Alsószentmihály inscription

The inscription on a building stone was found in Mihai Viteazu, Cluj (Transylvania, today Romania).

Contents 1 The relic 2 The name of the script of the Alsószentmihály inscription 3 The meaning of the inscription 4 Critics, alternative theories 5 Other related inscriptions 6 Unicode 7 References 8 External links 9 Notes

The relic

The stone was an ancient Roman building stone--proved by the leaf-symbol, a frequently applied ornamental element of ancient Roman inscriptions--reused in the 10th century. Alsószentmihály located on the territory of the late Province Dacia existed up to the middle of the 3rd century. Dénes showed that the Khavars (Khazar rebels joined the Hungarians in the 9th century^[1]) probably settled in this region (that time Transylvania).^[2] In some parts of Hungary, there are data of the Khavars even from the 13th century.^[3]

The name of the script of the Alsószentmihály inscription

Some quotations from Vékony about the identification of the script in this inscription:

• Vékony wrote in page 218:"Mivel az alsószentmihályi felirat nem a székely rovásírás elterjedési területén található, s az első sorban csak magánhangzókat olvashatnánk egymás mellett a székely ábécé alapján, nyugodtan kijelenthetjük, hogy a feliratnak csak a székely íráson kívüli magyarázata lehet.", it means: Since the Alsószentmihály inscription was found not in the geographical area of the Old Hungarian script, and in the first line, only vowels could be read based on the Szekely alphabet, we can state surely that the possible transcription of the inscription is surely out of the Szekely script.^[4]

• Vékony wrote in page 230:"Összefoglalóan megállapíthatjuk, hogy az alsószentmihályfalvi felirat az Erdélybe került kavarok emléke, amely természetesen kazárul, kazár írással íródott.", it means: To summarize, we can state that the Alsószentmihály Village inscription is the relic of the Khavars settled into Transylvania, which is naturally written in Khazar with Khazarian script.^[5]

• Vékony wrote in page 280:"Hasonló jel előfordul más kazáriai rovásfeliratokon is.", it means: Similar symbol occurs in other Khazarian runic inscriptions as well.^[6]

• Vékony wrote in page 109:"Erdélyben, az alsószentmihályfalvi templomba másodlagosan beépített kő felirata egyértelműen a kazár rovásábécével íródott.", it means: In Transylvania, the inscription of the reused stone built into the wall of the church of the Alsószentmihály Village is unambiguously written with Khazarian runic alphabet.^[7]

Based on the quotations above examples, it can be stated that Vékony identified the script of the Alsószentmihály relic as a Khazarian script. According to Vékony, another relic, namely the Homokmégy-Halom inscription contains Khazarian text as well.^[8]

The meaning of the inscription

The Alsószentmihály inscription was deciphered by archaeologist Gábor Vékony. The transcription of Vékony (it uses IPA symbols):^[9]

	First Row	Second Row
Inscription
Transcription (using IPA)	ɛbi atlïɣ	jyedi • kyr qaraj
Translating from Common Turkic[10]	His mansion is famous.	Jüedi Kür Karaite. or Jüedi Kür (the) Karaite.

According to Vékony, the inscription was made by a Khavar leader, whose religion was Karaite.^[11] The first symbol of the first row is a ligature, its transcription: ^atl^ïɣ.^[12] The first symbol (from left) in the second row is a Khazarian word separator.^[13]

In the inscription, the third symbol of the first row (from left), and the symbol in the second and last place can be considered as the descendants of the Turkic ideograms. Nevertheless, their relation needs more evidence.

Critics, alternative theories

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.^[14][15]

Other related inscriptions

Oppositely to the Alsószentmihály inscription, which was written in Khazarian Rovas script, the Szarvas inscription was written with Carpathian Basin Rovas script. ^[16][17]

Unicode

The latest related Unicode standard proposal:

• Dr. Hosszú, Gábor (Hungarian Standards Institute) Proposal for encoding the Szekely-Hungarian Rovas, Carpathian Basin Rovas and Khazarian Rovas scripts into the Rovas block in the SMP of the UCS. National Body Contribution for consideration by UTC and ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2, 2011. December 15

References

• Bálint, Csanád (1980): Some Archaeological Addenda to P. Golden’s Khazar Studies. In: Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarium Hungaricae Vol. 34. 1981, pp. 397–412
• Bálint, Csanád (1981): A kazár kaganátus régészeti kutatása a Szovjetunióban [The archaeological research of the Khazar Khanate in the Soviet Union]. In: Magyar Tudomány [Hungarian Science], No. 5. 1980, pp. 381–386
• Benkő, Elek (1972): Egy újabb rovásírásos emlék Erdélyből [A new runic script relic from Transsylvania]. (A szentmihályfalvi templom rovásfelirata [The runic inscription of the Alsószentmihály church]). In: Magyar Nyelv [Hungarian Language]. 1972, Vol. LXVIII, No. 4, pp. 453 and Appendix
• Dénes, József (1984–1985): A magyarok hét neme és hét országa (A magyar “törzsek” elhelyezkedése a Kárpát-medencében”) [The seven gens and seven countries of the Magyars (The allocation of the Magyar “tribes” in the Carpathian Basin)]. In: Móra Ferenc Múzeum Évkönyve [The Annual of the Ferenc Móra Museum of Szeged], Szeged, 1991, pp. 571–577
• Györffy, György (1990): A magyarság keleti elemei. [The Eastern Elements of the Hungarians]. Budapest: Gondolat. ISBN 963 282 251 X
• Kristó, Gyula & Makk, Ferenc (2001): A kilencedik és a tizedik század története [The history of the 9th and the 10th centuries]. In: Magyar Századok [Hungarian Centuries]. Published by Pannonica Kiadó, Ser. ed.: Gyula Szvák, 222 p. ISBN 963-9252-38-7
• Róna-Tas, András (1999): The Khazars and the Magyars. In: Golden, Ben-Shammai, and Róna-Tas (eds., 1999), pp. 269–278
• Róna-Tas, András (2007): Tudtak-e írni a magyarok a honfoglalás előtt? Írásbeliség Eurázsiában, 7-9. század [Could the Hungarians write before the Magyars’ Landtaking? Literacy in Eurasia, 7th-9th centuries], In: História, Vol. 29, No. 8, pp. 22–24
• Vékony, Gábor (1985): Késő népvándorláskori rovásfeliratok [Runic inscriptions from the Late Migration Period]. In: Életünk Vol. XXII, No. 1, pp. 71–84
• Vékony, Gábor (1987): Későnépvándorláskori rovásfeliratok a Kárpát-medencében [Runic inscriptions from the Late Migration Period in the Carpathian Basin]. Szombathely-Budapest: Életünk szerkesztősége. ISBN 978-963-025-132-7
• Vékony, Gábor (2004): A székely írás emlékei, kapcsolatai, története. Budapest: Nap Kiadó. ISBN 963 9402 45 1
• Gábor Hosszú (2011): Heritage of Scribes. The Relation of Rovas Scripts to Eurasian Writing Systems. First edition. Budapest: Rovas Foundation, ISBN 978-963-88437-4-6, fully available from Google Books at http://books.google.hu/books?id=TyK8azCqC34C&pg=PA171

External links

• RovasPedia
• Rovas Writing Home Page
• Rovás Info News Portal

Notes