It took more than 100 years: scientists deciphered the mysterious inscription on the ancient sphinx

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Scientists deciphered the inscription on the bronze statue of the sphinx. For more than 100 years, he was a mystery to historians.

Scientists have published the content of the mysterious inscription on the sphinx in the journal Mediterranean Archeology and Archaeometry, Arkeonews writes.

A bronze sphinx dating back to the 3rd century was discovered on the territory of modern Romania at the beginning of the 19th century. In 1848, the statue was stolen from a European count and its whereabouts are still unknown. However, a detailed image of the sphinx has been preserved.

With its help, scientists have established that the inscription around the base of the bronze statue is written in archaic Greek letters. However, the phonetic values ​​of the Greek alphabet reflect a text that does not make sense.

Image: University of Nebraska

This inscription has puzzled scientists since the discovery of the artifact. Researchers have not been successful also because the text is read from left to right, which is considered a deviation from ancient norms.

Now scientists have assumed that the one who made the inscription, although he used the archaic Greek alphabet, was most likely trying to express something in a non-Greek language. So they discovered that the inscription was made in the Proto-Hungarian language.

In translation, it sounds like an order to bow to the sphinx: “Behold, behold, worship: behold the holy lion.”

“At first the hieroglyphs may seem mysterious, but once the mirror image is noticed, the symbols become easily recognizable as the letters of the Greek alphabet“, says Peter Reves, author of the study and professor at the University of Nebraska (USA).

Read also: The head of a statue of the Roman god Bacchus was discovered in Libya

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