It was only two years later, when rangers from the local environment department spotted the massive slab, that he realised it was something of huge historical significance.
Experts now believe the “stela of Montoro” might the earliest monumental script in Iberia – the South West peninsula of Europe comprising mostly of Portugal and Spain.
But despite their best efforts – nobody can figure out what it says.
Archaeologist Leonardo García Sanjuán of the University of Seville read about the discovery in a Montoro Archaeological Museum newsletter, where it is still sitting now.
He contacted colleague Marta Díaz-Guardamino at Southampton University in the UK and they went to investigate in 2012.
But they were puzzled to find none of the etchings made any sense.
“It’s rare to find something like this – the inscriptions on this stela cannot be read.
“There isn’t a single script that makes sense of them,” García Sanjuán told IBTimes UK.
The writing includes elements of a North Eastern Palaeo-Hispanic script, Graeco-Iberian script, Proto-Sinaitic and Proto-Canaanite inscriptions, epigraphic South Arabian and Phoenician scripts, he writes in research published by journal Antiquity.
These cultures were active in the Iberian Peninsula during the Iron Age – so García Sanjuán believes they could have been made sometime between the third and ninth century BC.
One suggestion was that the stone was engraved in the 9th and 5th century BC, by illiterate locals who were replicating signs they had seen by foreigners passing through.
“Most likely Phoenicians coming from the eastern Mediterranean,” he said.
Another option is that it was drawn up in the late Iron Age, between 3rd and 5th century, when the Roman Empire was expanding – and Spain was a busy part of Europe.
Around that time Carthaginian general Hannibal was locked in battle with Rome when he decided to plunder Iberia for its gold, iron and silver.
“At that time there were very big armies with thousands of people marching across Iberia.
“The Romans and the Carthaginians had many foreigners in their armies who were paid to fight for them,” García Sanjuán said.
He believes that the stone might be an artwork from a long-forgotten military unit, representing the diversity of its troops.
If so, each of the symbols might represent the foreign homelands of its troops.
Until more artefacts that which link to the stone are found, it will remain a mystery, he added.
Archaeologists reckon they’ve found the world’s oldest emoji, dating back 3,700 years.
Source: http://bit.ly/2uIGP18
