Heritage of Scribes
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HERITAGE OF SCRIBES The Relation of Rovas Scripts to Eurasian Writing Systems Written by GÁBOR HOSSZÚ Budapest 2013 Title: Heritage of Scribes The Relation of Rovas Scripts to Eurasian Writing Systems Written by: Dr. habil. Gábor Hosszú, Candidate of Sciences of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Reviewers: Modeling: Prof. Ferenc Kovács, Doctor of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Hungarian Dr. Erzsébet Zelliger, Candidate of Sciences of the Hungarian linguistics: Academy of Sciences Linguistic advice: György András Jeney Translation: Dr. habil. Gábor Hosszú and László Sípos Carolyn Yohn, translation editor Editing and cover Tamás Rumi and László Sípos page design: Foreword: Dr. István Erdélyi, Doctor of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Edition Third, Revised and Extended Edition Publishing: Rovas Foundation, Hungary Sponsored by: Rovas Foundation and Affiliates, Hungary Printed: Budapest, Hungary Copyright © 2011, 2012, 2013 by Dr. habil. Gábor Hosszú and Rovas Foundation. All rights reserved. ISBN 978 963 88 4374 6 ROVAS FOUNDATION – HUNGARY ROVÁS ALAPÍTVÁNY – MAGYARORSZÁG gASroraGa m – NAvtIpal a sAvo r 2 To My Mother 1927 – 2010 3 Contents Foreword 7 Acknowledgements 9 1. Introduction 11 2. Abbre viations, glossary and sources 14 3. The family of the Rovash scripts 18 3.1. General description 18 3.2. Early Rovash scripts 27 3.2.1. The Proto-Rovash 27 3.2.2. The Early Steppe Rovash 34 3.3. The Rovash paleographical modeling 42 3.3.1. The Glyph Complexity Parameter 42 3.3.2. The glyph transformation modeling 43 3.3.3. Determining the genealogies of the graphemes 44 3.4. The Carpathian Basin Rovash 46 3.4.1. Historical background 46 3.4.2. Evolution of CBR—Stage 1: The roots 50 3.4.3. Evolution of CBR—Stage 2: Development in the 7 th –9th centuries 50 3.4.4. Evolution of CBR—Stage 3: Development in the 10 th –11 th centuries 53 3.5. The Steppe Rovash 54 3.5.1. Historical background 54 3.5.2. The roots and development of Steppe Rovash 55 3.5.3. The phonetic system of the Steppe Rovash 56 3.6. The Szekely-Hungarian Rovash 58 3.6.1. Historical background 58 3.6.2. Evolution of SHR—Stage 1: The earliest glyphs (8 th century) 62 A) General description 62 B) The roots of SHR 63 C) The earliest Szekely-Hungarian Rovash graphemes 64 D) The circumstances of the first age of Szekely-Hungarian Rovash 70 3.6.3. Evolution of SHR—Stage 2: Incorporating loan graphemes (9 th –12 th /13 th centuries) 71 3.6.4. Evolution of SHR—Stage 3: Age of ligatures (11 th –14 th centuries) 74 A) Influence of phonetic changes 74 B) Symbols denoting a period of time 77 C) Duplication and creating ligatures 78 3.6.5. Evolution of SHR—Stage 4: Age of calligraphy (14 th –18 th centuries) 81 3.6.6. Influences on the development of Szekely-Hungarian Rovash 86 A) Influence of the Latin-based orthography on Szekely-Hungarian Rovash 86 B) The geographical distribution of SHR relics 89 C) Cluster analysis of significant Rovash alphabets and relics 91 3.7. Relations between the Rovash and the Glagolitic scripts 93 3.7.1. Rovash roots of the Glagolitic alphabet 93 3.7.2. Influence on SHR 97 4. Rovash Atlas: Genealogy of all rovash graphemes 98 4.1. Genealogy of the Phoenician originated rovash graphemes 98 4.2. Genealogy of the Turkic originated rovash graphemes 111 4.3. Paleographic relations of the rovash numerals 111 4.4. Examples of the glyph-forming methods 112 5. The Proto-Rovash 114 5.1. Description of the script 114 5.1.1. General properties 114 4 5.1.2. Proto-Rovash letters 114 5.1.3. Diacritical mark and punctuation 116 5.1.4. Absence of harmonization of consonants with vowels 116 5.1.5. Ligatures 117 5.2. Proto-Rovash relics 118 5.2.1. Mayaki Amphora Inscription in Ogur 118 5.2.2. Novocherkassk Clay Flask Inscription in Turkic 120 5.2.3. Stanitsa Krivyanskoe Clay Flask Inscription in Pre-Ossetic (As–Alan) 121 5.2.4. Mayatskoe Gorodishche Inscription No. 2 in Ogur 122 5.2.5. Stone Inscription of Alsószentmihályfalva 122 5.2.6. Pottery of Bilyar 125 6. The Early Steppe Rovash 127 6.1. Description of the script 127 6.1.1. General properties 127 6.1.2. Early Steppe Rovash letters 127 6.1.3. Punctuation 128 6.1.4. Harmonization of consonants with vowels 128 6.2. Early Steppe Rovash relics 128 6.2.1. Hunnic Bronze Helmet of France 129 6.2.2. Spindle Disk of Minusinsk 130 6.2.3. Quiver Inscription of Homokmégy-Halom in Turkic 131 7. The Carpathian Basin Rovash 133 7.1. Description of the script 133 7.1.1. General properties 133 7.1.2. Carpathian Basin Rovash letters 133 7.1.3. Rovash Numerals 137 7.1.4. Punctuation 137 7.1.5. Ligatures 138 7.2. Carpathian Basin Rovash relics 138 7.2.1. Bow of Környe 139 7.2.2. Silver Vessel of Ozora-Tótipuszta 140 7.2.3. Needle Case of Jánoshida 141 7.2.4. Chalice of Kisk őrös–Vágóhíd 142 7.2.5. Chalice of Budapest District 14—Tihany Square 143 7.2.6. Jug of Kunágota 143 7.2.7. Aethicus’ Alphabet 144 7.2.8. Needle Case of Szarvas 147 7.2.9. Golden Treasure of Nagyszentmiklós 151 A) Bowl No. 8 152 B) Drinking Horn No. 17 155 C) Bowl No. 10 and Cup No. 22 156 D) Bowl No. 9 156 E) Cup No. 23 157 F) Jug No. 6—a quadrilingual relic 158 G) Jugs No. 3 and No. 4 159 H) Flat-shallow ladles No. 15 and No. 16 160 I) Jug No. 5—a bilingual relic 161 J) Cup No. 11 161 K) Inscription No. 13 162 7.2.10. Pot Fragment of Torja 162 7.2.11. Bone cover of a bow from Békés-Povádzug 163 8. The Steppe Rovash 165 8.1. Description of the orthography 165 8.1.1. General properties 165 8.1.2. Steppe Rovash letters 165 5 8.1.3. Punctuation 170 8.1.4. Harmonization of consonants with vowels 170 8.1.5. Ligatures 171 8.2. Steppe Rovash relics 172 8.2.1. Bow Cover of Jitkov 173 8.2.2. The Devitsa Coins 173 8.2.3. The Achik-Tash Inscription from the Talas Valley in Turkic 174 8.2.4. The Khumara building inscriptions 175 8.2.5. Mayatskoe Gorodishche Large Building Inscription 179 8.2.6. Mayatskoe Gorodishche smaller inscriptions 182 8.2.7. Bilingual Khazar Coin of Sweden 184 8.2.8. Cattle skull from the kurgan Ermen Tolga 185 8.2.9. The Rovash inscription on the Kievan Letter 187 9. The Szekely-Hungarian Rovash 190 9.1. Description of the script 190 9.1.1. General properties 190 9.1.2. Naming of the script 190 9.1.3. Direction of the Szekely-Hungarian Rovash script 190 9.1.4. Fundamental Szekely-Hungarian Rovash letters 191 9.1.5. The modern reptile-like symbols (pseudo-ligatures) 196 9.1.6. Historically used individual Szekely-Hungarian Rovash letters 197 9.1.7. Rovash Numerals 198 9.1.8. Historical Szekely-Hungarian Rovash ligatures 199 9.1.9. Sound length and the diacritical mark 201 9.1.10. Punctuation 202 9.1.11. Casing 203 9.2. Szekely-Hungarian Rovash relics and publications 203 9.2.1. Introduction to the history of Szekely-Hungarian Rovash 203 9.2.2. The 9 th –10 th centuries 203 9.2.3. The 13 th century 204 9.2.4. Around 1400 208 9.2.5. The 15 th century 209 9.2.6. The Bologna Rovash Relic (17 th c. copy of a 15 th c. stick calendar and an SHR alphabet)215 A) General description 215 B) SHR alphabet found in the manuscript of Marsigli 218 C) List of the feasts of the Saints (the core of the calendar) 219 D) List of Biblical names related to the life of Jesus Christ 225 E) List of fundamental prayers 227 9.2.7. The 16 th century 229 9.2.8. The 17 th century 237 9.2.9. The 18 th century 245 9.2.10. The 19 th century 251 9.2.11. The 20 th century 255 9.2.12. The 21 st century 263 Appendix A: Phonetic notations 273 Appendix B: Timeline 277 Appendix C: Periodization of the Hungarian language and Latin-based orthography 302 Appendix E: The complete list of the attested rovash graphemes 304 Bibliography 306 Appendix D: Color Images 334 Words from the publisher 340 6 Foreword The new theories described in the Rovash Atlas result from of a surprising intellectual puzzle and exciting experiment. Hopefully no readers will think that dealing with ancient Rovash scripts is just science for science’s sake. The authors of the inscriptions, shorter and longer texts made with rovash, always had as their goals to communicate with someone, to record and convey information. Some of the relics have yet to be deciphered, as we do not know their exact language. Additionally, time and time again rovash were consciously used for secret communication, as we will see later on. A long time ago, there was a significant need for the creation of the Rovash Atlas, and for a credible presentation and explanation of well-known relics. This complex task was finally performed by the present author with a university degree in engineering. In order to complete this task, the author dealt with a huge amount of domestic and foreign scientific literature; moreover, he had to evaluate works and theories by diligent, but amateur, Hungarian Rovash researchers.