The Antequera (Spain) Slate: an undetermined writing found in a Roman-type Villa and the need of revision of Iberia history, anthropology and archaeology

Abstract

The Antequera Slate is a striking scripted finding in the Roman “Villa de la Estacion” (Railway Station Villa) archaeological site which was in use in its Roman known period approximately between 100 years BC and 450 AD. Some of the slate incised signs were familiar to us because they were similar to the so-called pre-IberianTartessian scripted incise or picketed signs found in a Megalithic context or not in rocks and stones in Iberia, Canary Islands and Algerian Sahara.  The antiquity of these signs  may vary depending the place but some may have been done thousands of years BC. We  have put forward that these Antequera Slate signs may be pre-Iberian-Tartessian that had  remained in Iberian  autochthonous rural or aristocratic people during centuries, but a firm conclusion is premature. Otherwise, the scripts   are not done in Roman or any other  standard writing. Visigoth scripted slates were started to be performed in Central   West  Iberia when Visigoths appeared in Iberia, together with Suebi, Vandals and Alans. The  Antequera Slate incise  signs may have been originated by these new cultures, but no Visigoth tables signs have been found with similar signs  to Antequera Slate signs. Taking into account that we do not now either the language/symbols or writing of many  Visigothic slates (5th  - 8th century AD) nor the Antequera Slate, we also agree with other  scholars that this is an  important enigma which does not fit with archaeology,  anthropology and history of Iberian Peninsula and that all these  disciplines should be  revised in the context detailed in this and others work.