Murfatlar Script (Part 1)

Preface

    In 1984, while preparing for the exam in medieval Bulgarian history, I came across Peter Juhas's book "Turko-Bulgars and Hungarians". He discussed the connection between the Seklery Rovas and the writing of the Asparuh Bulgars in one of the chapters of his book. The author had offered a long list of inscriptions attributed to the Bulgars, among which stood out about 60 inscriptions found in rock churches near the village of Murfatlar, once part of the First Bulgarian Kingdom. This fact was an incredible surprise to me - very little was known about the language of the Danube Bulgars: a few words, military titles and names. Two Bulgar inscriptions in scientific circulation were written in Greek letters, and scholars suggested that they might be an inventory of weapons. I couldn't believe that somewhere existed 60 inscriptions written in the mysterious language of the Bulgars and no one talks about it.
    Later V. Beshevliev's article about the writing from Murfatlar in which facsimiles of 40 of the inscriptions were given came to my attention. The author systematized the newly discovered written monuments in his work. His conclusion was that the mysterious alphabet was certainly the work of the Bulgars and that, even difficult, it was not impossible to decipher it. Together with the fact that the works of Tryjarsky were virtually unknown, there wasn't a Bulgarian scientist who attempted to unravel the riddle of Murfatlar.
    Then in 1991 the book "The Stone-book of the Bulgarians" was published by the economist Petar Dobrev, who claimed that he had found the key to the writing of the Bulgars. His methodology was based on the premise that Inscriptions were written in Iranian languages. After reading his work carefully, I tried to apply Dobrev's alphabetical table on several of the longer inscriptions. Alas, nothing happened. This failure made me realize that I did not possess enough knowledge in the field of linguistics. A mixture of curiosity and shame encouraged me to fill in the gaps in my linguistic knowledge. Grammars in Turkic and Iranian languages, textbooks on general linguistics, studies of ancient scripts, you name it. Slowly my knowledge grew to the point that I was already looking at the Murfatlar inscriptions differently. Although I knew that I was the same dilettante who was not allowed to dig into the depths of linguistics, all these years I did not stop looking for traces, schemes, relationships in the inscriptions, to understand the meaning of at least one word.
    And so one early spring morning, while reading a strange Old-Bulgarian inscription, I realized that I was on the trails of something serious. I was able, in just a few days, to decipher the meaning of some of the letters, then words and sentences. After 1000 years the inscriptions came to life. After the initial euphoria, came the despair.  Were those results real or play of an uneducated enough adult. I couldn't judge. Oscillating between despair and confidence, I began to read every article and book on the subject. It turned out that they are many and are written in different languages. There was always another book and another article. It took me two years, but the search is coming to an end: I have to take the pen and describe it.

London 2012
Nedyalko Ovcharov

Chapter 1
The Research

     Directorate of Architectural Monuments presented by Victor and Liana Bilciurescu. In the course of the research several churches and chapels (B1, B2, B3, B4, E3, E5), galleries (H, G 1-5), burial chambers (C1, C2) and cells (E1, E2, E4, E6). On the walls in the soft limestone, the workers in the limestone quarry and the monks have left many anthropomorphic zoomorphic and geometric drawings. But not only that - on the walls of the monastery complex in Murfatlar, its inhabitants have carved Cyrillic, Glagolitic, Greek and runic inscriptions.
    The object of this study is the runic inscriptions which, according to the researchers of the rock complex are over 60. In the first chapter I will consider most of the publications related to the Murfatlar inscriptions, in the second I will try to make a frequency analysis of the runic signs used in them. I compare them with writings which in one way or another are connected with the Murfatlar letter. In the last chapter, I will present my proposal for deciphering the mysterious runic script.

     After the first announcement about the Rock Complex in Murfatlar in 1960, to this day many articles and collections have been published in which photos, facsimiles and drawings of the Murfatlar runic inscriptions have been published. Many scientists have studied the mysterious inscriptions and tried to decipher them. In this chapter, I will try to trace chronologically a large part of the works dedicated to the Murfatlar runes.

    The first publication of the Murfatlar complex was published in 1959 in issue six of the Romanian archaeological magazine "Materiale şicercetări arheologice". In the article, Ion Barnea and Virgil Bilcuarescu describe the parts of the monastic complex discovered so far. Runic inscriptions are only mentioned without being published, except for those that happen to be in the illustrations.
    Following year, Romanian scholar D. Bogdan published an article in which he analyzed about 45 of the Murfatlar runic inscriptions found in the B1 church and in the neighbouring premises in 1957. The author's conclusion is that the inscriptions can be divided chronologically into three parts: inscriptions written with ancient Turkic runes, inscriptions written with ancient Turkic runes and Glagolitic and Cyrillic letters, Cyrillic inscriptions and Glagolitic inscriptions. According to Bogdan, since about 40 of the Murfatlar runes differ from the ancient Turkic Runiform graphs, the complex was inhabited by Dacians and Gots who later began to use Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabet. The major value of this article is that it presents the facsimiles of an impressive number of runic inscriptions (Bogdan D. 1960).
    In 1962, Ion Barnea wrote the article "Предварительние сведения о каменнъх памятниках в Басараби" in which he described the new discoveries in the Murfatlar rock complex, the churches B2- B4, galleries and burial chambers. In this publication, the Romanian archaeologist presents a drawing of a saint with a runic inscription from the church B4 and a facsimile of 4 of the well-preserved inscriptions (Barnea I. 1962). 

    In the same year, an article by I. Barnea was published in the French journal Cahiers archéologiques. The author makes a brief description of the monuments discovered until 1960 in it. Here Barnea published facsimiles of 9 and photographs of two runic inscriptions (Barnea I. 1962).
    A year later, I. Barnea published the article: "Reprezentarea labirintului pe monumente le rupestre de la Basarabi (reg. Dobrogea)" in which he analyzed a Runiform inscription incised together with a drawing of a labyrinth. In one of the illustrations, the Romanian archaeologist presents a drawing of the inscription coming from the west wall of church B4 (Barnea I. 1963).
    In 1964 M. Comşa made a critical review of the inscriptions published by D. Bogdan (1960). Comşa rejected the theses of Bogdan, who accepted some of the runic inscriptions as Cyrillic and even found a date in one of the inscriptions (Comşa M. 1964).
    Another article about the Murfatlar complex was published by Romanian scientists P. Diaconu and N. Petre. They offer facsimiles of runic inscriptions already published by I. Barnea. Their article deals mainly with the question of the ethnic origin of the Murfatlar inscriptions (Diaconu P. Petre N. 1969).
    In 1971, was published the third volume of a series, dedicated to the history of Dobrogea in the Early Middle Ages. I. Barnea describes the discoveries in the Murfatlar Monastery Complex in a separate chapter. Besides, Barnea offers facsimiles of 9 runic inscriptions, already presented in other publications (Barnea I. 1971).
    The first Bulgarian scientist interested in Murfatlar script was V. Beshevliev. In 1976, he analysed 15 of the inscriptions from Murfatlar in the article "Етническата принадлежност на рунните надписи при Мурфатлар". He extracted from them, 28 signs and many ligatures which, according to him, constitute a Runiform alphabet. Beshevliev compared those 28 graphs with the signs found on stones and ceramics in Northeastern Bulgaria from the time of the First Bulgarian Kingdom and found many correspondences. Thus he contradicted the claims of Romanian scholars, that the Monastic complex of Murfatlar was the work of a Daco-Gothic population. Beshevliev also compared the Murfatlar script with Germanic runes, the Orkhon-Yenisei alphabet, the Sekler Rovas, the Don-Kuban inscriptions and signs found in Khazar fortress Sarkel. The Bulgarian scientist found that while the runes from Murfatlar have similarities: with 15 of the letters of the Orkhon-Yenisei alphabet and the Seklerian runes, 14 signs from the Novocherkassk cups, 12 from Karakent, 6 from the Mayak settlement, 4 from Nagy Saint Miklos, 3 from Humara. Also, 6 main characters and 3 variants of Germanic runes are similar to Murfatlar graphs. Beshevliev's conclusion is that the great similarity of the Murfatlar signs with the steppe writings, and not with the Germanic runes, proves their origin and their ethnicity. He also notes the similarity of 4 of the Murfatlar signs with Cyrillic letters. As far as the origin of these Cyrillic letters is not completely clear, Beshevliev admits that they may be borrowed from the Runiform alphabet of the Bulgars.

    

    The first attempt to decipher the Murfatlar inscriptions was made by the Romanian scientist A. Stanculescu. He suggested that the Murfatlar inscriptions were written in 4 chronological stages: Gothic, Gothic-Old Germanic, Old Germanic and Bulgar. According to Stanculescu, the Daco-Getae who inhabited the Murfatlar area around the 4th century used some of their ancient writing and engraved a Gothic text on the walls of the monastery. The same writing with minor changes has been used over the centuries to write texts in Old German and Proto-Bulgarian. Thus, using different languages, Stanculescu managed to find a solution to some of the Murfatlar runic inscriptions (Stanciulescu A. 1977, Stanciulescu A. 1986).

    The Polish linguist E. Triarski also tried his luck with the inscriptions from Murfatlar. In a series of publications, Triarski deciphered both some of the inscriptions from the churches in Murfatlar and the inscription on the rosette from Pliska. In them, he found the names of saints and church officials and even a Greek text. He believes that Greek monks created a script based on Runiform graphs to spread Christianity among nomads (TryjarskiE. 1980, TryjarskiE. 1981).

    In 1985, was published the miscellany "Runen tamgas und Graffiti aus Asien und Osteuropas". Two of the articles in it were dedicated to the runes of Murfatlar. In the first E. Triarski makes an attempt to read 10 of the Murfatlar inscriptions and the inscription on the rosette from Pliska. In this article, the Polish linguist continued to develop his ideas from his previous attempts at deciphering (TryjarskiE. 1985). In the second article, H. Hausig, based on Triyarski's reading, seeks the cultural and economic preconditions for the emergence of the Murfatlar script. According to him, the Stepean scripts are the work of missionaries, trade and diplomatic embassies, caused by the migration of Huns and Avars. According to Haussig, Christian missionaries created Runiform scripts in Bulgaria and Khazaria based on the Armaz alphabet (HaussigH. 1985). 

    Bulgarian scientists K. Popkonstantinov clarified the ethnic affiliation of the Murfatlar Cave complex and its chronology in an article published in 1987. He admitted that some of the characters in the runic inscriptions were similar to Cyrillic letters. Popkonstantinov also refutes D. Bogdan's thesis that inscription 24 (after Beshevliev) is written in Cyrillic and contains a date. Popkonstantinov proved undoubtedly that it is written in Murfatlar Runiform script (Popkonstantinov K. 1987).

    K. Daniel came out with another proposal of decipherment. He managed to unravel the key to several of the shorter Murfatlar inscriptions. In one of them, Daniel sees the name of Jesus Christ, and in another a Greek phrase. Due to spelling mistakes (for example, "austo" for August), the author believes that the runic inscriptions were written by Bulgarian and Romanian monks in the broken Greek language. (Daniel C. 1987, Daniel C. 1989).

    In 1989, was published the book "Древнетюркские рунические памятники Европы" by Russian scientist Baychorov. He overviewed some of the Murfatlar runic inscriptions. In his exposition, the author not only followed already described by V. Beshevliev features of the monuments. He also deciphered some of the inscriptions (Baichorov S. 1989).

    The teacher from Dobrich, P. Ivanov, worked also on the inscriptions from Murfatlar and published his ideas in a series of articles. He offered another proposal of the decipherment of the Murfatlar script. He believes that the Murfatlar runes are similar in shape to the Orkhon-Yenisei runes, but they changed over time. Ivanov believes that the language of the inscriptions is close to the Chuvash and uses Chuvash parallels for his translation. In the inscriptions, he also finds Syrian religious terms: "selase" (trinity) and "salib" (cross). (Ivanov P. 1990, 1999a, 1999b, 1999c 2001,2002).

    Another proposal of the decipherment of the inscriptions from Murfatlar was offered by economic history professor Petar Dobrev. Dobrev approaches the solution of the problem following the ideas of the Russian scientist Turchaninov who claims that the runic inscriptions from Eastern Europe were written in the language of the ancient Alans. To read the inscriptions from Murfatlar, the author of the "Stone Book of the Proto-Bulgarians" uses the dictionaries of several Iranian peoples. Dobrev believes that the Murfatlar runes are written from left to right (Dobrev P. 1992).

     The following year, K. Popkonstantinov published a review article on the fleece-like writings from medieval Bulgaria. He examines in detail the inscriptions from the vessels of the treasure from Nad Saint Miklos, Pliska, Preslav, Byala, Shudikovo, Murfatlar, Krepcha and Ravna. Popkonstantinov believes that on the territory of medieval Bulgaria there are both runic writings similar to the Orkhon-Yenisei ones, and writings influenced by the local Balkan traditions. Also, the article published impeccable sketches of some of the most famous Murfatlar runic inscriptions (Popkonstantinov K. 1993).

     In 1994 the monograph of the Russian linguist I. Kizlasov was published, in which the author made a comparative analysis of the runic writings in the steppes of Eurasia. Kizlasov singles out two big games
The following year, E. Triarski published an article in which he examined the attempt to decipher several Euro-Asian runic monuments proposed by S. Baichorov. Besides, the Polish linguist reviews the achievements in the field of steppe rune-like writings so far (1992). Tryjarski also touches on the subject of the Murfatlar runes, criticizing the attempts at reading made in Bulgaria (Tryjarski E. 1995).
    In 1995, the Bulgarian scientist P. Georgiev made a proposal to decipher the writing from Murfatlar. He relies on the text on the rosette from Pliska and two inscriptions from Murfatlar. According to Georgiev, the key to deciphering the unknown script is the Rosette from Pliska. He believes that on the outer circle of the rosettes are depicted the seven seals with which Jesus sealed his letter to King Abgar and on the inner the signs of the seven planets (Georgiev P. 1995). The four-sign inscription above a drawing of a saint from the church B4 (Georgiev P. 1996). Later Georgiev attempts to decipher the inscription № 20 (after Beshevliev) from Murfatlar using once again his proposal of the phonetic values of the graphemes from the Pliska rosette (Georgiev P. 2005).
    In an article comparing the Murfatlar script with the writing of Nagyszentmiklos, S. Venelinova seeks graphic palaeographic similarities between the two writing systems. She found that of the 18-19 characters compared, 11 were close graphically. Venelinova takes into account the influence of the Cyrillic alphabet on the Murfatlar signs and the greater proximity of the Nad Saint Miklos runes with the steppe writing systems from Europe and Asia (Venelinova St. 2003)
    In 2003 K. Popkonstantinov examined two inscriptions from Murfatlar and Ravna. According to him, some of the monuments from Murfatlar date from the beginning of the 10th century and some from the last quarter of the 10th century. Popkonstantinov admits that the Runiform script from the monastery at Murfatlar is cryptography. The Bulgarian scholar refers to the fact that some of the Murfatlar graphs are similar to the Orkhon and some to Cyrillic and Greek letters (Popkonstantinov K. 2003).
    An article related to the runic inscriptions by Murfatlar was published by A. Granberg. In it, the author graphically compares the runic script from the Balkans with several scripts from Asia and Europe. According to Granberg, there was a single runic alphabet in the Balkans consisting of 25-26 letters, some of which have variants. The direction of writing is from right to left, and the runic alphabet has influenced the Cyrillic alphabet (GranbergA. 2005).
        In a series of articles, Iv. Ivanov made an attempt to decipher several runic inscriptions from Murfatlar. In his experiments, Ivanov followed the theory of P. Dobrev that the old Bulgarians spoke a language from the Iranian language group. Some of his readings are original, others follow to one degree or another the reading of P. Dobrev (Ivanov Iv. 2005-2012).
        In 2007 St. Venelinova examines the general and specific features of the runic writings in Danube Bulgaria and the Don-Cuban region. Venelinova finds that despite some common palaeographic parameters, the rune monuments in the two regions differ due to the independent path along which the two cultures develop and the ethnic and political changes that led to the independent development of the Danube and Don-Cuban runes (Venelinova St. 2007).
        In 2011 a study of the runic writing of the ancient Bulgarians was published by J. Voynikov. He made several attempts to decipher dozens of runic inscriptions from the Murfatlar Rock monastery. Voynikov believes that the language of the old Bulgarians was related to the language of the medieval Alans. In reading the inscriptions, he follows the framework set by Dobrev, looking for more appropriate solutions in the vocabulary of the descendants of the Alans - modern Ossetians. (Voynikov J. 2011)
        After 2005, photos of dozens of Murfatlar runic inscriptions were published on Internet sites. First, in 2005, the Romanian alternative history group Patzinakia set up a website for the Murfatlar Monastery Complex. Along with many materials describing the complex, many photos of Murfatlar Runiform inscriptions were published. Thus, part of the interior of the churches of Murfatlar was shown, details of Runiform inscriptions, known from previous publications were given and others were shown for the first time (www.patsinakia.com). 

        Then in 2011 the blog of the Romanian architect M. Opreanu was launched, promoting a project for a protective facility over the churches of Murfatlar. The site has published some photos of runic inscriptions, some of them unpublished until then (www.ansamblubasarabi.co.uk). Finally, in 2012, the website of the Romanian Museum of National History and Archeology was created, in which photos from the interior of the Murfatlar churches B1-4 were posted. Among them were several photos of runic inscriptions (www.biserici-rupestre-basarabi.ro).

        In the table below I compare the sound values ​​of the most commonly used Murfatlar runes according to 1- Al. Stanculescu, 2- Ed. Triyarski, 3- P. Dobrev, J. Voynikov and Iv. Ivanov, 4- P. Georgiev and 5- P. Ivanov.

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