this post was submitted on 20 Jan 2026
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Archaeology

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Archaeology or archeology[a] is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscapes.

Archaeology has various goals, which range from understanding culture history to reconstructing past lifeways to documenting and explaining changes in human societies through time.

The discipline involves surveying, excavation, and eventually analysis of data collected, to learn more about the past. In broad scope, archaeology relies on cross-disciplinary research. Read more...

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A carved stone tablet found in southern Georgia bears dozens of symbols that have no clear parallel in known languages or writing systems.

The discovery suggests that part of the region’s written past remains undocumented, with implications for how early societies recorded meaning and authority.

The stone tablet was recovered from Bashplemi Lake in Dmanisi Municipality and contains 60 carved symbols that researchers are now examining to determine its age, origin, and possible function.

Late in the autumn of 2021, fishermen noticed the carved slab when the lake level dropped and mud exposed it.

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[–] Ludrol@szmer.info 29 points 2 weeks ago

New Unicode block incomimg?

[–] AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world 21 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

“Generally, the Bashplemi inscription does not repeat any script known to us; however, most of the symbols used therein resemble ones found in the scripts of the Middle East, as well as those of geographically remote countries such as India, Egypt and West Iberia,” wrote Shengelia.

So it resembles practically everything except Chinese?

well, the areas mentioned are the ones that nowadays use scripts descended from the egyptian hieroglyphics so they're basically saying that it's likely to be a script that also belongs to that family

[–] The_v@lemmy.world 15 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

My guess - 1800's origin.

People traveling around selling all sorts of ancient things like papyrus was in fashion and made a ton of money. All sorts of "ancient" things were also manufactured during the time period as well.

[–] rollin@piefed.social 5 points 2 weeks ago

The rock actually appears to be local:

Measurements put the slab at 9.5 by 7.9 in, close to book size. Researchers identified vesicular basalt, volcanic rock with bubble-like holes, and traced the material to volcanic outcrops around the lake.

[–] human@slrpnk.net 10 points 2 weeks ago
[–] Hatshepsut@lemmy.world 8 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Cool story. Tangential, but Georgian scripts in general are pretty wild.

[–] finallymadeanaccount@lemmy.world 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] rollin@piefed.social 3 points 2 weeks ago

They think it's language because some characters repeat and there appears to be a "full-stop" separator character.

[–] sj_zero@lotide.fbxl.net 4 points 2 weeks ago

Really sad that we haven't found more context, but it suggests there's a huge trove of new discoveries to be found.

[–] tiredofsametab@fedia.io 3 points 2 weeks ago

My money is on it being rather recent.

[–] SeductiveTortoise@piefed.social 3 points 2 weeks ago

Atlantis confirmed