Iberian scripts

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photograph of Botorrita 1 (both sides), 1st century BC.

The Iberian scripts (or Iberian alphabet) are two scripts (or two styles of the same script) found on the Iberian peninsula, the Northeast and South Iberian script. Both styles contain monophonematic as well as syllabic signs. The Celtiberian version of the script was used to record the Celtiberian language, for example on the Botorrita tablet.

History of the Alphabet
Middle Bronze Age 19–15th c. BC Canaanite-Phoenician 14th c. BC *Aramaic 9th c. BC **Brāhmī & Indic, 6th c. BC ***Tibetan 7th c. ***Khmer/Javanese, 9th c. **Hebrew 3rd c. BC **Syriac 2nd c. BC **Din Dabireh 3rd c. **Arabic 4th c. *Greek 9th c. BC **Etruscan 8th c. BC ***Latin 7th c. BC ***Runes 2nd c. **Gothic 4th c. **Armenian 405 **Glagolitic 862 **Cyrillic 10th c. *Samaritan 6th c. BC *Iberian 6th c. BC South Arabian 9th c. BC *Ge'ez 5–6th c. BC
Meroitic 3rd c. BC
Complete genealogy

Monophonematic signs are five vowels, transcribed a, e, i, o, u, six resonants, transcribed r, ŕ, l, m, m̄, n, and two sibilants or fricatives, transcribed s and ś. Syllabic signs combine an occlusive, t-, k-, p-, with a following vowel.

Swiggers assumes that the Iberic scripts are the result of a fusion of the Punic and Greek alphabetic traditions. The fact that the Iberian scripts are both alphabetic and syllabic is probably due to the nature of Iberian phonology. There are, as a matter of fact, "pro-Greek and pro-Semitic camps."

See also

• Iberian language

Further reading

• Rodríguez Ramos, Jesús, Análisis de Epigrafía Íbera, Vitoria-Gasteiz 2004, ISBN 84-8373-678-0.
• Untermann, Jürgen, Monumenta Linguarum Hispanicarum. Band III: Die iberischen Inschriften aus Spanien, Wiesbaden 1990.

External links

modern (19th century) inscription on a monument in Pamplona.

• http://ancientscripts.com/iberian.html
• [Levantine Iberian Script]
• [Meridional Iberian Script]
• [Greek Iberian Script]
• [Celtiberian Script]
• [Tartessian / South-Lusitanian Script]
• ["On the Story of the Decipherment of Iberian Writing" by Jesús Rodríguez Ramos]
• [Omniglot entry on Iberian]
• [Detailed map of the Pre-Roman Peoples of Iberia (around 200 BC)]

Images of Iberian inscriptions

• [Links to images of inscriptions]
• http://www.webpersonal.net/jrr/ib11_en.htm
• http://www.webpersonal.net/jrr/ib11b_en.htm
• http://www.webpersonal.net/jrr/ib12_en.htm

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