Northeastern Iberian script
The northeastern Iberian script, also known as Levantine Iberian or Iberian, because is the Iberian script most frequently used, was the main mean of written expression of the Iberian language, language also expressed by the southeastern Iberian script and by the Greco-Iberian alphabet. About the relation between northeastern Iberian and southeastern Iberian scripts, it is necessary to point out that they are two different scripts with different values for the same signs; however it is clear that they had a common origin and the most accepted hypothesis consider that northeastern Iberian script derives from southeastern Iberian script. There is no agreement about his common origin; some researchers conclude that their origin is linked only to the Phoenician alphabet, while others believe the Greek alphabet had also participated.
All the paleohispanic scripts, with the exception of the Greco-Iberian alphabet, share a common distinctive typological characteristic: they represent syllabic value for the occlusives, and monophonemic value for the rest of consonants and vowels. From the writing systems point of view they are neither alphabets nor syllabaries, rather, they are mixed scripts that normally are identified as semi-syllabaries. The basic signary contains 28 signs: 5 vowels, 15 syllabic and 8 consonantic (one lateral, two sibilants, two rhotic and three nasals). The decipherment of the northeastern script was almost closed in 1922 by when systematically linked the syllabic signs with the occlusive values. The decipherment was based in the existence of a great number of coin legends (some of them bilinguals with Latin) easily linkable to ancient place names known from Roman and Greek sources. There are two variants of the northeastern Iberian script: the dual variant is almost exclusive of the ancient inscriptions from the 4th and 3rd centuries BCE and his distinctive characteristic is the use of the dual system. This system was discovered by in 1968 and allow differentiate the occlusive signs (dentals and velars) between voiced and unvoiced by the use of and additional stroke, with the result that the simple sign represent the voiced value and the complex sign represent the unvoiced value. The non-dual variant is almost exclusive of the modern inscriptions from the 2nd and 1st centuries BCE.
The inscriptions that use the northeastern Iberian script had been found mainly in the northeastern quadrant of the Iberian Peninsula: mainly on the coast from Languedoc-Roussillon to Alacant, but with a deep penetration on the Ebre valley. The northeastern Iberian inscriptions were made over different object types (silver and bronze coins, silver and ceramic recipients, lead plaques, mosaics, amphores, stones (steles), spindle-whorls etc.). They represent the 95% of the total found (more than 2000) and almost ever the direction of the writing is left to right. The oldest inscriptions in northeastern Iberian script date to the 4th or maybe the 5th century BCE. The modern ones date from the end of the 1st century BCE or maybe the beginning of the 1st century CE.
Bibliography
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