Forgery or Legit: Dacian art in lead plates?

There were 2 suspects in faking them: Bogdan Haşdeu and Nicolae Densuşianu. Haşdeu was accused of faking 2 other documents before: „The bârladean diploma” and „Iurg Koriatovici's hrisov”, but most people countered this idea (including him faking the other 2). Aurora Peţan:

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Nimic din activitatea şi concepţiile lui [Hasdeu] nu se regăseşte în plăci. Acad. Al. Vulpe a susţinut o vreme că autorul ar fi fost B.P. Hasdeu, care ar fi vrut să-i demonstreze lui Gr. Tocilescu existenţa scrierii la daci. Însă Hasdeu credea în existenţa unui alfabet propriu dacilor, continuat de secuii din Transilvania, dar care nu are nici o legătură cu scrierile de pe plăci. Dar lucrul cel mai grav îl constituie absenţa din acest corpus a oricărei idei haşdeene cu privire la limba dacilor. Pentru Hasdeu limba dacilor era indo-europeană, de tip satem, înrudită, astfel, îndeaproape cu limbile baltice. El nu şi-a imaginat niciodată că limba dacă este o limbă neindo-europeană şi a comparat adesea rămăşiţele substratului cu sanscrita, vechea persă, limbile baltice, slave. Nici în privinţa vocabularului nu avem repere care să ne trimită la Hasdeu: dintre numeroasele cuvinte atribuite de el dacilor, doar două sau trei pot fi regăsite în aceste înscripţii, şi nici acelea cu certitudine. Mai mult, Hasdeu era un aprig apărător al latinităţii noastre. El a înfiinţat ziarul Traian şi revista Columna lui Traian şi vorbea mereu de Dacia lui Traian, nu de cea a lui Burebista sau a lui Decebal. Pentru Hasdeu, dacismul înseamnă întoarcere la izvoare, cultivarea şi conservarea individualităţii şi nicidecum renegarea latinităţii (din contră, când regele Carol I a urcat pe tron, Hasdeu susţinea că este ameninţată latinitatea neamului) sau exacerbarea substratului.

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Short translation: None of his activity and conceptions reflect in the plated. He did think the Dacians had an alphabet, but he thought it was a predecessor of the Szekler alphabet and he considered that Dacian was indo-european, satem, closely related to Baltic languages. He never imagined it would be non-indo-european, comparing the substrate with sanskrit, old persian, slavic and baltic languages. Only 2 or three words that he attributed to Dacian match, even those with little certainty. And he was a devout supporter of latinity.

Densişianu's idea of a pelasgic non-indo-european language matches the tablets, but he wasn't a good enough linguist to make them, and he was too poor (his book was published after he died because of lack of money)

There are many hypothesis to the origins of the plates. Some say the originals were gold and either smelted or kept at the Royal Residence, taken to Moscow or kept at the National Bank HQ. Dan Romalo considers that the lead plates are originals. His arguments are presented in the book (download on page 1 or 2)

The gold originals story:

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În anul 1875, cu ocazia construirii Castelului Peleş, [...] s-a descoperit un tezaur de aur, compus din mai multe tablete scrise în relief şi alte obiecte de aur. Din ignoranţă -tezaurul fiind privit doar ca valoare de aur- a fost cedat de către guvernul procarlist Lascăr Catargiu domnitorului Carol I de Hohenzollern. Operaţia a fost efectuată prin administraţia locală şi jandarmi, în cea mai mare taină şi, astfel, tezaurul cu piese de aur, care ar fi fost impresionante, a dispărut. Posterităţii au rămas doar copiile efectuate pe metal nepreţios de autorităţile locale, la atelierele metalice [...], care au constituit nucleul fabricii de cuie, înfiinţată apoi în Sinaia în anul 1892.

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In the year 1875, on the occasion of the construction of the Peleş Castle a golden treasure was discovered composed of tablets with embossed writing. Ignorantly, the thesaurus was viewed only as gold - it was gifted by the pro-carlist govt of Lascăr Catargiu to Carol I Hohenzollern. The operation was made by the local administration and gendarmes, mostly in secret, and so the thesaurus was lost. Posterity was left only with copies made on lead by local authorities, at the metal works that constituted the nucleus of the Sinaia nail factory, founded in 1892.

The discovery was supposed to be made at St. Anne cave.The thing is that this talks about 40-60 plates. There were obviously more found in the basement of the National Archeology Museum, so the others could be either copies from another batch (the supposed one from Moscow and the National Bank), or originally made in lead. Or the hypothesis of original lead tablets is true, the gold tablets story being intoxication or local myth.

Alexandru Vulpe, current curator of the National Archeology Museum considers that the preconception that they are false stemmed from the moment when Vasile Pârvan looked at them and considered them faked, all generations afterwards considered the supposition true.

EDIT: A defense of the plates by Dan Romalo here (I am not going to translate it).

EDIT 2: Most plates were found in the basement of the NAM, but there were no evidences of where they were brought from (nothing written in any case).

EDIT 3: Here is an interview with mr. Romalo (Again I an mot going to translate the whole thing, unless enough of you ask for it)

EDIT 4: Săvescu bought in 2005 4 plates from a Bulgarian living in California, the plates were from south of the Danube.

Castelului Peleş

So, the site of their recovery was the physical personification of modern Romanian nationalism, were the builder of Peleş Castle, King Carol I, the founder of Romanian National Independence, resided? Of course this alone inspires a much larger giant red flag, if this is indeed the case.

anyone thinking: PILTDOWN ALERT!!? (one theory behind the hoax's motive was to promote the idea of human origions being in the UK)

No, the plates were supposedly smelted to build the castle and copied in lead beforehand.

But that is if the gold original story is true, and the whole thing looks a bit shaky to me, cause only 2 of them can be traced back to these events. And I'm more inclined to accept Romalo's technical analysis (who's an engineer by trade) that the lead plates are mostly original.

still, that does raise alot of eyebrows..think about it:

the plates were found in gold, conveniantly melted for use in building peles castle(and copied in lead-equally conveniant :inquisitive: ) and the 2 remaining ones can't tell anyone jack. that to me is raising suspicions enough. either this is indeed a hoax, or all the stars have lined up-but I have been wrong before...:beam:

To be fair, in archaeological terms the context of the recovery would at best be classified as unknown, which is not very good. The Castle Story alone is so very bad and strongly suggests fraud. Again, the Copy Story is, as well, very bad and also suggests fraud. The reason the Copy Story is so bad is because, if one (a nationalist leader) would destroy the original gold tablets (a national treasure of paramount importance to a new nation similar to the UKs crown jewels) and go to the considerable trouble to replace them with lead copies, why instead, as was admitted that copies were made, wouldn't it be just as easy to create a hoax in order to establish a nationalist context for a new nation? Then there is the issue of a prepared history (a relatively modern construct) vs the chance survival of a royal archive. This is when all the stories surrounding the tablets begin to fall apart.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...n_treasure.jpg

One need only look behind the Mask of Agamemnon to know this is a very common scenario. This is one reason why one must be so carefull, please read...

http://www.archaeology.org/9907/etc/calder.html

I told you, I don't think the originals were gold (or the great majority of them anyway). The story could have been invented to add to the mystery of the Peleş Castle. On the other hand, fabricating the lead plates as a hoax, would not be in national interest, because at that time Carol I was seen by some as a threat to Romania's latinity (so was approaching Germany), and fabricated plates of the Getic language that seeks to redraw Dacian-Latin relation in the opposite way than most people thought would be a very bad political move.

Another reason why the gold story appeared could have to do with a bit of national arrogance: our ancestors wouldn't preserve important messages in a cheap (non-precious) material like lead, as the Sumerians did on clay...:wall:

Since the recovery of the plates is unknown (but probably not all in one stash, one plate looks like having a regional dialect (from Banat is the suspicion), 4 others have been recovered 3 years ago from a Bulgarian, these plates were from south of the Danube), the attention should be focused on the plates themselfs:

1. Message (checks out, mostly military, rituals and descriptions)
2. Consistency with historic events (checks out too, plus at least 3 elements were not known before WWII; if the Y turns out to really be [ju], and the č can be confirmed as a regional source for the latter Cyrillic and maybe Gothic letter forms for that sound, all plates except the 4 in anomalous scripts and weird architecture check out for anachronisms)
3. Method of production (so far we have Romalo's opinion, a separate investigation from an institution would also be recommended)
4. When they were made (if the leads are originals, radio carbon dating would solve that, I think a sample was taken by a foreign university for this purpose, but I haven't heard anything about it yet).

cmacq, I think you're insisting too heavily on some sort of nationalist conspiracy. It's not like Carol I, a Hohenzollern, whose native tongue wasn't even Romanian, had any real attachment to the nation he ruled. I fail to see what Romanians would have to gain from hoaxing these tablets; maybe they could say their ancestors were literate, but there are enough legit artifacts to confirm that anyway ("DECEBALUS PER SCORILO" etc.).

There's also historical inaccuracies in your description of Carol (he did not create Romania as a state, Ioan Cuza did) but that is off-topic.

To me the plates look unnatural. Take a look at plate 42 for instance. The face looks like it was caused by pressing a mould onto the tablet. Also, the "fortress" in the lower right corner on the same tablet looks like a medieval city, and we find the exact same fort on plate 117. On plate 134 we see a medieval tower at the top, with that "dense" formation of soldiers below, which Paullus said might be unnatural. Plaque 18 shows a "rounded square" embossment on the temple which isn't displayed anywhere else, pointing to inconsistencies in the artistic style. Look at plaque 134. On the center-right you can see a face embossed in the plate that is facing forward at an angle. Did anyone do anything like this before the Middle Ages? From what I know, most classical art depicts faces either facing to the side or forward, never inbetween.

Also, has anyone even seen an archer on these plaques? I mean, for people who reverred the bow to such an extent that they thought it could bring down rain, the archer is missing completely. This would be like if Greeks decorated their pots with slingers instead of hoplites.

They weren't that fond of the bow and arrow, it was important yes, but the various types of spear were used way more often. The most bow and arrowish were the ones living in what was in WWII Moldova and Transnistria. The bow was a support weapon (like the SAW nowadays)

And the theory goes that thin malleable metal plates served as molds for the lead ones, so that bulging at the edges confirms it.

Again, as these are artefacts, and their authenticity is in doubt, one must not look at the artefacts, rather, one must demonstrate an unbroken chain of custody, from the point of recovery (where the context is recorded in some detailed), to wherever they are redeposited. I believe the Schliemann story provides the reasoning for this.

Alright if you take away all of the stories, which I think is what you're saying, the context of their recovery is that they appear out of nowhere in a basement. Or is this another story. What I mean is, what is the actual date, the tablets were first photoed. As this may be the earliest form of documentation. Thus, unless they appear in an inventory of the national museum, the date and context would be the photographs. I hope you understand how important the context of their recovery actually is in establishing their authenticity.

They were on the inventory of the National Museum of Archeology for over 100 years. It's just that their provenience is not known (who brought them in and exactly when). The photographs were taken in the forties (1940 and 1946) to preserve the message in case they were destroyed by the war or commie ransacking.

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Originally Posted by Ayce

They were on the inventory of the National Museum of Archeology for over 100 years. It's just that their provenience is not known (who brought them in and exactly when). The photographs were taken in the forties (1940 and 1946) to preserve the message in case they were destroyed by the war or commie ransacking.

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Typically, the provenience refers only to the location, while the context covers all aspects of the recovery. For archaeology the provenience would include the date of the inventory, who made the entry, and location of where the artefact was recovered (site name, feature number, and using an outdated excavation method, a grid provenience; for example north 34657 x west 6754). The full context of the recovery would either appear in the excavation notes, a published report, or at the very least a newspaper account of the event. An archaeological context can run from very good to very poor. For example, a very good context in this case would be; elements of a royal archive, buried with other contemporary artefacts, found below a room used to store historic documents, found within a administrative structure full of minor artefacts that were contemporary with both the archive and the destruction of said building, which had not been disturbed, since they were sealed, by any intrusion. All of this found within an extensive contemporary administrative center that was destroyed and/or abandoned, which was known from other contemporary sources. On the other hand a very poor context appears to be better than what we have here.

Now, at this point I would question the evidence of when these artefacts were actually inventoried by the National Museum. Its not normal, but when artefacts are inventoried a note concerning some detail of the context of their recovery may be included. Plus the entry will be dated. This may particularly be the case if there was a question of authenticity and/or possible fraud. Indeed, that statement about the initial inventory by the National Museum, may in fact be just another story. And, again, where are the remaining tablets today? Even within archaeology today fraud is a very big problem, as I'm sorry to say that personally I've been involved in inadvertently uncovering several examples perpetrated by professionals in the region which I work.

They were definitely inventoried after Vasile Pârvan checked them out (early 20th century), probably even earlier, when they found the stash in the basement. The 1940s photos were made for everything the museum had on it's inventory.

As for their current location, I don't know, I think most of the survivors are still present at the museum, but I can't be sure.

Scratch that, I found out: 8 were in private collections in by 2002, 35 appeared after the publication of the book in 2002/2003 and are now found at the National Archaeological Institute.