential immigration from actual Europe to the East remains topical, especially since there are influences and similarities between writings, cultures, including more recently clothing and especially "the hat phrygians ” (ancien Hittite headdress), the rituals of the Getae, of Zamolxes of the region of Dacia of the population of Pontus (Pontus Euxin) in Europe and that of Mithra,“ cult of the Just ”born in Persian territory and which spread throughout the Roman Empire in the same period (200 BC - 200 AD). “Ancient and medieval sources attest to the two forms of this name Zalmoxis, zamolxis. on which are based two etymologies. On the one hand, Zalmoxis comes from the Thracian zalmos, "fur, skin". Linked to an account saying that a bearskin was cast over Zalmoxis when he was born, this interpretation allows this character to be viewed as a bear god.

 

They describe the ethnological source of the name Zamolxis as being taken from the Thracian zamol, "earth", which makes him a chthonian god, king or ruler of men. Many researchers therefore believe that Zalmoxis is the god of the dead and of the earth, that he personifies the source of life and the maternal womb to which all men return. For Mircea Éliade, this god worshiped by the Getae "is not a god of the earth, nor of agricultural fertility, nor a god of the dead", but an initiatory divinity. It is difficult to decide because Zalmoxis only exists in the written tradition which, however, dates back to an opinion transmitted orally as far back as the fifth century BC. Herodotus heard the Greeks living among the Getae of Pontus and Hellespont say of him that he was their god and more precisely that of the most valiant and righteous Thracians. According to Socrates, he was a king of the Thracians, Plato made him a king, a god and a therapist while Mnasès of Patara, a disciple of Eratosthenes, affirms that the Getae worshiped Chronos under the name of Zalmoxis; as for Strabo, he made him a high priest. " The shell of Spondylus from the Aegean Sea was a special trade item for the people of Ancient Europe. Perhaps the seashells, used in pendants and bracelets, were symbols of their Aegean ancestors. Noting the spread of these shells at that time, Michel Louis Seferiades, anthropologist at the National Center for Scientific Research in France, suspected "the objects were part of a halo of mysteries, of a set of beliefs and myths". Dr Seferiades wrote in the exhibition catalog that the prevalence of seashells suggested that culture had links to "a network of pathways and a social framework of elaborate systems of exchange - including barter, exchange of gifts and reciprocity. A few towns of the Cucuteni people, a later and apparently hardy culture in northern old Europe, reached over 800 acres, which archaeologists consider larger than any other known human settlement at the time. But excavations have yet to reveal definitive evidence of palaces, temples, or large civic buildings. Archaeologists concluded that the rituals of belief appear to be performed in homes, where cult objects have been found. "The richness and variety of the gifts from Varna's grave were a surprise," Varna is the oldest cemetery ever found where humans were buried with golden ornaments, "said Vladimir Slavchev, curator at the Regional Museum of history of Varna.

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“People who wore gold costumes for public events while they were alive,” Dr. Anthony wrote, “went home to pretty ordinary homes. One of the best known figures of fired clay is that of a man seated with his shoulders bent and his hands on his face in apparent contemplation. Called the “Thinker,” the coin and a comparable female figurine were found in a cemetery in Hamangia culture, Romania. The main source of economic success in old Europe, said Dr Anthony. As copper smelting developed around 5400 BC, cultures of old Europe exploited the minerals abundant in Bulgaria and what is now Serbia and learned the high temperature technique of extraction of pure metallic copper. Molten copper, cast like axes, hammered into knife blades and coiled into bracelets, became a valuable export commodity. Pieces of copper from old Europe have been found in graves along the Volga, 1,200 miles east of Bulgaria. Archaeologists have recovered more than five tonnes of pieces from sites in old Europe. Many of the symbolic signs and figurines that are then found in the cultures that populated Mesopotamia or Persia (or even born the mitra cult) can be found at the very beginning of 6000 BC in the culture of Ancient Europe: the rosette, the bull, the swastika, the scallop, writing, etc.

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Historiens attract the attention bout the fact that the decryption of ancient scriptures we must not confuse language (spoken sounds) and writing (visual signs). Thus, the same writing system can be used to note different languages. For example, the Latin alphabet currently makes it possible to transcribe French, English, Italian and Turkish for example. Likewise, the cuneiform writing of the Mesopotamians made it possible to transcribe several languages such as Akkadian (Semitic language), Old Persian (Indo-European language) or even Elamite and Sumerian (linguistic isolates). Conversely, a language can also be transcribed by different writing systems such as Persian (an Indo-European language) which is currently written as well with the Arabic alphabet in Iran (and sometimes the Latin alphabet with the surprising phenomenon of fingilish), than the Cyrillic alphabet in Tajikistan whereas it was noted in the past with a cuneiform system in the Achaemenid period. 520-330 BC, for Old Persia) or the Aramaic alphabet in the Sassanid period (3rd-7th century AD for Middle Persia). In the case of the Elamite language, it was known until now only through the cuneiform script. With the decryption of linear Elamite writing carried out by François Desset, we now have access to this language through a writing system probably developed specifically for it and therefore better reflecting the phonological subtleties of this language than the cuneiform writing.

 

Deciphering the past is always a way of contextualizing the choices of the present by its ancient heritage.

 

It is important to take in consideration also the scientists studying the Holocene (the relatively warm geological, interglacial epoch spanning the 10,000 years still in progress today) attest to the rise in ocean level around 8,000 years ago which made the Black Sea raise its level considerably and probably, according to some scientists, caused the immigration of this oldest European civilization around Black Sea coast. 

 

Faced with the probability of climate change immigration today, both Europe and the world could anticipate and make the choices for the future of the humanity, also drawing inspiration from ancient history which is revealed little by little through joint work of historians, journalists, experts and enthusiasts of the truth about our past inspiring today’s choices.

 

Will the future of Europe and humanity depend on these choices for immigration as it did 7000 years ago? One thing is certain, the truth is being written in the ink of our attitudes towards immigration as much for the past as for the future of Europe ... and of the world.

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Note: Some great "decipherers": Father Barthélémy (1716-1795) in 1753 deciphered the Palmyrean alphabet, then in 1754, the Phoenician alphabet. Jean-François Champollion (1790-1832) deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphics. Henry Creswicke Rawlinson (1810-1895) one of four co-decipherers of cuneiform writing noting the Akkadian language. Michael Ventris (1922-1956) in 1952 deciphered "Linear B", one of the three scripts discovered at Knossos (Crete) used in the 2nd millennium BC to note an archaic form of Greek. * To be published in 2021: "The decipherment of Linear Elamite writing and its implications on Iranian history, the development of writing in the Ancient Near East and Hatamtite (Elamite) language", Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und Vorderasiatische Archäologie. , by Desset F., Tabibzadeh K., Kervran M. and Basello G. -P.

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References: John Noble Wilford - New york Times 2009, A Lost European Culture, Pulled From Obscurity. Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, Princeton University Press. Jonathan Corum New York Times (Photos: Rumyana Kostandinova - Varna and Marius Amarie). The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archeology, Oxford University, England (May 20 - August 15, 2010). Museum of Cycladic Art, Goulandris Foundation, Athens, Greece (September 30, 2010 - January 11, 2011. "Dr. Jennifer Chi," television broadcast: Sunday Arts, WNET, January 27, 2010. "The Lost World of Old Europe, "radio broadcast: The Leonard Lopate Show, WNYC, January 14, 2010. mp3 and slideshow of objects from the exhibition." Ancient Artifacts, "television broadcast: Eye on New York, WCBS, 6 December, 2009.? Andrew Moseman,“ Advanced, Overlooked Ancient European Culture Arrives in America, ”80beats | Discover Magazine, December 1, 2009. Michael Balter,“ The Lost World of Old Europe: See It in New York ”Origins: A History of Beginnings (ScienceMag.org), November 25, 2009. Christine Lin, “Lost Artifacts of Old Europe Arrive in New York.” Epoch Times, November 13, 2009; https://sites.google.com/site/seimenisatdinneolitic/3-1-1-3- cucuteni-si-simbolismul-de-regenerare? fbclid = IwAR04CJwkFevBOvoFDudiXE-QI6AEmO58R6LdXp0ERh_eHFRrwVMeqjTtp5w Expozitia de ceramica apartinand Culturii Cucuteni (1/14) Cultures of the Carpathian-Danubian space - Pontic (VI-V century BC): https://istorie-edu.ro/istoria-romanilor/01-neoliticul.html

Tobby Griffen, Southern Illinois university, Président de l’Association Linguistique de Canada et des Etats-Unis