When archaeologists on a dig in southern Portugal last year flipped over a heavy chunk of slate and saw writing not used for more than 2,500 years, they were elated.
The enigmatic pattern of inscribed symbols curled symmetrically around the upper part of the rough-edged, yellowish stone tablet and coiled into the middle in a decorative style typical of an extinct Iberian language called Southwest Script.
For more than two centuries, scientists have tried to decipher Southwest Script, believed to be the peninsula's oldest written tongue and, along with Etruscan from modern-day Italy, one of Europe's first. The stone tablet features 86 characters and provides the longest-running text of the Iron Age language ever found.
About 90 slate tablets bearing the ancient inscriptions have been recovered, most of them incomplete. Almost all were scattered across southern Portugal, though a handful turned up in the neighboring Spanish region of Andalucia.
Some of the letters look like squiggles. Others are like crossed sticks. One resembles the number four and another recalls a bow-tie. They were carefully scored into the slate. The text is always a running script, with unseparated words which usually read from right to left.
The first attempts to interpret this writing date from the 18th century. It aroused the curiosity of a bishop whose diocese encompassed this region where the earth keeps coughing up new fragments.
Almodovar, a rural town of some 3,500 people amid a gentle landscape of meadows punctuated by whitewashed towns, sits at the heart of the Southwest Script region. It created a museum two years ago where 20 of the engraved tablets are on show.
Though the evidence is gradually building as new tablets are found, researchers are handicapped because they are peering deep into a period of history about which they know little, says professor Pierre Swiggers, a Southwest Script specialist at the University of Leuven, Belgium. Scientists have few original documents and hardly any parallel texts from the same time and place in readable languages.
Southwest Script is one of just a handful of ancient languages about which little is known, according to Swiggers. The obscurity has provided fertile ground for competing theories about who wrote these words.
It is generally agreed the texts date from between 2,500 and 2,800 years ago. Most experts have concluded they were authored by a people called Tartessians, a tribe of Mediterranean traders who mined for metal in these parts — one of Europe's largest copper mines is nearby — but disappeared after a few centuries. Some scientists have proposed that the composers were other pre-Roman tribes, such as the Conii or Cynetes, or maybe even Celts who roamed this far south.
Another translation difficulty is that the writing is not standardized. It seems certain that it was adapted from the Phoenician and Greek alphabets because it copied some of their written conventions. However, it also tweaked some of those rules and invented new ones.
Experts have identified characters that represent 15 syllables, seven consonants and five vowels. But eight characters, including a kind of vertical three-pronged fork, have confounded attempts at comprehension.
There's also the problem of figuring out what messages the slate tablets are intended to convey. Even when they can read portions of text, scientists don't really understand what it is saying — like a child mouthing the words of a Shakespeare play.
There are clues, however.
The symmetrical, twisting text gives the impression of a decorative flourish. Some stones also feature crudely rendered figures, such as a warrior carrying what appear to be spears. The lower part of the rectangular stones is left blank as if intended to be stuck in the ground.
That has led experts to a supposition: The tablets were gravestones for elite members of local Iron Age society. Repeated sequences of words perhaps mean "Here lies..." or "Son of...," Guerra explains. Since most people probably couldn't read, the ornamental elements lent distinction.
These are educated guesses, says Guerra, as he surveys the hilltop dig by a small river where the big stone was found last year. His team here has excavated through centuries of occupation: Islamic (Almodovar is a corruption of the Arabic word al-mudura, meaning encirclement or enclosure), Roman and pre-Roman. Nowadays, it is within view of a wind farm's turbines.
Last year's find has helped, but it wasn't the breakthrough scientists had hoped for, Guerra says. If all the Southwest Script found so far were transcribed onto paper, it would still barely fill a single sheet. Without an equivalent of the Rosetta stone, which helped unlock the secrets of hieroglyphic writing, efforts to reconstruct the ancient language are doomed to slow progress.
Showing posts with label iraqi islamic party. Show all posts
Showing posts with label iraqi islamic party. Show all posts
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Iraqi elections complaints loom
Passing through razor-wire cordons and police checkpoints, Iraqi voters Saturday took another step in the nation's quest for stability in provincial elections that were carried off without major violence but tarnished by claims of flaws and threats of challenges.
There were reports of isolated violence and unrest.
The voting began under a security net that appeared even more extensive than Iraq's last elections in 2005. Voters passed through several choke points and then individually searched — men in the open by police and women in tents by teams that included female teachers and civil workers.
The purple fingers a sign of their participating in the election.
Each region carried its own distinctive mood.
Even before a single ballot was counted, Iraqi officials were basking in the successes — watching millions of voters wave the purple-tinted fingers that have become symbols of the country's hopes for a workable democracy.
President Barack Obama hailed the elections as significant, peaceful and important steps toward Iraqis taking responsibility for their future.
But election observers and others were examining a growing list of complaints, including claims that hundreds of people — perhaps more — were wrongly omitted from voting lists in areas across Iraq.
But there was huge amount of confusion,said a Belgium-based election monitor who visited polling sites in the Mosul area in northern Iraq.
It was unclear whether the alleged problems were isolated or could cast doubts on the entire election. Results are not expected before Tuesday. But possible challenges were already leaking out.
But any political bitterness could further complicate another difficult task ahead for Iraq's leaders: getting hundreds of factions to accept the results as credible and then start hammering out alliances from among 14,000 candidates for the influential regional posts. Some are expecting there is a fraud and said some will try to fill those blank ballots, and will complain about the violation.
Zakiya Tahir, a 71-year-old woman who cannot read, pointed to a poster of a local candidate supported by al-Maliki. She have nothing to do with the politics, She just want to feel safe again.
The overall picture, however, was close to the goals set by Iraqi officials desperate to portray a sense of order and confidence nearly six years after the U.S.-led invasion.
A senior Sunni leader in the western Anbar province — where former anti-insurgent militias were seeking political gains — alleged that voters couldn't reach polling stations because of the traffic ban and others in Fallujah found the door shut.
In the southern Shiite city of Basra, voter Hadi Thegil stared angrily at election workers when he was told he wasn't on the registration list, which is compiled using information form Iraq's ration card system. He left muttering: "I feel robbed."
The U.N election observers described the elections in mostly positive, the rules were followed. They weren't aware of confusion in the station they visited.
A Shiite lawmaker also found the election process generally good, but noted the real test is yet to come: how the major political bloc perceive the outcome.
It will be a huge job sorting it all out. A total of 440 seats are at stake on the various provincial councils in the election — covering the whole country expect four northern areas.
The winners then will have to forge working coalitions from a potential patchwork: veteran political groups amid the many newcomer candidates. There also are still questions about how to ensure sufficient representation from the approximately 3,900 women candidates.
In some parts of Baghdad, checkpoints were spaced 30 yards apart and Iraqi security forces, including special forces in combat gear, conducted foot patrols.
U.S. soldiers were also out in force, but remained well away from polling centers. The U.S. military assisted in security preparations for the elections, but said troops had a back seat role in the election day operations.
In Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown about 80 miles north of Baghdad, three mortar shells exploded near a polling station, but caused no casualties.
Hundreds of Iraqi Kurds stormed an election office in the disputed northern city of Khanaqin after claiming many of them were not on voting lists. There were no reports of serious injuries. The incident was part of lingering disputes between Kurds and the Arab-run central government over control of the city near the Iranian border.
In Kurdish autonomous region — which is scheduled to hold elections later — special polling sites were created for Iraqis who have sought refuge from violence in other parts of Iraq. A refugee here said who fled Baghdad two years ago.
In the western Anbar province, the Sunni tribes which rose up against al-Qaida and other insurgents — and led to a turning point of the war — are now seeking to transform their fame into council seats and significantly increase their role in wider Iraqi affairs. Turnout in Anbar was about 2 percent in provincial elections four years ago.
And in Iraq's Shiite south, loyalists to prime minister al-Maliki appeared to receive a boost from the offensives last year that broke the hold of Shiite militias in the key city of Basra and other places.
In nearby Mosul, considered one of the last urban strongholds of al-Qaida in Iraq and other insurgent groups, Sunni Arab parties urged for a high turnout to counter Kurdish ambitions to extend their influence over the city.
The Sunni decision to boycott the last provincial ballot in January 2005 handed control of Mosul and the surrounding province to the Kurds — even though they make up less than a third of the population.
There were reports of isolated violence and unrest.
The voting began under a security net that appeared even more extensive than Iraq's last elections in 2005. Voters passed through several choke points and then individually searched — men in the open by police and women in tents by teams that included female teachers and civil workers.
The purple fingers a sign of their participating in the election.
Each region carried its own distinctive mood.
Even before a single ballot was counted, Iraqi officials were basking in the successes — watching millions of voters wave the purple-tinted fingers that have become symbols of the country's hopes for a workable democracy.
President Barack Obama hailed the elections as significant, peaceful and important steps toward Iraqis taking responsibility for their future.
But election observers and others were examining a growing list of complaints, including claims that hundreds of people — perhaps more — were wrongly omitted from voting lists in areas across Iraq.
But there was huge amount of confusion,said a Belgium-based election monitor who visited polling sites in the Mosul area in northern Iraq.
It was unclear whether the alleged problems were isolated or could cast doubts on the entire election. Results are not expected before Tuesday. But possible challenges were already leaking out.
But any political bitterness could further complicate another difficult task ahead for Iraq's leaders: getting hundreds of factions to accept the results as credible and then start hammering out alliances from among 14,000 candidates for the influential regional posts. Some are expecting there is a fraud and said some will try to fill those blank ballots, and will complain about the violation.
Zakiya Tahir, a 71-year-old woman who cannot read, pointed to a poster of a local candidate supported by al-Maliki. She have nothing to do with the politics, She just want to feel safe again.
The overall picture, however, was close to the goals set by Iraqi officials desperate to portray a sense of order and confidence nearly six years after the U.S.-led invasion.
A senior Sunni leader in the western Anbar province — where former anti-insurgent militias were seeking political gains — alleged that voters couldn't reach polling stations because of the traffic ban and others in Fallujah found the door shut.
In the southern Shiite city of Basra, voter Hadi Thegil stared angrily at election workers when he was told he wasn't on the registration list, which is compiled using information form Iraq's ration card system. He left muttering: "I feel robbed."
The U.N election observers described the elections in mostly positive, the rules were followed. They weren't aware of confusion in the station they visited.
A Shiite lawmaker also found the election process generally good, but noted the real test is yet to come: how the major political bloc perceive the outcome.
It will be a huge job sorting it all out. A total of 440 seats are at stake on the various provincial councils in the election — covering the whole country expect four northern areas.
The winners then will have to forge working coalitions from a potential patchwork: veteran political groups amid the many newcomer candidates. There also are still questions about how to ensure sufficient representation from the approximately 3,900 women candidates.
In some parts of Baghdad, checkpoints were spaced 30 yards apart and Iraqi security forces, including special forces in combat gear, conducted foot patrols.
U.S. soldiers were also out in force, but remained well away from polling centers. The U.S. military assisted in security preparations for the elections, but said troops had a back seat role in the election day operations.
In Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown about 80 miles north of Baghdad, three mortar shells exploded near a polling station, but caused no casualties.
Hundreds of Iraqi Kurds stormed an election office in the disputed northern city of Khanaqin after claiming many of them were not on voting lists. There were no reports of serious injuries. The incident was part of lingering disputes between Kurds and the Arab-run central government over control of the city near the Iranian border.
In Kurdish autonomous region — which is scheduled to hold elections later — special polling sites were created for Iraqis who have sought refuge from violence in other parts of Iraq. A refugee here said who fled Baghdad two years ago.
In the western Anbar province, the Sunni tribes which rose up against al-Qaida and other insurgents — and led to a turning point of the war — are now seeking to transform their fame into council seats and significantly increase their role in wider Iraqi affairs. Turnout in Anbar was about 2 percent in provincial elections four years ago.
And in Iraq's Shiite south, loyalists to prime minister al-Maliki appeared to receive a boost from the offensives last year that broke the hold of Shiite militias in the key city of Basra and other places.
In nearby Mosul, considered one of the last urban strongholds of al-Qaida in Iraq and other insurgent groups, Sunni Arab parties urged for a high turnout to counter Kurdish ambitions to extend their influence over the city.
The Sunni decision to boycott the last provincial ballot in January 2005 handed control of Mosul and the surrounding province to the Kurds — even though they make up less than a third of the population.
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