The Inscription Nr. 6858 from Kjolmen (Bulgaria)
- 1 Portland State University, Portland, OR, USA
- 2 Etno-Archaeological Observatory, Munich, Germany
Abstract
The inscription 6858 was discovered on a grave slab at the beginning of 1965, 1 km far from the village of Kjolmen (Preslav district — Bulgaria). After having considered previous decipherings, we propose a deciphering based on similarities between the inscription characters and characters in the Greek alphabets and on similarities of its words with words in present, surviving Slavic languages. The inscription meaning is: this is the tomb of Ebavo son of Zesasha and in the grave is too Ilasi wife of Leteda and daughter to me, which indicates that, originally, the slab was inscribed in a non-survived Proto-Slavic language. This indicates that the inscription originated from a Proto-Slavic culture which settled in the southern part of the Balkan area during the 6 th - 5 th cen. BC, i.e. well before the 7 th cen. AD the generally accepted period of the Slavs arrival in Eastern Europe, and represents an invitation to make efforts for exploring the presence and development of Proto-Slavic cultures in the Balkan area, Europe and Middle-East in the antiquity.
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