Part 3

Ferenc Badiny-Jos, Professor of Sumerology, in his book, Igaz történelmünk vezérfonala Árpádig (The Guiding Thread of our True History to Árpád) (Orient Express, KFT 1966) provides plentiful analyses for us, not only about the artifacts of Tatárlaka but also about the territory and the age in which it was found. In his introduction, he refers to Zsófia Torma. He writes about the observations of foreign experts and, with justifiable indignation, rejects the opinion of Sinclair Hood, the English archeologist, about ritual cannibalism and human sacrifice. We learn that the C14 measuring was done by Dr. Hans E. Suess, Professor of San Diego University, who dated the origin of the artifacts to 5500-5000 B.C. He states that Vlassza did not find 26 clay statues and two stone figurines, but 26 clay statues of the Mother Goddess and two alabaster figures. He points out that, on the disk, Proto-Sumerian pictographic ideograms can be seen, which we cannot equate just to runic writing, expressing sounds. He supports his statements with examples taken from the Sumerian cultural groups of Jamdet-Nasr and Uruk, and the following table.

"L" = René Labat: "Manuel d’Épigraphie Akkadienne"
(Paul Guethner S.A. Paris 1976)

Dr. Ferenc Badiny Jos’ decipherment of the disk:

"Our Protectress! The glorious Goddess of all secrets! May your watchful eyes protect us in the light of our Sun-Father."

Although we cannot totally renounce the runic writing on the disk, we quite agree with the following statement of Ferenc Badiny-Jós: "This amulet from Tatárlaka is the first written relic of the human race to follow logical and grammatical rules. So, history began in the Carpathian Basin with this use of writing."

Veronika Marton in her book: A sumir kultúra története (The History of the Sumerian Culture, privately published in 2000) mentions the artifacts based on the writings of Ferenc Badiny-Jós. She complements it with a note that Zsófia Torma may have been right when she stated that the religious views of the population of Tatárlaka and Jamdet-Nasr originate from the same source. She acquaints us with the observations of Leonard Woolley (the archeologist and excavator of Uruk) who states that the people of Jamdet-Nasr arrived in Sumer from the Carpathian Basin, by way of the Balkans.

Mária Tóth Kurucz, a poet, translator of poetic works, and researcher in ethnography, who lives in Cleveland and in Komárom, refers to the memory of Zsófia Torma in her book: Erdélyi festett edények (Painted Pottery of Transylvania published in Clevelend in 1996). This little book is truly a treasure of information about the Tatárlaka finds and it belongs among those rare books in which the exact drawing of the disk can be found. Her opinion is: "Nothing contradicts the theory that the tablets were brought from the South more than the emblem of the Transylvanians, which can be seen on it, which later became the Tree of Life. The bough of the fir-tree cannot possibly be Sumerian, Mediterranean or Egyptian. This ancient emblem followed the ancient population of the Carpathian Basin, wherever they went."

We can thank Dr. István Erdélyi for the best three-dimensional photographs of the tablets, which appeared in the April-May 2001 issue of the Turán review. From his writing, we learn that the leading archeologist of the dig, Nicolae Vlassza, was not present when these important materials, which are inseparable from his name, appeared. He did not even prepare detailed documentation of the finds in the ditch. It is newsworthy that a clay model of an anchor was among the finds. Although the writing of István Erdélyi is very short, he does not neglect to mention that the first Hungarian female archeologist, Zsófia Torma, also found similar written relics in Tordos.

Lizett Kabay, ethnographer and cultural historian from Kolozsvár, has at her disposal an enormous amount of material and imagination for a convincing "decoding" or decipherment of the secret messages of our ancestors. In her book: Kulcsképekhez kulcsszavak (Key words to Key Pictures, Debrecen, 2000), between pages 49 and 52, we can see symbols, which make some of the drawings on the disk understandable. For example, the Sumerian sign for the number 10 and the cuneiform sign for the Sun, as well as the depiction of the Sun and the Moon together.

 
6000 year-old pot-shard
(Kabay Lizett: A szelet vető táltos, Debrecen, 2001, p. 79)

The author sees two altars in the lower right quadrant of the disk, which serve to honor the Sun and the Moon. The drawing on the disk that is most difficult to understand is the drawing of a comb-like object in the upper right quadrant. In her book: A szelet vető táltos (The Táltos (priest) who is Sowing the Wind), she pictures a shard of a pot, on which this drawing appears three times, as the sign representing the rain and this may bring us closer to the decipherment of the disk.

The mathematician, György Mandics, completely agreed with Zsófia Torma’s conclusions regarding the connection and importance of the Tatárlaka finds. I quote from his short but very important book Réjtélyes írások (Secret writings, Akadémia Kiadó, 1987): "The discovery of the European Neolithic Age began in April, 1875, when András Vén, a teacher from Tordos, knocked on Zsófia Torma’s door, with a bag full of artifacts. Seeing the surprising shapes and unfamiliar designs of this collection of unusual objects, the world’s first female archeologist questioned the old man in detail about the place where he found them. She found out that on the border of the village of Tordos, the bank of the Maros was full of such pots, some of them intact . . ."

Géza Varga in his book: Bronzkori magyar írásbeliség (Written records of the Bronze Age, Budapest, 1993) presents the following table to compare the signs of Tatárlaka, Mesopotamia, Tordos and those of the Székelys.

He also presents a table in his book: A székely rovásírás eredete (The Origin of the Székely Runic Script, Budapest, 1998) which demonstrates that of the 32 signs of the Székely-Magyar runic script of today, 26 signs can be shown to be related to the Tordos-Vinca culture, to which the Tatárlaka tablets also belong.

József Gyenes, a retired chemical engineer, and the developer of the FDC runic writing system, together with ten other writers, in the Dec. 19, 1996 issue of the review, Kötött kéve (Bound Sheaf), were asked to provide answers to the questions regarding the disk, the most important of which was: "For what goal was it crafted, what was its purpose and what kind of signs can be seen on the disk?" He replied: "The amulet served to protect against despair and faint-heartedness in the Age of Darkness, and included astronomical signs, pictographs and Magyar runic signs."

Atilla Szathmáry, in the periodical Kötött kéve (Bound Sheaf) (Sept.3, 1997), also established our most important tasks in regard to the Magyar script. In his opinion, the decipherment of the disk is the following:

"Our one sublime wholeness is descending,

But the face of our Father of Light is ascending,

He is again resplendent and fills his glory."

He also displays an illustration of the (Tatárlaka) disk, regrettably without the little V sign. At the same time he shows a clay duplicate in the original size with the decipherment by Szathmáry which he offers for sale as a Christmas present.

In his book Eredetünk és őshazánk (2002) (Our Origins and Ancient Home), Géza Radics ranks the Tatárlaka find to be equal in importance to the discovery of Rawlinson in the 19th century that the Sumerian and Scythian languages were identical.

(Sir Henry Rawlinson (1810-1895) was an English archaeologist who deciphered the Ancient Persian cuneiform scripts and also achieved significant results in the transliteration of the Mesopotamian cuneiform writings.) According to our present knowledge, the ancient inhabitants of the Carpathian Basin were the inventors of writing – concludes Géza Radics and, according to the archaeological data, he is absolutely right.

Part 4

Researcher Sándor Székely lives in Australia and works with Mesopotamian writings. He uses Labat’s dictionary in deciphering the signs on the disk but again – regrettably – without the small V signs. His transliteration: "Demon Tordos. First God-King, secretive Fundamental God. He is the image of the Heavenly Eye, he is the Director, the Intercessor before the face of the Father." (From an article by Attila Egyed in the January-February issue of 1996 of the review A Nap Fiai (The Sons of the Sun), Buenos Aires.)

Győző Libisch is an expert in the Székely-Magyar Runic Script and the publisher of Tanuljunk róni (Let Us Learn Rovás Writing) (ÓMT. 1998). In the May, 2000 issue of the Nyugati Magyarság (The Western Hungarians), he distanced himself from the heritage which our Tatárlaka ancestors left to us and, since he was permitted to talk, he did the same with two other important 13th century Magyar rovás writings in the following way: "...we often mention very ancient writings as Magyar relics, which cannot be connected with the Székely people or the Magyars (such as the Tatárlaka find, the flanged axe of Campana, etc.) This is a serious methodological mistake because it confuses the similar with the identical. There are several obvious forgeries, which were recognized as such several times, which are still held to be genuine, with which we should not occupy ourselves, yet they often surface as relics which were regrettably ignored (for example the stone carving of Margaret Island, the Attila inscriptions at Tászok Tető)."

Csaba Varga in his books Jel jel jel (Sign, sign, sign Frig Publisher 2001) and Az Ősi írás (Ancient Writing) also writes about the Tatárlaka find. Regrettably, the little V sign is missing from the first-mentioned book; in the second book, he describes it incorrectly as a "chick’s bill" opening to the left. Fortunately, he dares to write the following concerning the phonetic value of this letter: "Based on other factors, this is only a supposition" and does not strive by any means to translate the text. However, whatever he can prove with a wealth of graphic examples, he states clearly: "...there cannot be any doubt that the population of Tordos was merrily reading and writing well before 4500 years ago."

He mentions Zsófia Torma and, based upon her Tatárlaka finds, he compiles the ABC of the Carpathian Basin which was used more than 6500 years ago and which is still used:

["évvel ezelőtt" = years ago; "Ma" = Today. Ed.]

Zoltán Tamás Forray published a 40-page study in 1997, in Toronto: A kerék ősmagyar eredete (The Ancient Magyar Origin of the Wheel). In spite of the brevity of this study, he offers many more proofs, from a technical point of view, concerning our Magyar ancient culture than many other books, which are several hundred pages long. He writes this about the disk: "The earliest disk-shaped cultic object came from the Carpathian Basin, the approximately 7000 year-old clay disk from Tatárlaka, which also shows the seasons. This contains the world’s most ancient writing, pre-dating the Mesopotamian by about 1000 years."

Atilla Koricsánszky, in his book: A Napút ábécéje (The ABC of the Sun-road, Pécel 2003) states that the comb-like sign in the upper right quadrant (which he compares to an antenna) is a ligature which consists of the letters GY, I and NY. Summing up his findings: The disk is divided into four parts by the letter F; in the upper right quadrant there is an N or O, LY, I, GY, NY; in the upper left quadrant NY, Z, S; in the lower left quadrant N, D, S, GY; in the lower right quadrant there are signs which are probably the letters P, B, all of which correspond with the letters of the Székely-Magyar Runic Script. Atilla Koricsánszky takes into consideration the little sign which looks like a Latin V and so it is his reward that he gained another Magyar letter, the S.

István Patai, because of his love for his home in Hajdúnánás became motivated to recognize the similarity between the appearance of the Tatárlaka disk and the settlement’s ground plan. I received his study: Hajdúnánás -- Napváros (Hajdúnánás – Sun-city) in a photo-copy and so I do not know in which year of the Pannon Front it was published. I only know that it was in No. 38. It is probably only a misprint, but I would like to correct one mistake in this writing. The mentioned decipherment did not come from René Labat since his Akkadian dictionary was published in 1948 for the first time in Paris and so it is possible that he may not have been living in 1961. This disk was honored by Ferenc Badiny Jós with the decipherment of this beautiful prayer.

Sándor Zsombori in his study entitled Ősi jelképek a keresztény királyaink pénzein (Ancient Signs on the Coins of Our Christian Kings, Pécel 2002), also mentions the similarity between the settlement’s plan and the disk. As proof, he shows a picture of the circular ground-plan of the remnants of an ancient city in the present Iraq. He discovers that, on the coins of King Béla III, there is a sign similar to one of the signs on the Tordos disk, which is from the Neolithic Age.

The Turán periodical, in its August-September 2001 issue, brings a two-page article by Attila Földes entitled A tatárlakai felirat (The Tatárlaka Inscription) which he opens with remarkable self confidence with a tirade against Deimel (sic!), who merited the greatest praise from such scholars as Ferenc Jós Badiny.

The four volumes of the Sumerisches Lexikon published between 1928 and 1933 by Anton Deimel, a Jesuit priest, was a ground breaking work. Attila Földes treats René Labat with similar nerve in the following statement: "The Labat dictionary holds up but only after the establishment of some strong criteria." The criteria were established of course by him, Attila Földes. I wonder how old this author is, how many Sumerian Lexicons he has compiled and how much he has sacrificed for his research. Of couse there is always room for disagreement but the critic should have more knowledge and experience than the one he criticizes. To see how a cultured scientific argument should be presented, I would suggest that one read the books of Professor Gyula László, who was a genius who did not agree with any of his contemporaries, yet he was able to maintain a benevolent tone and used maybe only the tool of fine irony.

The author of these two pages, written in this lecturing mode, demonstrates his own uninformed status with the following sentences: "Many have tried to decipher the writing of the disk. In these translations the name of the Great Madonna of the Magyars and other characteristically Hungarian texts appear."

My present writing also proves that the literature concerning this disk is not exhausted, as the above author suggests. I do not understand though, why it is so bad that "characteristically Hungarian texts" appear in Hungary. It is due to Attila Földes’ unfamiliarity with the subject that he does not mention the fact that the characters of the ancient Székely-Magyar Runic Script appear on this disk. His transliteration is based upon Sumerian signs only: "Curse, secret, universe, it’s all the same, Father Ara keep my fruit-orchard in your sight."

In the book entitled: Jelképtár (Sign-collection, by Mihály Hoppál, Marcell Jankovich, András Nagy and György Szemadám, Helikon Publ. 1990) we can read the following summary judgement concerning our disk: "It is a clay disk from the Neolithic. In essence it shows a primitive world-view." At least one of the above four authors could have followed up the subject of their criticism with this: This is the first writing on our globe which contains a coherent thought process and is the creation of the most developed people of that age. These authors’ opinion of the Magyar Runic Script is not very flattering either: "...it may have evolved from the Aramaic script, with a Sogdian intervention, maybe on the model of the Turkish runic writing..." In my opinion these peoples had not even been conceived in the thoughts of Almighty God, when the ancestors of the Magyars already had a runic script, which consisted of 30-32 letters and they were capable of writing down every sound, which is part of the Magyar language.

There is a startling view expressed in the January 17, 2003 issue of the newspaper of the 17^th district of Budapest. The sculptor, Gábor Bedey, in a series about the history of the local art, writes that, until now, everyone has made the mistake of trying to read the disk in an upside-down position because of the position of the hole.

Figure 10
Upside down?

I deduce from this opinion that Mr. Bedey belongs to the abstract school of art since, in this position, the stove and Sun altar in the lower right quadrant will move to the upper left quadrant and into a position which contradicts the laws of physics. The little V sign is also missing from this picture; maybe it fell off when he turned the disk. The reporter summed up the artist’s upside-down proposition in the following way: "The disk is a biblical pictogram, a revelation from Neolithic times which talks of a hierarchic, monotheistic three-fold world order. It hints of the biblical creation story and it also hints of the world-eras and the history of salvation."

During the lecture series about the Tatárlaka find, which took place in the Két Hollós (The two Ravens) bookstore, I purchased the book entitled TUR-ÁN népének nyelvén (In The Language of The People of TUR-ÁN) published by the Miskolci Bölcsész Egyesület in 2004, in which one finds the cooperative transliteration by Ágnes Gyárfás, Krisztina Fülöp and András Záhonyi:

1. Hunság. 2. Karasun kirala 3. Pabilság nyilasa. 4. Sabar At(y)a.

According to Ágnes Gyárfás the disk contains the family, the rank, and the astrological characteristics of Nimród, the ancestor of the Hungarians.

The Finno-Ugric school of history keeps a deep silence concerning the Tatárlaka find, which is a very important relic of our ancestors, while foreign "leading" archaeologists and cultural-historians place great value upon it, although there is little thanks in this. They don’t mention our homeland because they place the Trianon borders into the Stone-Age and talk of Romanian, Bulgarian, Jugoslavian culture. Interestingly, they never talk about the Sumerian relics as Iraqui finds. Zsófia Torma, who did the difficult part of this work, is not even mentioned, only those who have used her work. Let us see now some opinions of foreigners.