Espanca script

The Espanca script (Castro Verde, Baixo Alentejo, Portugal) is the only complete signary known of the Paleohispanic scripts. Is made over a little piece of slate (48 x 28 x 2 cm.). This signary is double. The signs in the first line are much well done that those in the second one, from this fact it has been inferred that this inscription was a writing teaching exercise in which the master wrote the first line and the student copied it in the second line.

This signary doesn't match exactly with any of the known paleohispanic scripts, but is clear that is related to the southwestern script and to the southeastern Iberian script. It is important to state that the first 13 signs match with 13 first signs of the Phoenician alphabet and also follow the same relative order as the Phoenician signs do. In the remaining signs we find some Phoenician signs, out of their Phoenician sequence, but also others seemingly invented. There is no agreement about how the scripts originated; some researchers conclude that their origin is linked only to the Phoenician alphabet, while others believe the Greek alphabet had also participated.

See also

* Languages of Spain
* Languages of Portugal
* Iberian Romance languages
* Iberian languages
* Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula

Bibliography

* Adiego, Ignasi Javier (1993): «Algunas reflexiones sobre el alfabeto de Espanca y las primitivas escrituras hispánicas», "Studia Palaeohispanica et Indogermánica J. Untermann ab Amicis Hispanicis Oblata", pp.11-22.
* Correa, José Antonio (1993): «El signario de Espanca (Castro Verde) y la escritura tartessia», "Lengua y Cultura en la Hispania Prerromana", pp.521-562.
* Hoz, Javier De (1996): «El origen de las escrituras paleohispánicas quince años después», "La Hispania prerromana", pp. 171-206.
* Untermann, Jürgen. (1996): «La escritura tartesia entre griegos y fenicios, y lo que nos enseña el alfabeto de Espanca», "Arqueología Hoje" 2.

External links

* [http://www.webpersonal.net/jrr/espanca_en.htm A Palaeo-Hispanic alphabet: Espanca's stele - Jesús Rodríguez Ramos]
* [http://www.arqueotavira.com/Mapas/Iberia/Populi.htm Detailed map of the Pre-Roman Peoples of Iberia (around 200 BCE)]