Szarvas inscription


The Szarvas inscription refers to the inscription on a bone needle case found near Szarvas in southeastern Hungary and dating from the second half of the 8th century, the "Late Avar" period.

The needle case and its inscription

The name of the script of the Szarvas inscription

The Hungarian archeologist, historian and linguist Gábor Vékony named the script used on the needle case as "Kárpát-medencei rovásírás". He often used this term in his book, A székely írás emlékei, kapcsolatai, története, e.g. in the chapter "A kárpát-medencei rovásábécé korabeli feljegyzése".
Vékony analysed the similarities and the differences between the Old Hungarian and the Carpathian Basin scripts on page 154 of his book. On page 232, Vékony wrote: "- Aethicus Ister jelei azonosak az egykori Kárpát-medencei rovásírás jeleivel.".
Vékony also writes : "E jel a Szarvason azonosított Kárpát-medencei f alig torzult megfelelője..."
In page 233, Vékony writes: "Erre utalhat az is, hogy ez a betűalak levezethető egy párthus alep formából. Feltehető tehát ennek a jelnek a megléte a Kárpát-medencei rovásírásban is."." Here the 'Szekely' refers to the Szekely-Hungarian Rovas script also known as Old Hungarian script. Vékony's writing suggests a proposal that a Carpathian Basin Rovas script may be one of the ancestors of the Szekely-Hungarian Rovas script.

The meaning of the inscription

's transcription was improved by linguist Erzsébet Zelliger. The last character of the fourth row of the inscription was reconstructed by Vékony. The edges of the bone needle case are worn, and the top and bottom edges for part of the characters are not clearly visible.

Transcription with IPA notation

The following transcription using the International Phonetic Alphabet is based on Vékony's original transcription. Superscript segments and those in brackets are reconstructed.
No. of rowTranscription Translating from Ancient Hungarian
1st
2nd
3rd
4th

In the inscription, the third symbol of the third row could be considered a descendant of the ideograms in Turkic languages. However, their possible relationship needs further evidence.

Transcription with Hungarian phonetic notation

Critics and alternative theories

Vékony had read the Szarvas transcription as Hungarian, thus proposing it as evidence that the Hungarian-speaking people had appeared in the region by the 7th century. There are several critics of Vékony's theories and translations, most notably the Hungarian linguist and historian, András Róna-Tas. The debates were summarized by István Riba in 1999 and 2000: "many find themselves unable to accept Vékony's theory".
The key point of the critics has been that in traditional Hungarian scholarship, the existence of the Hungarian-speaking population dates from 896, while the Szarvas needle case dates from the 8th century. Consequently, either the Szarvas inscription is not in Hungarian or Hungarians were in the Carpathian Basin much earlier than the late 9th century. Róna-Tas attempted to read the Szarvas relic in Turkic instead of Hungarian, but wrote that his transcription needed further improvement. The issue remains an open question amongst Hungarian scholars.