Tărtăria tablets

Danube font is a generic term for a number of regional variants of a sign system of more than 700 characters (including all variants) of the old European time in the Danube region, dating to approximately 5300-3200 BC. So this would be a sign system, if it actually proves as writing, the oldest known writing of mankind. Also in the neighboring countries (Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Ukraine) inscriptions were found, the findings focus on Serbia, Kosovo and Romania, however.

The Danube writing as writing system

Status of the Danube known as character system as a font is still controversial. Haarmann gives several arguments to show that there must be in these characters to a font and not just ornamental character, and leads to negative and positive arguments. Positive speak the kind of composition of the characters, their linear arrangement, as well as the way they are placed on objects that it should be with them to writing; negative, it could be that the characters are different not arranged as an ornament elements symmetrically, which also suggests its status as Scripture. Dürscheid deals with the problem of interpreting the characters as writing and notes in this that perhaps the definition of what is to be regarded as Scripture, would depend on whether the system is conceived as a written or not.

Nature and interpretation of Scripture

The Danube script may be a logographic writing; this means that the characters do not reflect the articulation of linguistic elements intentioned, but only their meanings. The ability to tap into their meanings, falls differently from, depending on to which character types are: the so-called iconic characters ( = imaging characters ) can be interpreted with greater certainty than the an- iconic ( non-image ), the repertoire of non- pictorial signs is considerably larger than that of the pictorial.

Danube script as a generic term

The Danube script occurs in several regional variants that referred Haarmann as Vinča writing (in Vinča south-east of Belgrade ), Trupillya font (southern Ukraine) and Turdas font ( on the river Mureş north-east of Belgrade ), the Vinča script the important variant is that is occupied by all cultural layers of the Danube culture from the early Neolithic to the late Bronze Age.