28-11-2025, 04:41 PM
A buried civilization re-emerges from the plateau: the discovery that predates the historical origins of the Istalian Peninsula by millennia
A city destroyed by an eruption between 2100 and 1900 BCE reveals architecture, art and writing from a civilization predating the Qolshamites, linked to the mysterious Golden City
![[Image: 3nNxyx1l.png]](https://i.imgur.com/3nNxyx1l.png)
A discovery that could completely revolutionize the ancient history of the Istalian Peninsula: this is the consensus of archaeologists who have been working for five years on the Southern Plateau, where a joint team from the Enrico Bergson University of Romula, the State University of Angona and the National Archaeological Superintendence has uncovered the remains of a city buried by a colossal eruption that occurred between 2100 and 1900 BCE.
The settlement was discovered by chance during mining surveys conducted by SMGI – Società Mineraria Generale Istaliana, searching for lithium deposits. In the fossilized bed of an ancient tributary of the Sala, on the northern edge of the caldera of an extinct volcano, artifacts and materials have emerged and that, according to the geological strata, date back over 3,000 years before Eliyahu, far beyond what was previously assumed for the emergence of the first historical cultures of Istalia.
As the escavation continued, the archaeologists eventually discovered a veritable city, a complex urban center suddenly obliterated by the massive eruption which transformed a large portion of the plateau in just a few days but which has allowed for the exceptional preservation of the settlement, offering scholars a direct window into the life of a previously unknown civilization leaving the archaeologists struck by the surprisingly advanced architectural and artistic features of the excavated buildings.
But what most astonished and excited archeologists, is the fact that the forms, ornaments, urban layout and even the decorative patterns on the ceramic fragments show clear similarities with those of the early Colsamite, or Qolshamite, civilization, until now considered the oldest historical culture in the Peninsula area. Their city, Qolshamih, was thought to be the site of the first examples of a complex and literate society. That paradigm, which dominated historiography for centuries, has now been profoundly challenged.
The most astonishing discovery, however, was the one of numerous tablets and plaques inscribed with an archaic form of cuneiform. Initial paleolinguistic analyses indicate that the graphemes found represent a very primitive stage of the cuneiform script later standardized by the Qolshamite civilization. These signs reveal traits in common with the enigmatic and poorly documented cuneiform script of the pre-Qedarite populations encountered and assimilated by the Qedarites, who would later give rise to the Qolshamite civilization. Until now, this civilization had been known only from a few inscriptions on monoliths scattered throughout the historical area of Therak, and which scholars had previously considered proto-writing, a "protocuneiform", even called a "prototypical" form of writing later fully developed by the Qolshamites. According to specialists, the discovery predates the introduction of writing to the Peninsula by more than 1,500 years.
The historiographical impact, however, is even more significant when compared with the so-called "Golden City", an ancient metropolis buried in the southern desert of the Pheykran Basin, whose ruins were discovered in 4488. That monumental site, which took its name from the magnificent gold artifacts found in the burial complexes beneath the templar areas, had been dated to more than 3,500 years before Eliyahu and that flourished at a time when the entire basin was still fertile with rivers and the large prehistoric vestigial lake. It revealed a culture advanced in many respects, but completely devoid of any traces of writing. Archaeologists had concluded that it was a protohistoric civilization that had disappeared due to the progressive drying of the area. The lack of texts, combined with the site's geographical isolation, had until now prevented a clear understanding of the cultural and linguistic dynamics of that population.
This is where the new discovery takes on revolutionary significance: architectural features, decorative motifs, metalworking techniques and ceramic styles found in the newly iscovered buried settlement demonstrate a direct relationship with those of the Golden City. Based on these similarities and new stratigraphic data, a group of researchers from the two universities involved recently published a scientific article proposing a theory destined to radically change the understanding of the cultural origins on the Peninsula. According to this theory, the inhabitants of the Golden City did not become extinct with the desertification of the Pheykran, but migrated eastward, reaching the ancient valley of the Sala tributary and founding a new urban center, precisely the one uncovered by excavations over the past five years. The eruption that destroyed it, however, sealed the evidence of this migration, leaving it hidden for millennia.
The presence of writing at the new site represents the missing piece scholars sought to explain the enigmatic pre-Qedarite linguistic substratum that profoundly influenced Therakan, the only known, and now extinct, language of the East-Qedarite group, spoken in Qolshamih and definitively disappeared only in the 7th century CE. The peculiarities of Therak, long perceived as irreconcilable with the structures of other Qedarite languages, had traditionally been attributed to a substratum originating from semi-nomadic populations of historic region of Therak, in the ancient southern Trivendito and northeast of Appiana, communities believed to lack a true state organization. This interpretation, however, left a fundamental issue unresolved: Therakan assimilated from that substratum a surprisingly advanced lexicon, with terms relating to complex agricultural practices, administrative concepts, metallurgical techniques, and vocabulary that presuppose a stabilized urban environment. The simple influence of nomadic or semi-sedentary groups was not sufficient to explain the presence of such semantic fields.
The tablets discovered in the new archaeological site now appear to offer a concrete answer to this anomaly. The new script, an archaic form of cuneiform, shows unmistakable traits of the same substratum found in Therak, but at a much earlier stage. The discovery allows us to delineate an entirely new cultural and linguistic origin: not a fragmentary mosaic of tribal influences, but the legacy of an urbanized, literate civilization with a complex socio-political structure, well before the arrival of the Qedarites. In this scenario, what until recently seemed like a linguistic paradox finally finds a coherent and stratified framework.
Furthermore, over the past two years, thanks to a significant Crown grant, further surveys have been undertaken throughout the entire fossil valley and other extinct riverbeds in the surrounding area. Initial results appear to confirm the existence of other contemporary settlements, also buried by the same catastrophic eruption that destroyed the main city. If confirmed, these findings would paint a completely new picture: a complex, urbanized civilization, with walled cities built of stone and mudbrick, featuring large pyramid temples, active between 3300 and 1900 BCE. Scholars are therefore already speculating that more distant settlements, which until now had been attributed to the Qolshamite expansion, may actually have belonged to this ancient pre-Qedarite civilization and were resettled by the Qolshamites centuries after their decline following the volcanic destruction of the main centers. An hypothesis has even emerged about the veritable foundation of Qolshamih, according to the myth founded in 1832 BCE by a religious prophet, but with the most ancient archeological remains dating back to the 800 BCE: given the closeness of the mythical foundation date with the mentioned volcanic eruption, this date could be linked to the arrival in the area of the survivors of the eruption, later encountered by the Qedarite populations coming from the north who assimilated them and imposed themself as new ruling élites, establishung their first settlements in the Sala valley where the city of Qolshamih then flourished, often in sites previously occupied by this pre-Qedarite civilization, or better, their "barbarized" semi nomadic descendants.
The archaeologists have already named the newly discovered culture the "Zigarite Civilization", deriving from Úĝ-ZI-GAR, which means “the people of organized life” or “the settled people”. This is believed to be the term the inhabitants used to refer to themselves, as evidenced by the numerous inscribed tablets unearthed at the site. From these same texts, researchers have also identified the name the Zigarites used for their land, KI-EN-ZI-LÁ, which can be translated as “the land of the living language” or “the shining land”.
Excavations continue, and new finds emerge from the subsoil every week. What seems certain is that the most ancient history of the Peninsula is now being completely rewritten.
A city destroyed by an eruption between 2100 and 1900 BCE reveals architecture, art and writing from a civilization predating the Qolshamites, linked to the mysterious Golden City
CORRIERE D'ISTALIA
HISTORY AND ARCHEOLOGY
July 5691
A discovery that could completely revolutionize the ancient history of the Istalian Peninsula: this is the consensus of archaeologists who have been working for five years on the Southern Plateau, where a joint team from the Enrico Bergson University of Romula, the State University of Angona and the National Archaeological Superintendence has uncovered the remains of a city buried by a colossal eruption that occurred between 2100 and 1900 BCE.
The settlement was discovered by chance during mining surveys conducted by SMGI – Società Mineraria Generale Istaliana, searching for lithium deposits. In the fossilized bed of an ancient tributary of the Sala, on the northern edge of the caldera of an extinct volcano, artifacts and materials have emerged and that, according to the geological strata, date back over 3,000 years before Eliyahu, far beyond what was previously assumed for the emergence of the first historical cultures of Istalia.
As the escavation continued, the archaeologists eventually discovered a veritable city, a complex urban center suddenly obliterated by the massive eruption which transformed a large portion of the plateau in just a few days but which has allowed for the exceptional preservation of the settlement, offering scholars a direct window into the life of a previously unknown civilization leaving the archaeologists struck by the surprisingly advanced architectural and artistic features of the excavated buildings.
But what most astonished and excited archeologists, is the fact that the forms, ornaments, urban layout and even the decorative patterns on the ceramic fragments show clear similarities with those of the early Colsamite, or Qolshamite, civilization, until now considered the oldest historical culture in the Peninsula area. Their city, Qolshamih, was thought to be the site of the first examples of a complex and literate society. That paradigm, which dominated historiography for centuries, has now been profoundly challenged.
The most astonishing discovery, however, was the one of numerous tablets and plaques inscribed with an archaic form of cuneiform. Initial paleolinguistic analyses indicate that the graphemes found represent a very primitive stage of the cuneiform script later standardized by the Qolshamite civilization. These signs reveal traits in common with the enigmatic and poorly documented cuneiform script of the pre-Qedarite populations encountered and assimilated by the Qedarites, who would later give rise to the Qolshamite civilization. Until now, this civilization had been known only from a few inscriptions on monoliths scattered throughout the historical area of Therak, and which scholars had previously considered proto-writing, a "protocuneiform", even called a "prototypical" form of writing later fully developed by the Qolshamites. According to specialists, the discovery predates the introduction of writing to the Peninsula by more than 1,500 years.
The historiographical impact, however, is even more significant when compared with the so-called "Golden City", an ancient metropolis buried in the southern desert of the Pheykran Basin, whose ruins were discovered in 4488. That monumental site, which took its name from the magnificent gold artifacts found in the burial complexes beneath the templar areas, had been dated to more than 3,500 years before Eliyahu and that flourished at a time when the entire basin was still fertile with rivers and the large prehistoric vestigial lake. It revealed a culture advanced in many respects, but completely devoid of any traces of writing. Archaeologists had concluded that it was a protohistoric civilization that had disappeared due to the progressive drying of the area. The lack of texts, combined with the site's geographical isolation, had until now prevented a clear understanding of the cultural and linguistic dynamics of that population.
This is where the new discovery takes on revolutionary significance: architectural features, decorative motifs, metalworking techniques and ceramic styles found in the newly iscovered buried settlement demonstrate a direct relationship with those of the Golden City. Based on these similarities and new stratigraphic data, a group of researchers from the two universities involved recently published a scientific article proposing a theory destined to radically change the understanding of the cultural origins on the Peninsula. According to this theory, the inhabitants of the Golden City did not become extinct with the desertification of the Pheykran, but migrated eastward, reaching the ancient valley of the Sala tributary and founding a new urban center, precisely the one uncovered by excavations over the past five years. The eruption that destroyed it, however, sealed the evidence of this migration, leaving it hidden for millennia.
The presence of writing at the new site represents the missing piece scholars sought to explain the enigmatic pre-Qedarite linguistic substratum that profoundly influenced Therakan, the only known, and now extinct, language of the East-Qedarite group, spoken in Qolshamih and definitively disappeared only in the 7th century CE. The peculiarities of Therak, long perceived as irreconcilable with the structures of other Qedarite languages, had traditionally been attributed to a substratum originating from semi-nomadic populations of historic region of Therak, in the ancient southern Trivendito and northeast of Appiana, communities believed to lack a true state organization. This interpretation, however, left a fundamental issue unresolved: Therakan assimilated from that substratum a surprisingly advanced lexicon, with terms relating to complex agricultural practices, administrative concepts, metallurgical techniques, and vocabulary that presuppose a stabilized urban environment. The simple influence of nomadic or semi-sedentary groups was not sufficient to explain the presence of such semantic fields.
The tablets discovered in the new archaeological site now appear to offer a concrete answer to this anomaly. The new script, an archaic form of cuneiform, shows unmistakable traits of the same substratum found in Therak, but at a much earlier stage. The discovery allows us to delineate an entirely new cultural and linguistic origin: not a fragmentary mosaic of tribal influences, but the legacy of an urbanized, literate civilization with a complex socio-political structure, well before the arrival of the Qedarites. In this scenario, what until recently seemed like a linguistic paradox finally finds a coherent and stratified framework.
Furthermore, over the past two years, thanks to a significant Crown grant, further surveys have been undertaken throughout the entire fossil valley and other extinct riverbeds in the surrounding area. Initial results appear to confirm the existence of other contemporary settlements, also buried by the same catastrophic eruption that destroyed the main city. If confirmed, these findings would paint a completely new picture: a complex, urbanized civilization, with walled cities built of stone and mudbrick, featuring large pyramid temples, active between 3300 and 1900 BCE. Scholars are therefore already speculating that more distant settlements, which until now had been attributed to the Qolshamite expansion, may actually have belonged to this ancient pre-Qedarite civilization and were resettled by the Qolshamites centuries after their decline following the volcanic destruction of the main centers. An hypothesis has even emerged about the veritable foundation of Qolshamih, according to the myth founded in 1832 BCE by a religious prophet, but with the most ancient archeological remains dating back to the 800 BCE: given the closeness of the mythical foundation date with the mentioned volcanic eruption, this date could be linked to the arrival in the area of the survivors of the eruption, later encountered by the Qedarite populations coming from the north who assimilated them and imposed themself as new ruling élites, establishung their first settlements in the Sala valley where the city of Qolshamih then flourished, often in sites previously occupied by this pre-Qedarite civilization, or better, their "barbarized" semi nomadic descendants.
The archaeologists have already named the newly discovered culture the "Zigarite Civilization", deriving from Úĝ-ZI-GAR, which means “the people of organized life” or “the settled people”. This is believed to be the term the inhabitants used to refer to themselves, as evidenced by the numerous inscribed tablets unearthed at the site. From these same texts, researchers have also identified the name the Zigarites used for their land, KI-EN-ZI-LÁ, which can be translated as “the land of the living language” or “the shining land”.
Excavations continue, and new finds emerge from the subsoil every week. What seems certain is that the most ancient history of the Peninsula is now being completely rewritten.