The Sinaia lead plates () are a set of lead plates written in an unknown language or constructed language. They are alleged to be a chronicle of the Dacians, but are considered by some scholars to be modern forgeries. The plates were written in the Greek alphabet with a few other character additions.

History

The origin of the Sinaia lead plates is obscure. The first known mention of them was when the 200 lead plates were discovered in the warehouse of the Bucharest Museum of Antiquities, Romania, in the 19th century. Of the 200 pieces originally in the collection of plates, only 35 are known to remain today, but there are some photos of some of the rest.Petan, Aurora, A possible Dacian royal archive on lead plates, Antiquity Journal, Vol 79 No 303, March 2005 (part of Antiquity's non-peer reviewed "Project gallery"

According to a dubious "oral tradition", the lead plates are in fact copies made at the Nail Factory of Sinaia in 1875 from the originals, which were allegedly made of gold, and they were kept for a while at the Sinaia Monastery. Allegedly, the gold was used either in the building of Peleș Castle, or the plates were part of the Romanian Treasure which was never returned by Russia after World War I.Dumitru Manolache, "Tezaur dacic de la Sinaia – legendă sau adevăr ocultat?" Editura Dacica, București, 2006

An analysis made at the in Măgurele concluded that the composition of the plates is very similar to printing lead manufactured in the 19th century.

Description

Most of the plates are roughly rectangular, with the exception of one round plate. They have dimensions between and . Most are written using scriptio continua in the Greek alphabet, with a few additional signs; the text includes "V" from the Latin alphabet and signs for palatal "c" and "g" resembling those of the Cyrillic script.

They also include text written in some unknown scripts that do not resemble any known written alphabet. In addition to the text, the plates also contain many complex illustrations, including those of armies, kings, cities, temples and buildings.

Language

The language appears to have some Indo-European traits, but it has nothing in common with what linguists expect to be Dacian language, as no correlation with the Romanian language substrate can be found.

Also, unlike any known Indo-European language, it appears to have almost no inflections, nor declensions. In addition, almost all nouns end in "-o", including names which had other endings in Latin and Greek, e.g. , , and .

There are some words borrowed from Greek ( from , , from ) and Latin, but some important words such as the alleged words for "king" () and "priest" () do not appear to have any known Indo-European cognates.

Debate and author

The scholarly consensus is that they are modern forgeries.Dan Dana, Zalmoxis de la Herodot la Mircea Eliade, Polirom, București, 2008, p. 384 According to the director of the Institute of Archaeology, Alexandru Vulpe, it is obvious they were made in the 19th century and this was the opinion of both Vasile Pârvan and the archaeologists who studied them after him, some believing they were created by Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu, who is known to have made other forgeries as well.Din tainele istoriei – Misterul tăblițelor de plumb, Formula As, n. 649; 2005

According to Vulpe, the tablets include only what was known before 1900; for example, it uses the spelling "Comidava" for a Dacian town, although now it is known that the correct spelling is "Cumidava", as found in 1942 in an honorific inscription dedicated to Julia Mamaea.Mihail Macrea, "Cumidava" in AISC 4, 1941–1943, pp. 234–261

See also Tărtăria tablets Gradeshnitsa tablets Lead Books of Sacromonte, forged inscriptions on lead plates

References

Bibliography Dumitru Manolache, Tezaurul dacic de la Sinaia – legendă sau adevăr ocultat?, Editura Dacica, 2006 Bucurescu, Adrian, Tainele tăblițelor de la Sinaia, Editura Arhetip, 2005 Romalo, Dan, Cronica apocrifă pe plăci de plumb?, Arvin Press, București, 2003 Romalo, Dan, Cronica getă apocrifă pe plăci de plumb, Editura Alcor, București, 2005 Velcescu, Cornelia, Inscripții rupestre din Munții Carpați, Editura MIRACOL, Burești, 2002 Horia Turcanu (Formula AS): "Misterul tăblițelor de plumb" Academia Republicii Popular Romîne, Documente privind istoria Romîniei: Introducere, 1956 Emil Vîrtosu, Paleografia româno-chirilică, Ed. Științifică, 1968 Horace Gray Lunt, Old Church Slavonic Grammar, Walter de Gruyter, 2001 Isaac Taylor, History of the Alphabet: Aryan Alphabets, Kessinger Publishing, 2003 (1899) Isaac Taylor, Greeks and Goths a Study on the Runes, Kessinger Publishing, 2004 (1879) Winfred Philipp Lehmann, Historical Linguistics: An Introduction, Routledge, 1992 (1962)

External links Photo Gallery at Bibliotheca Dacica [broken link] A possible Dacian royal archive on lead plates Dacian Lead Tablets and Codex Rochonczi, Fake or Real? Din tainele istoriei: misterul plăcuţelor de la Sinaia (in Romanian, with photos of the plates) 100 de placi din aur inscriptionate intr-o limba necunoscuta descoperite la Sinaia (in Romanian, with pictures of more than 20 of the plates) Placute plumb (in Romanian, with photos)